"Why, it will be a mountain!" said Little.
"Not far from that, sir: and yet you'll never see half the work.

Why, we had an army of navvies on it last autumn, and laid a foundation sixty feet deep and these first courses are all bonded in to the foundation, and bonded together, as you see.

We are down to solid rock, and no water can get to undermine us.

The puddle wall is sixteen feet wide at starting, and diminishes to four feet at the top: so no water can creep in through our jacket." "But what are these apertures ?" inquired Grotait.
"Oh, those are the waste-pipes.

They pass through the embankment obliquely, to the wear-dam: they can be opened, or shut, by valves, and run off ten thousand cubic feet of water a minute." "But won't that prove a hole in your armor?
Why, these pipes must be in twenty joints, at least." "Say fifty-five; you'll be nearer the mark." "And suppose one or two of these fifty-five joints should leak?
You'll have an everlasting solvent in the heart of your pile, and you can't get at them, you know, to mend them." "Of course not; but they are double as thick as ever were used before; and have been severely tested before laying 'em down: besides, don't you see each of them has got his great-coat on?
eighteen inches of puddle all the way." "Ah," said Grotait, "all the better.