Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1894-01-31
RAILROAD WORK,
Construction Of the s. F. F. & z. Being
 Pushed With all Possible Speed.

IaAl
 w. A Drake, in his trip to the front
 on the $. F. r. x P. R. k. The grade
 Is now completed to within about
 four and half miles of Devils gate
 aud on the above incompleted DOT
 tlon of 1t there are between 800 and 500 men at work, drilling aud blast
 ing rock and blowing and scrapiny.
 making cuts and fills at a lively
 rate.
 Mir. Drake very kindly drove over
 large portion of the completed
 grade, giving the writer an opportu-
 nifty not only to see the excellent
 quality ofthe work being done but
 an opportunity to witness the mag
 nihcent scenery which will
 be presented to the view of all travellers over inc road when it is completed. The
 view from the mountains just east ot the summit and where the grade commences in its descent to Pres. colt Is indescribably grand. The
 black range of mountains with all the country this side of it is brought into full view, while the Mogollons and still another range beyond them looms up in full view, before the horizon IS reached by the eye of the observer.
 The scenery on the west side, as the descent Is made into Skull val ley Is but little less grand. Owing to the steep natural descent of the mountains, the line winds in and around the broken mountain sides and little valleys, forming several horseshoes in it's descent, now run ming along the deep side of Tuoun- tain thence through cuts and over bridges and fills until Devils gate is passed and the open plains of Skull valley are reached.
 The road bed built and being built is of the same general charac, ter as that between Prescott and Ash Fork, tirst-class in every respect and none better any place. The work for the first twenty miles out of Prescott. is very heavy but. with the present force employed, it is ex- pected to have the grade completed for twenty-three or twenty-four miles by the middle of March and the track laid for this distance hv April lst. There will be compara- lively easy work then until Hassa- yampa canyon is reached, although at a few points this side of that there will be some quite heavy work but nothing in comparison to that on the first twenty-five miles out of Ash Fork and the first twenty miles out of Prescott.
 The end of the track is now about one mile beyond the old race track. The shipment of steel was com menced from tha mills at Pueblo on last Friday, while the shipment of lumber for bridges commenced on the same day from Redondo. It will be only few days until both com mence to arrive, when the bridge force and the track laying force will both be increased and work pushed as rapidly as men can do it.
 The bridge force Is at work just this side of the summit, having only one more bridge, in addition to the two they are now working on, and which are well under way, to build until they pass the summit to the Skull valley slope of the noun t3ins.
 At Devils gate the line of the road runs about one hundred feet east of the wagon road and to get through, a cut of fifty seven feet, through solid rock is required. Tn work IS On Contractor O'Connor's contract and last Saturday, after having men engaged for several days in drilling a hole down into the rock for twenty five feet he loaded 1t with powder and discharged it doing the heaviest execution prob ably, ever accomplished by a single shot in this territory. The whole top of the butte to the depth of the hole was shattered and lifted from its position, rocks weighing half a ton had been blown a distance of a quarter of a mile. Although his camp IS located several hundred yards from the scene of the ex- plosion it was thought best to tenn porarily abandon it and every one re- paired to adjoining hills to witness the effect of the mighty force of the powder. This precaution seemed wise too, as rock weighing about a half ton landed right in the center of the camp and although coming down with such force as to produce a hole in the ground, deep enough to bury it, it bounded like a rubber ball a distance of several feet. 1 Another rock nearly as large went | through one of the tents and, strik- a wagon tongue, splintered it into wood. Two immense estimated at between | thirty and forty tons each, were hurled a distance of two hundred | feet. On the south side of the Butte the entire side of it, for thirty or forty feet high and from one to three feet in thickness was forced about four feet, towards the front of the Butte. Such a demonstra- ton of the awful force of powder is seldom seen.