The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-12-25

MILES APART BY RAIL
possession of the Peruvian Corporation. A
collateral issue of Peruvian bonds called
in and cancelled by the efforts of the cor
po,ation, amounting to several millions
of dollars, was some months ago burned
by ex-Mayor Grace in the presence of wit
nesses.
Having secured possession Of these evil
dences of Peru's debt and Cancelled them,
the contracts with the Peruvian govern
ment being signed and sealed, the Peru
Wan Corporation, which is in fact now the
government of Peru so far az these great
resources are concerned, began to prepare
for the development of the enormous
wealth of that nation. Contracts were
given out for the constructions of the I'M
completed railways. The Grace brothers
turned their lease of the Oroya railway
over to the corporation, and others who
had leases did the same taing. Steps
were taken for the early development of
the cotton, sugar and tobacco plantations,
and preparations were made for the devel-
opment of the colossal silver deposits in
the Cerro de Pasco mines.
When these mines are developed in &C
cordance with the best appliances of mod
ern mining engineering, it is believed that
the output of silver may rival shat Of the
greatest of the American mines, and this,
of course, will cause an important ele-
ment to enter into the consideration of the
which IS the identical one concerning
which the seemingly fabulous stories Of
tradition and the time of the Incas are
told, made it necessary that the Oroya
railroad should be completed, and little
over year ago the contracts for this work
were given out. Nearly all os them went
| to American contractors. Ex-Mayor
| Hewitt, Of New York, for instance, re.
ceived the contract for a bridge to span
| one of the most gigantic chasms in the
| Andes, upon which railway tracks at a
| higher elevation than any other bridge
structure in the world were to be laid.
Meiggs had built a bridge over this
| chasm. 1t was en- iron structure, the CEN
| trail piece of which was the Hottest in the
| world, but there came one of these sudden
| and very unusual storms of the Andes in
| which mighty torrents of water are col
F, lected in almost incredibly brief time,
! the rush of which no structure was ever
made powerful enough to resist. 1t swept
away this pier as though it nad been a
| pipe-stem, and when work was begun on
| the Oroya railroad again. one Of the first
| problems was to remove this majestic
| wreck and put in Its place bridge which
| no storm could threaten. The Hewitt
| bridge made in New Jersey, carried in sec
tons around Cape Horn, is 4 Cantilever
structure which can defy the elements.
| There was little trouble for the contract
! ors on account of the surveys. Meiggs'
| engineering had been complete and thor
| ough. IL had taken the road over the
| mountain, and a great deal of blasting
| and grading had been done when work
was suspended. The contractors who
went there. were nightly impressed with
| the majesty of this stupendous feat of
| engineering. There are no comparatively
| gentle foothills such as are TO be found
/ at the approaches to the Rocky noun
| tains. The only path was that made by
| the Indians and the Spaniaris Just sut-
! hcient for a mule or llama te. travel by.
! Meiggs found it necessary TO attack the
| mountains instantly. They rose like the
! massive masonry of some fertilization.
! His plan did not involve any very steep
/ grades. Nature suggested to aim in the
| courses of mountain torrents some
/ of his simplest principles. The famous
| horseshoe curve on the Pennsylvania rail-
/ road suggests the principles which he in
| the main adopted, but there we're many
| places where he chose the more expensive
method OF piercing the mountain side by
tunnel instead of turning the track back
| upon its course. In some places q series
| of tunnels, one.above the other, is to be
seen, and at the summit, more ghan Ii, 900
feet above the sea levei, there is fine
| specimen OF mountain tunnellrg. When
the train enters it is on the Pacific slope;
when it emerges it Is within n stones
throw of a stream whose waters trickle
into the affiuents of the Amazon and are
thence carried TO the Atlantic
The cost of building these 2n0 miles of
road even without Meiggs' extravaganza
was prodig!ous. Nothing but the extra
ordinary and undeveloped wealth in the
country beyond the Andes could have JUS
tilted its construction. When completed
to the silver mines it is probable that the
cost % constructing it Will not De far from
100000.
Those who have been estimating the
possibilities of its business say that the
traffic which will he brought ever il will
enable ii 10 pay dividends upon its stock.
10 the great mass OF people the country
/ in Peru east OF the Andes. " hiCh this rail-
road will zap. is as unknown as are the
recesses OF Africa. But those who have
explored IL declare that il is probably the
richest territory IN the world It is called
IN general terms the montaaa, and it
stretches away TO the banks OF the great
rivers Of the Amazon. Mucl. OF il has
never been explored. F. \. Fezat. in an
address delivered before the Society of
Arts IN London. declares that shis region
is perhaps the most marvellous on earth
! Yet undeveloped. He SAYS shat there
grow III II in tropical luxuriance tobacco.
sugar cane, rubber, cotton, coffee, immense
valuable tlmbers, and on the banks Of