The Aberdeen Democrat. (Aberdeen, South Dakota) 1???-1909, 1904-02-12
GREAT FEATS
E~ngineers Of America VIII Under
take Some Big Tasks During
the Year 1904.

The year 1904 promises TO be one Of IN
usual importance in the annals of en-
cheering progress on the North Amerl-
can continent. In all human possibility,
says the Engineering News, we will see
i~naugurated in the coming year several
great engineering works, great not only
in the magnitude of the operations in
volved, but in their prospective influence
upon commerce and industry, both ma
tional and international.
The first Of these great tasks to be IN
dertaken is the construction Of the 18TH
main canal. The dimensions of this
problem are vast, as measured by similar
enterprises in other parts of the world
and the opportunity will now be given to
American engineers and American con
tractors and builders of machinery to
utilize all that knowledge, skill and eX-
perience in conducting PUBLIC works that
has already done so much to make our
country great. The economical
solution Of the problem calls for me-
chanical appliances to a degree almost
unprecedented, and for this machinery
we confidently look TO u W engineers
and to our own shops.
The climatic conditions will demand
the utmost endeavor in the way Of or
ganization and the care and handling Of
labor; and last, but not least, the en-
cheering features involved are so I'M
usual and Of such huge dimensions that
the latest sum of engineering genius and
experience can alone bring about sue
cessful results.
Another great engineering enterprise,
already started, but to be energetically
pushed in 1904, is the plan of the Penn
s~ylvania Railroad company to connect
it's system with the cities of New York
and Brooklyn by tunneling under the
Hudson and East rivers. Here again is
a problem that in its solution includes
new and practically untried engineering
methods.
In the state of New York the popular
vote technically approves Of the expendi-
ture of a hundred or more millions upon
the 1~,000-ton barge canal, connecting the
great lakes with the Atlantic seaboard.
In many of the inland states the COM
PShASS SShNi SIliiS LhS SLNtI itIL 'Ny
system have an enormous volume of
work eitherin progress or contemplated,
which has for its object the creation Of
new works to take the place Of those
planned and executed by a past genera
ton of engineers.
The enormous traffic developed by the
growth of our domestic commerce has
brought into use heavier locomotives,
larger cars and stronger bridges, and
the resulting saving in operating eX-
penditures O warrants an outlay for
reduction in distances, gradients and
curvature that would have been deemed
wasteful extravaganza by the preceding
generation.
Northward, in the Canadian, posses
sions, the coming year will doubtless see
a notable beginning made in what will
become another great transcontinental
railway. This Grand Trunk Pacific rail-
way will be nearly 1000 miles long, and
will connect the Atlantic seaboard at
Halifax with the shores of the Pacific
ocean at Port Simpson. 1t will be the
most northerly railway line of impor-
lance on the. continent, practically fol-
lowing for much of its length the great
divide separating the. waters~ot the st.
Lawrance basin from those of Hudson
bay. Its purpose is to open up to popu-
lation, trade and commerce vast areas of
wheat land, timber land and mines that
are now valueless By reason of the lack
of transportation facilities.
With these enterprises once fully
started-as they will be in 19O4-there
should be abundant demand for the serv-
ices OF the engineer, for the designer and
maker, of all types of engineering ma
chinery and materials. for the men who
handle machines and labor, and o. labor
itself