"I believe the estimate is seventy-five millions of dollars," was the reply, "including the construction of the railway and its equipment with cradles, tanks, locomotives, and everything else needed for operating the line.
"The saving of distance," continued Doctor Bronson, "for a ship going by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec instead of Cape Horn from New York to Hong-Kong is 8245 miles, and from New Orleans to Hong-Kong 9900 miles. The route from England to the ports of Eastern Asia and Australia is also considerably shortened, and there can be little doubt that the completion and successful operation of the ship-railway would be of great advantage to the commerce of the world."
MAHOGANY HUNTERS.
While at Minatitlan the youths saw a vessel loading with mahogany logs for a port in Europe, and they naturally made inquiries about the wood and where it was procured. They learned that it grew on marshy ground in the valleys of rivers in Southern Mexico, Honduras, and Central America generally, and also in the West India Islands, tropical South America, and tropical Asia and Africa.
"It is," said their informant, "the most valuable of all the tropical trees, as you will see when I tell you the prices at which it is sold. Logs fifteen feet long and thirty-eight inches square have been sold for two or three thousand dollars each, and in one instance three logs from one tree brought $15,000."
Frank asked if that was the regular price for the timber or only an exceptional one.
"In these cases it was exceptional," was the reply, "the value depending upon the peculiar 'curl,' or grain of the wood. But the work of getting out the logs is so great that unless high prices were paid for all mahogany the business would be abandoned. The mahogany-cutters search through the forest for trees, and then they build roads, often for many miles, to haul the logs to the banks of the rivers. The logs are usually from ten to sixteen feet long and two to three feet square; the length of the logs will depend upon that of the tree and the number of cuttings that can be made to the best advantage. The largest log I ever heard of was cut in Honduras; it was seventeen feet long, fifty-seven inches broad, and sixty-four inches deep; it weighed more than fifteen tons, and was cut into 5421 feet of inch plank. Reduced to veneering one-sixteenth of an inch thick, it would have covered very nearly two acres."