The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-08-18
TRAINS WILL CROSS
GREAT SALT LAKE
ON GIGANTIC FILL
Lucin Cutoff Is Now Nearly
Ready for observation-disclosures
Is Nearly Fourteen Miles
Long and at Some Points
Lake Is Deep.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Aug. IL
The 103 miles of railroad known as the
Lucin cutoff, which is being built across
Great Salt lake by President E. H. Har-
riman, of the Southern Pacific. at an es-
timated cost of $4,000 00 is rapidly near
ing completion. Within another six
months 1t is expected that the actual
running time between ogden and San
Francisco will be shortened by more than
two hours.
Instead of spending more than four
hours in covering the 146 miles of noun
famous road around the north end of the
lake from Ogden to Lucin, trains will
reach the same destination over a rail-
road built straight across the lake, forty
miles shorter, almost level and nearly
straight
In order to run this railroad across the
lake Mr.. Hartman has built a great
causeway through water from ten to fifty
feet deep. Great piles sixty feet long have
four on top of one another, in order to get
Through the false bottom.
One great sink hole, known as the bot
tomless pit. was overcome by dumping a
mountain of rocks into it. President Har-
riman's army of 5000 workmen have con-
quered in their fight with mysterious Salt
lake, but the enterprise was difficult
one.
The immensely of the undertaking may
be indicated by saying that mountains of
rock and earth have been used to fill the
causeway across the lake. Forests of tall
pines that for centuries have been grow
Ing in Oregon and Texas have been hewn
down by an army of axmen, stripped of
their limbs and bark, and transported by
another army Of men to the shores of
the salt sea, where, one by one, they have
been driven through the mud to solid
rock.
To fill is a stupendous piece of work 1t
is approximately fourteen miles in length.
reaching from the east shore of the lake at
a point near Little mountain directly east
for distance of eight miles, to Promon-
tory point
This point is Of a rock formation, and is
four miles wide The fill starts again on
the east side of it and extends three miles
out into the lake, to where the water
reaches a depth of twenty-eight feet.
From the west side Of the lake the fill
Is built three miles. where the water Is of
a depth too great to permit Of further
filling. For the entire fourteen miles the
fill rises above the surface of the water to
a height of from fourteen to sixteen feet
1t Is from twenty to sixty feet wide on
top, and slopes away easily to the water
line
The quantity of rock and earth used for
filling is not known. No accurate esti-
mate can be made, because of the varia-
ton in the lakes bottom.
The lake bottom away below the mud Is
rough and rugged. Valleys and gorges and
chasms are there. just as they are to be
seen all over this intermountain region.
Mud has settled in them in ages past, sc
that a sounding of the lake records 3
level bottom sloping gently from the
shores.
When powders weighing as much as ten
tons each are dumped from the trains they
do not stop at the mud bottom, but con-
tinue downward to solid earth, pushing
the mud to the side. How deep they go
no one can say. The dirt trains continue
to dump until the fill reaches the required
elevation, and then move on.
1t is for this reason that an attempt to
calculate the amount of earth and rock
that has gone down beneath the surface
of the brine would be useless. Certain
1t is that veritahle mountains have been
built beneath the waters of the lake.
This work has required the operation of
seven great steam shovels, each of which
lifts five yards of earth at time.
The construction of the trestle work on
the cut off is the next greatest feature OF
the work. Twenty-eight miles of piling
will have been driven when the cutoff
is completed. More than fifteen miles of
this is now standing.
The distance across the lake is twenty
eight miles For fifteen miles of the way
the water is too deep to permit the use OF
earth and rock filling. The remaining thir-
teen miles Is over a portion OF the lake
where the water ranges in depth from a
few feet to twenty EIGHT feet.
In the deep part of the lake the depth OF
the water ranges from twenty eight to
fifty feet. Here permanent trestle is be-
ing built. Over the other portion the