y and fraud, and in 1892 the great Count
Ferdinand de Lesseps, who built the Suez Canal, and a number of other
prominent Frenchmen, were arrested for dealing dishonestly with the money
subscribed for the Canal.

There was a dreadful scandal; many of the high French officials had to
give up their positions, and run away for fear of arrest.

When the whole matter was understood, it was found that, for months before
the work was stopped, the men who had charge of the Canal had decided that
the work would cost such an enormous sum of money that it would be almost
an impossibility to complete it.

They did not have the honesty to let this be known, but allowed people to
go on subscribing money, a part of which they put in their own pockets,
and spent the rest in bribing the French newspapers not to tell the truth
about the Canal.

The worst of it was, that the money which had been subscribed was not from
rich people, who would feel its loss very little, but from poor people,
who put their savings, and the money they were storing away for their old
age, into the Canal; and when they lost it, it meant misery and poverty to
them.

So the Panama Canal failed.

But the project of making a canal was not given up. Two years before the
idea of digging at Panama had been thought of, the ground where the
Nicaragua Canal is being built had been surveyed, and thought better
suited to the purpose than Panama.

The reason for this was, that at Panama a long and deep cut had to be made
through the mountains. This had to be done by blasting, in much the same
way that the rocks are cleared away to build houses. This is a long and
tedious work.

The Nicaragua Canal will be 159 miles long, while the Panama, if it is
ever completed, will be only 59 miles; but of these 159 miles, 117 are
through the Nicaragua Lake and the San Juan River--water-ways already made
by nature. For the remaining distance, there are other river-beds that
will be used, and only 21 miles will actually have to be cut through.

The main objection to this route for the Canal is, that there is a volcano
on an island in the Nicaragua Lake, and there are always fears of
eruptions and earthquakes in the neighborhood of volcanoes. A great
eruption of the volcano might change the course of a river, or alter the
face of the country so much, that the Canal might have to be largely
remade.

The building of this Canal will cost hundreds of millions of dollars--two
hundre