The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1871-10-24
&''htt1jrS Atgister.
WEST VIRGINIA.
Something More About the Ghesa-
peake and Ohio Railroad.

Charles Nordhoff, ESQ, writes to tn
New York Tribune from the line OF tn,
railroad
The grading is completed, with a few
unimportant breaks, to the Falls; tn,
ties are either laid or at hand, and al
is ready for the iron. The work ha
not been very heavy so far, for III,
country is comparatively easy. TIL,
mountain torrents which pour into tn,
Kanawha have made necessary a goot
deal of masonry, and it is very plair
that the company's chief engineer
Major II. D. Whitcomb, has known
how to select good masons. The high
stone arches, bridges and culverts are
admirably solid, and the sandstone O
the country has been laid in so work
manlike manner that our party often
stopped in admiration Of it. do moi
know Of road in the country whose
stonework will compare with that of the
Chesapeake and Ohio railroad, so ial
As have seen It.
TO Kanawha Falls we had travelled
over very tolerabie roads. When we
mounted our horses the following morn
! ing we babe good bye to roads and en-.
tered the New river country-a bowling
wilderness, through which the engineer
parties of the Chesapeake and Ohio rail
road have constructed what it pleases
them to call path, 10y which path, il
Won have sure-fOOted horse and
steady nerves, you may ride at a slow
and difficult walk, and see how the in,
dustry Of workmeu, moved by the en-,
terprise OF capitalists and guided bv the
skill and ingenuity Of engineers, can
blast and tunnel and dig way along
the precipituous banks OF q raging tor
rent for the iron horse. If you have
ridden into the Yosemite Valley, You
will find here trail sleeper and more
difficult than that curious descent, and
not two miles but eighty long. Ii you
have not ridden into the Yosemite,
that ride will appear joke to you after
New river.
| When the engineers were making
surveys for the line Of the Chesapeake
and Ohio railroad they had to take
their measurements and levels suspend
ed by ropes, and transported their pro
visions and tools on the backs Of men
from point to point.
Such, in brief, is the New river, and
by this time next year you may ride
comfortably along the side Of its bluffs
at the rate o: thirty miles per hour, aud
laugh at the slow and tiresome pro-
gress of which mean to give you a few
incidents. But tiresome though our
ride necessarily was, it was not tedious,
for grander scenery than the New
river affords, in the part of its course
below the Greenbrier, it would be diff
cult to find in the United States; and
certainly there is nothing to compare
with it this side of the Rocky Noun
| tains.
The result is a roadway which passes
| through the mountains on an easier
grade by far than any other OF the great
east and west lines connecting the
Atlantic with the West. The Erie rail
way has grades as high as eighty-tour
feet to the mile; the Pennsylvania has
ninctv-fve feet TO the mile; the New
York Central, though in general it has
easy grades, runs up to nlnety-tive feet
to the mile; the Baltimore and Ohio
runs up to one hundred and sixteen feet
to the mile; the Chesapeake AMI Ohio
will have no grades over thirty teet to
the mile facing west, aud west Of How
ards creek ii has none over twenty feet
TO the mile. 1t will have the lowest
grades of all the great east and west
lines, and this, joined to the fact that It
taps the Ohio at a point-lluntIngton
so low down that it is always accessi-
ble to steamboats,, and that it will give
the Southwest its shortest connection
with the Atlantic, would make 1t a
great enterprise, important to the coun-
try, even if it did not pass through a
region of unexampled richness IN coal,
iron and timber, which has heretofore
been shut out from the market and
closed against capital and industry.
The New river and the GreenbrIer
have, in the course of ages, worn their
way through the mass OF hills and
mountains which lie between the Falls
of Kanawha and the White Su!pher
Springs. In all this country, so Tar as
| could notice there are very few signs
of the upheaval strata. The rocks he
in their beds as they were deposited
and the river seems to have worn It's
way down from the tops OF the noun
tains to its present level. 1t was TO
carry an easy grade that the engineers
of the Chesapeake and Ohio road
selected the course Of the New river tor
their line. There nature had done, III
the course, perhaps of millions OF years,
a work of excavation for them which
gave them the means of laying a road
bed so nearly level that it presents nc
obstacles to travel or transportation
They had only to take care that the
road should run above the level OF hlSh
water; and as the river rises sometimes
forty or fifty feet, this has placed the
line high above the low water which
preyails at this season OF the year. Al
two great bends which the New river
makes tunnels are building. One o
these, 64OO feet long, will be the longes
in the United States until the llooSat
tunnel is completed. 1t saves nearI!!
five miles Of difficult road building II
these tunnels large gangs of men are
employed at several points; and the
whole line is in a good state OF tor
wardness. With the exception OF some
miles of easy work near the Green
brier, which can be done sc
rapidly that it was not advlsao!'
TO mt il under contract until next spring
| IL ala l;na of the New river am