Colon had been surprisingly clean, but it was an unnatural
cleanliness, as if the municipality had been scrubbed against its
will. Gatun was to the manner born.
"Yonder are the locks." Cortlandt pointed to the west, and Kirk
saw below him an impressive array of pyramidal steel towers, from
the pinnacles of which stretched a spider's web of cables. Beneath
this, he had a glimpse of some great activity, but his view was
quickly cut off as the motor-car rumbled into a modern railway
station.
"I'd like to have a. look at what's going on over yonder," he
said.
"You will have time," Cortlandt answered. "Edith will show you
about while I run in on Colonel Bland."
Out through the station-shed Kirk's hostess led him, then across a
level sward, pausing at length upon the brink of a mighty chasm.
It took him a moment to grasp the sheer magnitude of the thing;
then he broke into his first real expression of wonder:
"Why, I had no idea--Really, this is tremendous."
At his feet the earth opened in a giant, man-made canon, running
from the valley above, through the low ridge and out below. Within
it an army was at work. Along the margins of the excavation ran
steel tracks, upon which were mounted the movable towers he had
seen from a distance.
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