Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-10-19
UP AMONG THE CLOUDS.
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING MADE EASY
BY THE IRON HORSE.

Impossible Few Years Ago-some of
the Interesting Mountain Roads.
If George Stevenson, when he placed the
first locomotive on the track and guaran-
teed it speed of six miles an hour, could
have foreseen that in less than eighty
years the successors of his rude machine
would be climbing the sides of mountain
ranges, piercing gorges hitherto deemed
inaccessible, crossing ravines on bridges
higher than the dome of ST. Paul's, and
traversing the bowels of the earth by
means of tunnels, no doubt his big blue
eyes would have stood out with wonder
and amazement. But he foresaw nothing
of the kind; the only problem present in
his mind was how to get goods from the
seaports in western England to London as
easily and cheaply as possible, and to do
this he substituted for horses, which had
for $50 years been drawing cars along
wooden or iron tracks, the wonderful ma
chine which has revolutionized the freight
and passenger traffic of the world.
1t was, indeed, impossible for any one to
foresee the triumphs of engineering which
have accompanied the advances in trans
portation. To the engineer of the present
day there are no impossibilities. The en-
gineer is a wizard at whose command space
and matter are annihilated. The highest
mountain, the deepest valley has no terrors
for him; he can bridge the latter and en-
circle or tunnel the former
RAILROAD OF TUNNELS.
Hence the need of railroad communica.
ton has caused lines to be constructed
through districts where only few years
ago the thing would have been deemed i'm
possible. The Pacific roads of this country
were a necessity long before their con-
struction, and in the face of difficulties al
most insuperable were carried to successful
completion. So also of the railroads in the
Andes of South America. The famous
road from Callao through the heart of
Peru is one of the highest mountain roads
in the world, as well as the most difficult of
construction. The grades are often of 800
feet and more to the mile, and when the
mountains were reached so great were the
difficulties the engineers were forced to
confront that in some places laborers were
lowered from cliffs by ropes in order that,
with toll and difficulty, they might carve
foothold in order to begin the cutting for
the roadway.
In some sections tunnels are more nu-
merous than open cuts, and so far as the
road has gone sixty-one tunnels, great and
small, have been constructed, aggregating
over 90, 900 feet in length The road attains
height of Il, 600 feet above the level of the
sea, and at the highest point of the track
is about as high as the topmost peak of
Mont Blanc. 1t pierces the range above it
by tunnel 3,Si1 feet long. The stern
necessities of business compelled the con
struction of this road, otherwise il never
would have been begun.
The tunnels of the Andes, howev .r, do
not bear comparison with the tunnels,
bridges and snowsheds of the Union Pa
clfic, nor DO even these compare with the
vast undertakings in the Alps-three great
tunnels of nine to eleven miles in length,
which have been prepared for the transit
OF travellers and freight. The requirements
of business necessitated the piercing of the
Alps, and as soon as the necessity was
shown funds in abundance were forthcom-
ing for the enterprise.
CLIMBING MOUNTAINS
But tunneling a mountain is different
thing from climbing it. Many years ago
the attention of inventors was directed to
the practicability of constructing a railroad
up the side of mountain on grades which,
to an ordinary engine, were quite impos-
sibie. The improvements in locomotives
twenty five and thirty years ago rendered
them capable of climbing grades which, in
the early days of railroad engineering, were
deemed out of the question. These i'm
provements proved serious stumbling
block in the way of the inventors, who
found that an ordinary locomotive was
able to climb a much sleeper grade than
was commonly supposed. The first rail-
roads were laid almost level, but it was
soon discovered that grade of few feet
to the mile was no impeachment to progress
and gradually the grade was steepened.
The inventors of mountain railroad trans
portation might have been discouraged by
this discovery, but it is a characteristic of
an inventor that he is not set back by oppo-
sition, which, in fact, only serves to stimu-
late his zeal.
The projectors of inclined roads and
mountain engines kept steadily on, and in
France, Germany, England and the United
States many experimental roads were con-
structed, each of few hundred yards in
length, and locomotive models were built
and put in motion to the amazement of
the general public, who jeered alike at the
contrivances and the contrivers, deeming
the former impracticable and the latter
crazy.
But the idea of building a road up the
side of hill was not to be dismissed.
There was money in it for the successful
man, SO the cranky inventor kept on at
work in spite of the jeers of the rabble and
the discouragements of capitalists loath to
invest their money in an uncertain scheme
To the energy and perseverance of railroad
inventors the success of the mountain rail-
road is due, as also is the construction of
the various mountain roads, of which the
road up Mount Washington, finished in
1865, was the first, and the road up Pixies
Peak was the latest.
OF all the mountain roads which haze
been constructed since the one up Mount
Washington was finished, the best known
is that which ascends the world famous
Rigi With the exception of Mount Blanc,
Rigi is perhaps the best known of any
peak in the Alps, though it is by no means
the highest, its summit being but 5,90o
feet above the level of the sea. Although
scarcely more than third of the height of
some other mountains in the Alps, it
seems much higher because of its isolated
position.
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