Morning journal and courier., 1884-10-18

watch, by the way, has only been reset twice since left home, and then not adapted to local time. The occasions in question were during trips to the Jordan and to the Plain of Troy, where it would not have been safe to carry it. After each of these trips reset it as it was before according to the best time piece available. Thus it still preserves Amer ican time, and informs me now that Lucerne time is just about seven hours later than home time. l prefer to perform a simple mathematical calculation each time that I look at it rather than to keep constantly re- setting it. Besides this the mathematical calculation strengthens my intellect.
 The last part of the journey lay nearly par allel to the railway tracks, of which shall speak further on. Arrived at the top, I found clump of pretentious hotels, and series of windy walks where score or two of travellers muffied and shawled to their ears, were viewing the landscape OCT with the aid of telescopes, feld-glasses and pano- ramas that the whist1ing wind sought to make sad havoc of. The Rigi Kuhn is one of the finest prospect points have ever come across. It was modelled by nature for th9 special benefit of travellers. Unlike most mountains, it terminates in an actual peak, and when you get there you can survey the view from all sides without changing your position. Of course there is not that ele- ment of immensity in the landscape which characterizes the views of the snowy range from points near Darjeeling in the Himalay as; but you have the advantage of being up and looking off and down, whereas it is al ways looking up in the Himalayas.
 In the meantime the clouds had been break ing away and melting into nothingness, so that the view was said to be one of the best for many days. The most conspicuous ob- feet in the panorama was of course the snowy range, including distant views of Finsteraar horn GA 026 feeD, the Sentis, Jung-frau, Glarnisch, Todi, Titlis, Pilatus and hun dred other snowy summits. Even the ice of several glaciers shone in the sunlight. The Rigi descended almost perpendicularly on one side to the Zuger-see, with Zug at one | end and Arth at the other. It seemed if a stone might be tossed over into the water without difficulty. I tried the experiment, but the stone failed to get there. The yari- ous arms of the cruciform lake of the Four Cantons were almost equally near, with Lu cerne at the head Fluelen at the foot, Alp nacht at the extremity of one arm and Russ nacht at the extremity of the other. Be tween Kussnacht and Immeusee Tells chapel was visible. In all thirteen lakes could be 1 seen with the naked eye The Emme, the } Reuss and several other rivers frightened the I green plains near by with their silvery wind ings Even little of the Lake of Zurich could be seen, including the hospital and the cathedral of the city, and the Black forest in the distance beyond.
 In fact one might spend many days in picking out and identifying the thousands of towns, lakes rivers, mountain peaks and other landmarks that are distinctly visible. There is something semi appalling, semi-hu- initiating in such comprehensive view. What traveller has not felt very, very small when he reached the summit and then sur yeyed at one glance tract ot country Ill which he has been busily travelling for weeks!
 Life on the Rigi Kuhn is exciting and nov el during the season. The three hotels (un- der one management, and therefore operated on monopoly principles) are crowded with guests; while the numerous other hotels far ther down the mountains, situated in warmer places and operated on more liberal basis, are similarly full At sunrise and sunset everybody proceeds to the Kuhn, either on foot or by rail All the languages of Europe blend and grotesquely incomplete costumes are to be witnessed Of course a cloudless sunrise is exceedingly rare, but even an ordl- | nary Rigi sunrise is something to be remem- bered. The worst feature is the early rising which is involved. Old Sol looms up in the east much earlier at the Kuhn than he does at Lucerne, and few people are quite finished with their sleep when the Alpine horn sounds the reveille at half hour before sunrise. The height of the Kuhn above the sea level is only ,, 9O6 feet, or 1, ,472 above the Lake of Lucerne. The view commanded is three hundred miles in circumference.
 The Rigi is covered with verdure to the very summit, the precipitous nortn side be- ing grassed and the gentle slopes and terraces of the south side being planted with fig, al- mond and chestnut trees. The popularity of the Rigi as a place of tourist resort is com paratively modern. It was formerly made place of pilgrimage by the suDerstitious na- tives, just as Fujiyama is in Japan to-day.
 regretted not being able to see one of the singular atmospheric phenomena for which the Rigi is celebrated. Vertical screens of mist sometimes form in the valleys on the side opposite the sun, upon which the shad- ows of spectators and the mountain itself may be projected an exaggerated scale, encircIed by prismatic halo. If the fog IS thick enough the shadows may appear double.
 descended to Vitnau by the VitznauR railway. Two cogwheel railways now ascend to the very Kuhn itself, one from A1th on the Zuger see and this one from Vitznau on the Lake of the Four Cantons. The former, seven miles in length, asc ends from Arth at a maximum gradient of one in five; the lat ter a little less than five miles in length, cends from Vitz1au at a maximum gradient of one in four. A cogwheel railway is not much of a curiosity in these days, but as these Rigi roads are the steepest of which l have any knowledge, they shall receive word The gauge is that of the ordinary railway Between the two regular rails is the strong toothed rail, into which fit the cogs of the engine's single drive-wheel, and the cogs of the center wheels of the car Each train consists on the VitZnau line of single open seating fifty -four persons which is pushed up by queer-looking piece of machinery that you would hardly take for a locomotive, constructed on the incline sys- tenn such as is employed in making the as cent of Mt. Washington. The Arth line car ries two coaches when necessary, each accom- modating forty persons. Steam Is, of course, the motive power in making the ascent, while the resistance of atmospheric pressure is introduced into the cylinders in making the descent The passenger carriage is al ways above the engine, and not connected with it by couplings in any way, so that even in case the engine should become unmanage able, the car could instantly be checked by means of powerful brakes But there is no danger that either or engine will become unmanageable. The several brake systems are thoroughly reliable. and the speed, which is the same going either way, scarcely ex ceeds four miles per hour at any time. The time consumed on the VitZnau run is from one hour and thirteen minutes to little over one hour and half. I took passage in one of the quick trains, performing the distance in an hour and thirteen minutes. l suppose you might call it the Flying Dutchman or the lightning express of the road; but even when the tiny wheels of the engine were fly ing at a trightful speed, and the bottle-shaped, erect boiler EEwobbled" from side to side with the violence of the engines exertions, the speed was farcically slow. It was safe, how ever, and that was the chief consideration.
 The signboards indicated that the descent was 25 per cent of the horizontal distance travelled for the most of the journey, and for the rest 24 9-1O, 24 S-10 and such ratios, even as low as or per cent. on some occasions, though rarely under IF. When road slants by a gradient of one foot in every four it is sufficiently steep for me. Yet l would not limit the achievements of human engineer ing here. have no doubt that eventually cogwheel roads, or cable roads, or roads ope rated on the vacuum principle which the fly employs, will even climb up the perpendicu- lar walls of the Arkansas canons, and stroll up and down the vertical cliffs of Yosemite.
 At frequent intervals were stations on pleasant sites, surrounded by hotels At one of these, Kaltbad, narrow gauge railway ran to the Scheideck, four miles and quar- ter distant This was a railway on the ordi- nary principle, though the engines were on an improved system calculated to mount the five per cent. gradients.
 From Kaltbad to the watering station of Freibergen the line was double. Below the latter point the train crossed an inclined curved bridge, over seventy-fve feet above the SchnurtobeI rav1ne, and immediately at- rewards passed through 8 short tunnel. This was the most striking feature of the road so far as engineering was concerned save for the