Tom Swift and His Giant Cannon, page 19 by Victor Appleton
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tch at the Sandy Hook proving grounds. It was a failure."
"And yet you are figuring on making a cannon with a muzzle thirty inches across--almost a yard--and fifty feet long and to weigh--"
"No one can tell exactly how much it will weigh," interrupted Tom. "And I'm not altogether certain about the muzzle measurement, nor of the length. It's sort of in the air at present. Only I don't see why a larger gun than any that has yet been made, can't be constructed."
"If anybody can invent one, you can, Tom Swift!" exclaimed Ned, admiringly.
"You flatter me!" exclaimed his chum, with a mock bow.
"But what good will it be?" went on Ned. "Making big guns doesn't help any in war, that I can see."
"Ned!" exclaimed Tom, "you don't look far enough ahead. Now here's my scheme in a nutshell. You know what Uncle Sam is doing down in his big ditch; don't you?"
"You mean digging the Panama Canal?"
Yes, the greatest engineering feat of centuries. It is going to make a big change in the whole world, and the United States is going to become--if she is not already--a world-power. Now that canal has to be protected--I mean against the possibility of war. For, though it may never come, and the chances are it never will, still it may.
"Uncle Sam has to be ready for it. There never was a more true saying than 'in time of peace prepare for war.' Preparing for war is, in my opinion, the best way not to have one.
"Once the Panama Canal is in operation, and the world-changes incidental to it have been made, if it should pass into the hands of some foreign country--as it very possibly might do--the United States would not only be the laughing-stock of the world, but she would lose the high place she holds.
"Now, then, to protect the canal, several things are necessary. Among them are big guns--cannon that can shoot a long distance-- for if a foreign nation should send some of their new dreadnaughts over here--vessels with guns that can