The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-10-14

fear; but fear makes children of US sll.
There are no operations of the engin-
eer thai so startle and amaze the unpro-
fessionall observer as those which are re-
quired in constructing railroads across
high mountain ranges. Here the engin-
GERS of the United States have wrought
the greatest marvels. The Central
Pacific traverses thirteen hundred miles
of mountain land that never falls much
lower than the perpetual snow line of the
Alps. In this elevated region the re-
sources of the engineers art we're tried to
the 'uttermost, and many of the devices
employed were invented upon the spot.
But even this exploit has been surpassed
by American engineers in building rail
roads through the Andes in South
America, where we hear of lines laid
along the mountain ridges nearly three
miles above the level of the sea. The
cliffs on one of these lines are 30 steep
that the workmen had to be lowered by
ropes from one ledge to another until the
level chosen for the railroad was reached.
The engineers directing the work were
carried from one side of the ravines to
the other in slings hung to cable wire
stretched across at the rsvines to the
summit There is one place where there
are twenty tunnels in fifteen miles. At
another the zig-zags of five parallel lines
are visible from one point, and none of
them are more than 500 feet apart. The
highest level of this railroad is 15,645
feet above the sea, which is only l36 feet
lower than the top of Mont Blanc, and
this elevation is accomplished by an
ascent of seventy one miles.
Buckle, the historian, doubted whether
the continent of South America could
ever sustain dense population, because,
as he remarked, the forces of nature and
the magnitude of natural objects we're too
great to be made observient to human
uses. The rivers we're too wide, the for
ests too dense, the mountains too high
and precipitous, the growths too rank,
the plains too extensive for man to crap.
pie with and turn to account. But the
great historian reckoned without con-
sultiug the yankee engineer, who is
about to render the whole continent of
South America as accessible to the trsy.
eler and the emigrant as North America.
For it is to be observed that the execu-
ton of difficult works prepares the way
for greater, and even renders them COM
paratively easy. The second tunnel
through the Alps cost about halfthe toll,
time and expense that the first did, be-
cause in the second they used from the
start all the machines which bad been
invented in excavating the first One
single boring machine trebled the rate Of
progress. There is no range of noun
taius on the globe which our engineers
could not traverse by railroad.
How, then, shall We answer the ques.
ton as to the seven wonders of the pres
ent world2 If We confue our view to
the works of the engineer, We might,
perhaps, 60 into the nominating conven-
ton with the following list OF candidates: ::
The Sierra Nevada railroad, the Mount
Gents tunnel, the Brooklyn bridge, the
Eifel tower, the Forth bridge, the suez
canal, the Eddystone lighthouse.
But all these are going to be speedily
surpassed. So, at least enthusiastic pro-
jectors tell US, and probably some of them
are right. By and BY, after the whole
world has been made available for the
uses of man, the combined power of cap
ital and constructive genius will take
hold of the great cities, reconstruct them,
make them beautiful, magnificent, sym
metrical, convenient and sslubrious; not
for one class of inhabitants, but for the
entire population. Here is a field as
boundless as it is inviting. Long ago it
was proved that the money paid by the
masses of the people for rent is abund-
aptly sufficient to provide for them all
tenements more desirable and more
interesting than kings palaces have ever
been. Business enterprise will one day
provide those tenements. ts.-James Parton,
in New York Ledger.