{"product_id":"2940013695801","title":"Shifting Seas","description":"It developed later that Ted Welling was one of the very few\u003cbr\u003eeye-witnesses of the catastrophe, or rather, that among the million and\u003cbr\u003ea half eye-witnesses, he was among the half dozen that survived. At the\u003cbr\u003etime, he was completely unaware of the extent of the disaster, although\u003cbr\u003eit looked bad enough to him in all truth!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was in a Colquist gyro, just north of the spot where Lake Nicaragua\u003cbr\u003edrains its brown overflow into the San Juan, and was bound for Managua,\u003cbr\u003eseventy-five miles north and west across the great inland sea. Below\u003cbr\u003ehim, quite audible above the muffled whir of his motor, sounded the\u003cbr\u003eintermittent clicking of his tripanoramic camera, adjusted delicately to\u003cbr\u003ehis speed so that its pictures could be assembled into a beautiful\u003cbr\u003erelief map of the terrain over which he passed. That, in fact, was the\u003cbr\u003esole purpose of his flight; he had left San Juan del Norte early that\u003cbr\u003emorning to traverse the route of the proposed Nicaragua Canal, flying\u003cbr\u003efor the Topographical branch of the U. S. Geological Survey. The United\u003cbr\u003eStates, of course, had owned the rights to the route since early in the\u003cbr\u003ecentury--a safeguard against any other nation's aspirations to construct\u003cbr\u003ea competitor for the Panama Canal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, however, the Nicaragua Canal was actually under consideration. The\u003cbr\u003eover-burdened ditch that crossed the Isthmus was groaning under vastly\u003cbr\u003eincreased traffic, and it became a question of either cutting the vast\u003cbr\u003etrench another eighty-five feet to sea-level or opening an alternate\u003cbr\u003epassage. The Nicaragua route was feasible enough; there was the San Juan\u003cbr\u003eemptying from the great lake into the Atlantic, and there was Lake\u003cbr\u003eManagua a dozen miles or so from the Pacific. It was simply a matter of\u003cbr\u003echoice, and Ted Welling, of the Topographical Service of the Geological\u003cbr\u003eSurvey, was doing his part to aid the choice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt precisely 10:40 it happened. Ted was gazing idly through a faintly\u003cbr\u003emisty morning toward Ometepec, its cone of a peak plumed by dusky smoke.\u003cbr\u003eA hundred miles away, across both Lake Nicaragua and Lake Managua, the\u003cbr\u003efiery mountain was easily visible from his altitude. All week, he knew,\u003cbr\u003eit had been rumbling and smoking, but now, as he watched it, it burst\u003cbr\u003elike a mighty Roman candle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a flash of white fire not less brilliant than the sun. There\u003cbr\u003ewas a column of smoke with a red core that spouted upward like a\u003cbr\u003efountain and then mushroomed out. There was a moment of utter silence in\u003cbr\u003ewhich the camera clicked methodically, and then there was a roar as if\u003cbr\u003ethe very roof of Hell had blown away to let out the bellows of the\u003cbr\u003edamned!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTed had one amazed thought--the sound had followed too quickly on the\u003cbr\u003eeruption! It should have taken minutes to reach him at that\u003cbr\u003edistance==and then his thoughts were forcibly diverted as the Colquist\u003cbr\u003etossed and skittered like a leaf in a hurricane. He caught an astonished\u003cbr\u003eglimpse of the terrain below, of Lake Nicaragua heaving and boiling as\u003cbr\u003eif it were the seas that lash through the Straits of Magellan instead of\u003cbr\u003ea body of landlocked fresh water. On the shore to the east a colossal\u003cbr\u003ewave was breaking, and there in a banana grove frightened figures were\u003cbr\u003escampering away. And then, exactly as if by magic, a white mist\u003cbr\u003econdensed about him, shutting out all view of the world below.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe fought grimly for altitude. He had had three thousand feet, but now,\u003cbr\u003etossed in this wild ocean of fog, of up-drafts and down-drafts, of\u003cbr\u003epockets and humps, he had no idea at all of his position. His altimeter\u003cbr\u003eneedle quivered and jumped in the changing pressure, his compass spun,\u003cbr\u003eand he had not the vaguest conception of the direction of the ground. So\u003cbr\u003ehe struggled as best he could, listening anxiously to the changing whine\u003cbr\u003eof his blades as strain grew and lessened. And below, deep as thunder,\u003cbr\u003ecame intermittent rumblings that were, unless he imagined it,\u003cbr\u003eaccompanied by the flash of jagged fires.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47146050224368,"sku":"2940013695801","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013695801_p0.jpg?v=1763597353","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013695801","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}