Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1893-11-07
sUBDUINGTHEEARTH
sEeIHsERH:e eKILl AND MODERN
METHODS COUPLED.

Many Additions During Recent Years 10
the Seven Wonders Of the World"
Railways. Bridges. Canals and Tsn.sls
Which Almost AppafI II.
For rational projects the time was never
as favorable as now Chief among the con.
CitioHs which make success for engineer.
Ing work Is the low rate Of interest. An
other favorable circumstance Is the i'm
provelnent Of engineering devices. Tho
Erie ce.sai was dug iu the old way. with
hand shovel and tipcart. The modern en-
gineer excavates with steam shovel:
freezes quicksand solid with chemicals and
cuts 1t out in blocks; diiutes clay into .
soupy liquid and lifts It with 4 suction
pump; carries away his refuse TO the dump
In hanging cars. which, propelled by cables
upon wire rope tramways, surmount ali
obstacles easily An advantages which l.
only beginning TO be UNDERWOOD ID the
electrical transmission Of power, doing
away with shaftiDg and betting. High ex1
pl0sives were never 10 cheap and effective.
BY modern methods to dig the channel
tunnel between England and France would
BE- an easy task and 10 profitable that cap
ital would be ready to undertake Il At any
time but fer the objection Of the Chavvfn-
lists on either side, who imagine IN fnva
sion through hole in the ground danger
Gus in wartime An East river tunnel d
projected both above and below the Walla-
bout curve. but though cheap and practf
cable the purpose Of the former will be
more pleasantly met BY bridgeA The new
Cascade tunnel at Stevens pass, Washing
ton, will be 1878 feet long. but will cost
only 100000. The cost per mile Of the
Hoosac tunnel was much greater
For the crossing Of rivers and straits
bridges are more in favor than tunnels in
today's engineering Cheaper steel means
an immense economy in construction. The
Firth Of Forth bridge has two spans. each
longer than that Of the Brooklyn bridge,
heavier and bigger in every way, but
its cost WIS practically the same No
engineering difficulties, only financial,
stand In the way of three more East river
bridges and two over the Hudson. Men
living, and not young. will zee them built.
and perhaps one over the Sarrows so that
man can drive entirely about New York
bay. The grandest bridgs project In con
templation-and 50 seriously contemplated
that considerable money has been spent in
preliminary pIans-is that Of bridge over
the English channel above the highest
masts. it's passing and repassing trains
cheating the tumbiing sea of its tribute.
After such flight of the engineering
foresight ordinary railroads seem tame
Still the backbone line" would be worth
attention il it were to get beyond senti-
mental idea II built from Chill to Den
yer. with branches. it would be the longest
railroad in the world and would pass the
finest scenery. More to the point is the
great transsiberian railroad which Russia
is pushing to completion. II only an Amer
lean road to Alaska were to meet it at
Behring's strait, people bound for Europe
could go ''the other way round" and shun
seasickness- But the Alaskan road is far
in the future More Immediately impor-
tant is the way in which Asia itself is be
coming accessible Think of raiIroading
from Batoom to Tifiis and Bakoo, crossing
the Caspian in a swift steamer and on By
rail again to Samarcandi OF climbing
by rail from Calcutta to the Hin
doc Kooshl OF journeying from Joppa
to Jerusalem in tow of a teakettie on
wheelsl OF long railway lines already
in Japan, whose treaty ports were so re
Gently blown open with gInpowder, and
others soon to come in China. Even in
Europe, the new Bosnian railroad opens
land where travelling 10 years ago was dan
gerous because of bauditti Soon long re,
sisting, black Africa will be cut in quarters
by railway lines from the Congo, the Nile,
Zanzibar and the cape, all reaching out 10
ward the rich heart of the dark continent
melon. From the Congo and the Nile the
rails are already lengthening. Cecil Rhodes,
a true man of destiny, will see Mashona-
land and the cape united before he dies,
and Zanzibar is the nearest coast of all
Canals are again in fashion. The great
problem of civilization is to lift a pound of
iron or -four here and set it down yontler at
the least possible expense. So the canal
comes again to its own placid but important
sphere. Paris will be a seaport, following
the experience Of Manchester, whose bap-
tism of salt cannot be delayed beyond next
year. France designs also to cut 211<-foot
channel from the Bay of BiScay to the Medi-
terranean, following the river courses from
Bordeaux to Narbonne To save a much
smaller distance England will one day canal
from Gloucester through Shakespeareland
to the Lincoln fens, and perhaps from Mar
chester east to the Humber.
In our own country there are waterways
pressingly needed which would long ago
have been begun but for the timidity and
familiar to need more than a recapitulation
AN inshore canal from Massachusetts, bay
to the gulf of Mexico. following natural
waterways much OF the way and always
through soft, alluvial soil; ship canal
from the lakes to the Hudson; another
pouring the waters of Lake Michigan into
the Mississippi through the long needed
Hennepin canal No great work is SO easy
as this. There is only or 10 feet height OF
land to cut through, and continents OF the
Illinois mark the natural outlet but 10
miles back of the White City
Retaining waste places is particularly
attractive task TO dwell upon. Such work
Is Hollands draining of the Zuyder Zee
which will be accomplished within few
years, and which is no heavier task under
present conditions than was the retaining
of the HARLEM meer, where now fertile
farms lie 20 feet below the sea level More
remote than this is the proposed dam at
Lake Albert Nyanza, which, by impound
ing the surplus water of the Nile for dry
seasons, will one day make Egypt again
blossom as the rose. Even as our own
Great American Desert" has vanished
from the maps will the Sahsran waste one
day shrink as the GASES and fertile borders
press upon it until there is nothing left
bur green. But much sooner must the Mis-
sissippi problem be solved, not by building
higher the impotent levees, but by holding
its upper waters in reservoirs, where they
may be used for irrigation and never reach
the gulf at all nor drop their destructive silt
along its yearly rising channel-John l.
Heaton in New York Recorder