Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1881-10-25
RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION.


urment, As miles. The construction
Of road bed along the bank of the
Columbia, between the two points
named, is a work of greater magni-
tude than the tourist, though a civil
engineer, would imagine. The load
bed has to be made over, in, and
through solid hasalt rock for nine
tenths the distance. Much of this
rock rises almost perpendicularly from
the river many feet into the air. A
track has to be cut through the side of
this rock, involving much drilling and
the explosion of much powder. In
several places huge sections of the
rock have been thrown into the water.
at other places deep cuts have been
made in the solid rock. At other pla-
ces, tunnels, each over four hundred
feet in length, have been bored through
the cliffs of solid rock, which rise alb
ruptly for hundreds of feet above the
water. At one place known as She'll
Rock, the road had to be constructed
over a mass of sliding fragments of
basaltic rock, which moved from near
the summit of the mountain whenever
the lotion rock was disturbed, as a
pile of wheat will slide down from the
| top when a shovel.full is removed from
the bottom. To crown all, about four
feet from the surface, the fragments of
rock are encased in an ice, not ice that
is as clear as crystal, but ice that has
been discolored by the rocks that it
embraces. Chief Engineer Thielson
is of the opinion that, way back in that
period when the white man knew not
of the existence of the Columbia river,
there was winter of such great Sc
verify as to freeze the water which
trickled through this vast pile of bro
ken rock from the small streams that
flowed down the mountain sides in
rainy weather, and that the sun has
never since had power to thaw it to q
greater depth than few feet from the
surface. To cross this mass Of slid.
ing, ice-bedded rock, temporary dams
were made of timber at various points
above the track, to retain the rock as
excavations were made, and solid
walls of masonry were constructed tc
keep tie slippery mass in place. This
work, after much skilful labor, was
successfully performed, and solic
road bed made below the wall. There
are numerous places requiring long
embellishments to be made and many
heavy fills, while there are large
number of pieces of trestle work re-
quired, one bridge being eighty-6vt
feet high and seven hundred feet long
Then the road bed is very crooked
one, being, as one engineer described
| it, a succession of curves, many bein
quite sharp. Taken as whole, th,
road bed between the Dalles and Port
land is a very heavy one to construct
1t is estimated that the section be
tween the Dalles and the Cascades
will cost an average Of $42,O pc
mile. The work of construction is be
ing prosecuted with great energy
there now being in the labor abou
1000 Chinese and about 400 whit,
men. The work is of such charac
ter that few, if any, scrapers can b
used, and only about 200 horses ar
employed, mostly in cart work. Sew
eral steam drills are employed in tn
rock work, and large quantities {
powder are daily used in blasting
The graders are about four miles frol
the Dalles, the grade being nearly fiu
ished below that place.