Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1891-01-17

Some of the Obstacles in The WY OF an
All Itrii Route to Europe.
The project of tx Governor Gilpin. Of
Colorado, to build Inc of railway
through the vii Is of Alaska to Ca Q
Prince of Wales =, connect with the
Russian railroad system through Siberia,
thus linking the old and the new worlds
with railroad, is feasible one and the
future will see it ACCOMPLISHED. But
there is giant obstacle in the way of
one unbroken line connecting the two
hemspheres and this is Bchriug Straits.
Mr. Gilpin's proposition is to bridge these
straits, which isail " ell enoug Ia in theory,
but quite different thing in practice.
AT considerable expense the straits can
undoubtedly be bridged, as an island lies
about midway bctween the Asiatic and
American shores; the distance is not
great and the water shallow, the Govern
mcnt chart showing the greatest depth
to be only 30 fathoms
But could bridge be built high
enough to allow towering lcehergs to pass
under it? and with strength to withstand
the great ice foes that are yearly swept
down through the straits from the Attic
Ocean? The current in sweeping
through the narrow straits from one
great sea into another is very swift and
strong, and great iceberg5 would be
borne against the bridge, its piers, and
abutmentS With force that neither
eel stvin GERS or mason work would
stand against. Should the structure
S and for a time it must ultimately give
way before tie great ice block, with the
current of the Attic Ocean sweeping
against it, that would follow any obstruc-
ton to its passage. The ice flow is the
only difficulty in the way of bridging
Behring Straits, and it is one that is in
surmountable. A ship railway across
the straits could run in the summer only,
as the straits freeze over during the
winter, and, as Captain Emory of the
United States ship Thetis stated, the
only practical means of crossing these
straits at all seasons of the year is by
tunnelling under them.
The character of the coast line of
Alaska is such that railway building
along it would encounter obstacles al
most as great as the ice foes in Behring
Straits. The mountains are rugged and
precpitous in the extreme; they break
in precipice sheer into the sea, and run
back to attitudes of from 600 to 90, 900
feet, and the crest of the rangeis capped
with eternal snow and ice. Every
canyon is an inlet from the sea which,
octopus like, seems to cling with mighty
arms to the mountains for support.
Thus channels are navigable for the
largest ships, and curious as it may
seem glide up these narrow canyons,
with barely passage on either side for
miles, and come to anchor directly
under the towering ice capped peaks,
in the very heart of the coast range.
Where the waters of the sea end in
these canyons comes in the arms of a
glacier, with a surface like an angry
sea, and cracked and scanned in every
direction The glacial arms extend to the
crest of the range, where they join the
main glacier, which expands into vast
field of ice, as it We're, the glacier reach
ing its long arms down, and the sea
reaching up from below, and claspng
hands half way upon the mountain side.
Late scientific Investigations have
proven that these glaciers move-that
at the rate of from fraction of an inch
to foot or two daily they are slipping
down to the sea, and with regularity
that is remarkable hurl from their
fronts acres of ice at a time into the
waters. A difficulty in railway build
ing across these ice fields would be that
a break would float whole train Of cars
out to sea.
Through the interior of Alaska,
rather than along the coast, lies the
route of Governor Gilpin's railroad,
across the headwaters of the Stickeen
and down the great valley of the
Yukon. Il Rocky Mountain News.