THE GREAT SHIP-CANAL OF CORINTH.
This work, which, cutting through the Isthmus of Corinth, will be of sufficient depth and width to allow of the passage of large vessels, is making rapid progress, employing at present about one thousand men. The quantity of earth to be excavated will be about twelve million cubic feet, and of this, about two and a half millions have already been removed. The depth of the canal is proposed to be twenty-six feet; and the width at the surface of the water will be seventy-two feet, except at the entrance, where it will be about three times that width. The water is already admitted to a distance of sixteen hundred feet into the land at each end, the depth being nearly seventeen feet. It is confidently estimated that the canal will be accomplished in about five years from the present time, judging by the rate at which it is being carried on. It will be an eminently useful work when completed, and one calculated to save much valuable time, by enabling ships to go through the Isthmus, instead of having to sail round the Morea in order to pass from east to west, or from west to east—a circumstance that must carry its own importance in the commercial and maritime world.