Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1871-10-26

the desolated territory Is far greater
than the fve-sixths of London said to
have been land waste in 1856. lj4bnufi /
/ The Engineering Feat' OF the Time.
1t is amusing, says the London Spec
tator, to witness the cheerful alacrity
with which engineers are ever proposing
grand schemes to bridge over the dis
lance on our globe, and the willingness
With which the public gave ear to them.
Whether it be to tunnel through the
Alps or under the Straits OF Dover, or
cut canals through the Isthmuses which
connect the Northern and Southern
halves. OF the Old and New World, or
lay telegraph cables under the Atlantic
and Pacific, there is apparently no limit
to the fertility of the engineering mind,
or the mingled awe and delight with
which the majority of the people read
of the successive schemes which are
ventilated. At the present moment the
run is upon railroads to India, for which
the fullness of time seems to have
come
The cutting of the Suez Canal lately
stirred the popular Imagination ON the
subject Of Eastern communications, and
now the opening Of the Mont Gems
Tunnel has not only had a similar in,
huence, but it has actually completed
in the most effective manner a through
railway communication With an extreme
Southeastern point in E,lrape, On the
direct road to India 1t is natural,
therefore, that engineers and the pub
lie should be alike provoked by the
long interval lntersposed between Yves
tern Europe and the East by the scan
tily-peopled regions of the Turkish and
Persian empires, which mIsgoyernment
and inchpacity of race have prevented
from being filed up. The missing link
is perhaps greater than that which was
lately filed up between the Missouri
and the Pacific but the result, as these
matters are Judged, with 1.-THE East on
one side and all Europe on the other,
will be proportionally greater, and
accordingly the schemes produced are
in unexampled abundance
To begin with, there are the old pro.
posals FOR Enphrates Valley Railway
to connect the Mediterranean and the
Persian Gulf, and shorten by Il week
the present overland journey between
London and India. But these are the
most moderate proposals. CONSTANT
aople with India, some of them to
make Euphrates Valley line section
of the highway to India, and others to
run through the North of Asia Miner
and Persia, passing throug The Persian
capital of Ieheran and through Herate
and Candahar, on the line by which we
have been taught to expect the future
invasion of India by Russia, in which
so many people believe There is even
q third class of schemes by which India
is to be. reat he'd through Russia, the
Russians pushing n branch from their
Southern railways across the Caucasus,
and so giving us road 20 Terehan by
which We may get to India rs already
described ...+
And as if all these were not enough,
we have a grand scheme for railway
starting Eastward from Trieste, skirt
ing Turkish cost Of the Adiiatic, and
finally crpssing the Sslonica, from
which there would be a short sea pass
age across the Leyant, and then rail-
way TO lDdla on the route OF the Ed
pirates Valley line, TO be continued
along the cost of Kulrachee Mrs.
Burton has also come forward with Il
proposal this week to vary the ordinary
routes suggested for tho Euphrates
Valley line by deviatioa which wouid
"develop Syria and restore Baalek
and Palmyra to their Old impor-
lance
Such is a most meagre list OF the
competing projects which are offered,
the very cheapest to cost be&ween eight
and ten millions, the most ambitious,
forty millions, and the average, whclh
are strictly limited to the construction
of q complete railway between Con
stantinople and India, between twenty
and thirty n2iliions. t..s..E ....-.. f.