单选题
Today, most countries in the world have canals. Many countries have built canals near the coast, and parallel
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the coast. Even in the twentieth century, goods can be moved more cheaply by boat than by any other
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of transport. These
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make it possible for boats to travel
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ports along the coast without being
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to the dangers of the open. Some canals, such as the Suez and the Panama, save ships weeks of time by making their
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a thousand miles shorter. Other canals permit boats to reach cities that are not
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on the coast, still other canals
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lands where there is too much water, help to
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fields where there is not enough water, and
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water power for factories and mills. The size of a canal
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on the kind of boats going through it. The canal must be wide enough to permit two of the largest boats using it to
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each other easily. It must be deep enough to leave about two feet of water
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the keel of the largest boat using the canal. When the planet Mars was first
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through a telescope, people saw that the round disk of the planet was criss-crossed by a
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of strange blue-green lines. These were called "canals"
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they looked the same as canals on earth
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are viewed from an airplane. However, scientists are now
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that the Martian phenomena are really not canals. The photographs
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from spaceships have helped us to
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the truth about the Martia "canals".