| Show THE CORINTH CANAL very few people outside of those immediately concerned know knew that RD ao important canal was opened on sunday week and not many more know it jet although it is so ao event of con va orri plop importance both as regards mediterranean 0 Corr anjoan com commerce maroe and on historical grounds it aes ha how however evey another blaim to prominence among the and that lb is the now mean melancholy choly fiket fact tt that it was the conception of ferdinand do de lesseps at a time when his hie schemes were applied I 1 inspirations aspirations and an ungrateful people had bad oot not belittled his calling and driven him into social exile it is said of him that ater after his ble great achievement at suez the count began suggesting all sorts of improvements and among others othere was this thin ditch through the Crint corinthian blan isthmus it WB was a french company also that began the work in 1882 although bankruptcy came and the enterprise had to be consummated finally by greek capital do be lesseps soon turned ambitious eyes toward panama and left the modest ditch at corinth to be dug its as bust best it might this canal la Is four miles long with an average width of feet and a minimum depth of 26 25 feet it has cost coat ver to construct not dot counting the capital duik by the french company it will be of especial advantage to commerce between the ports porta on the adriatic sea and points in the grecian archipelago and turkey in asia the king of greece officiated at the opening and there was considerable ceremony the now york sun claims that there was a time when the existence oi of a wat waterway eray natural or artificial be between tweet the corinthian and gulfs gulfa might have changed oha OgeLl the whole history of the it would have blocked for instance the dorian invasion lider under the mand would have permitted the early civilization which in depicted in the homeric poems apa or ol which dr Bob Sob liemann has unearthed d at macen to so survive un until r il historic times at the date of the he persian invasion the 1 eat I of such i waterway would have dept this shut out up in island home sad and there would have haie bi been an in all likelihood no battled of and Pla tesa the occupation cu pation of such a ch channel antiel by the ati athenian elasta would doubtless have bave r given athens athena a decided advantage ivin a e in the be war it so 80 ieng g as aa the greek 61 were ere looes ances jaal embro Hed fod iii ware aara with ith one I 1 another the did not fiot w want E i a divil canal aarm d belr lith mua they bad invented thai suited theli pur ope much kietur betar a species of ship why a Bt hoob oaid osie fully elty grai graded roa of ld over which by means meana at 61 bollei tol lei M thita omes were easily ported from sol sea to sea gea but cheb aben greece fell under macedonian control a anil DI afterwards dg that of of egme the commercial value of the canal became superior au to political and even in this thia day of steam and otner m HUB ans of rapid transit some forty wight eight hours will be saved gaved by it one ODO can only imagine therefore what the saying saving would have been in the old old days when the power of confined vapor had not noc impressed itself upon the minds of the people it is a matter of speculation as aa to whether or not the canal will be a paying investment gauged by the modern standard ot of outlay and income only but other aspects are more sure and among among the promised results of the canal is the resurrection of the long famous city of corinth history shows that it boa baa had two glorious periods each other by a century of utter desolation and followed by an ab epoch of decadence and obscurity through tigh med medi reval saval and modern times to the earlier corinth which founded uch such powerful daughter states as corcora and syracuse Byr acue we owe one of the most beautiful orders of greek greak architecture the improvements of the arts of painting and of ornamental ornaments 1 pottery and the fabrication of brozes bro azos that have never abben surpassed we arp advised by the report of an eyewitness that at the time of itu its complete destruction ty by the romans in B C it was waa by far the most populous city of greece proper it is in the light of so ao much in the way qt of in this age not at all impossible poa elbie that corinth is about to enter upon its third period of prestige arlandor op lendor and thrift albeit the means whereby this is to come are not yet manifest and are but dimly if at all foreshadowed foreshadower fore shadowed by the new canal |
