The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-04-15

lands. runs for about thirty miles par allel with the Florida coast and from three to six miles disvant. It is two miles wide at the widest point, but there are spots where it narrows down to strip of sand that one could al- most throw a stone across. At the southern end of the island is a small town of two or three hundred inhabi- tants called Planters" the largest settlement except the City of Key West
 The East Coast Railway of Florida. which belongs.to MT. Flager personally. with a few shares of stock scattered among it's employees to make up a board of directors. has had it's termi- nus for several years at the town of Miami. few miles south of Palm Beach. That is now the headquarters of the construction engineers, and from there the work is being directed by MT. Flagler personally. He has gone over the route again and again with his engineers. has inspected and re- vfsed all of the plans of construction and has suggested several of the most important features. which are entire ly new and experimental in railway building k
 The track passes down the coast of Florida through mangrove swamp
 
 penetrable tropical jungle on the east ern edge of the everglades to the town of Homestead There it crosses the |narrowest part of Card Sound to Key Largo, and for 12s mties follows the chain of islands--Loug Key. Windy Key, Grassy Key. Key Vacca, Pine Key. o-Name Key. Summerland, Su- garfoaf and others ih succession until 1t reaches Key West. There will be a Qnprnxir1 taIv r,iIae nf xro tor track and sixty-six miles of land. The water between the keys is quite shall low, seldom more than six or eight feet deep, and is filled with wondrous fishes shell fish and other marine life, including insects and barnacles that will eat up a wooden pile or a steel beam as if it were confectionery. Hence it would be useless to build or- dinary trestles or steel bridges and Mir. Flagler has decided to substitute concrete viaducts, twenty-five feet above the water. Even if it were not for the barnacles, it would be very diff ficult and practically impossible to construct trest1es. because the bottom of the sea is solid mass of coral, and it would be necessary to drill hole for every pile.
 The longest concrete viaduct will be 10,500 feet: there will be several be- tween TOO and 5000 feet in length. and innumerable shorter ones These via ducts will rest on the solid rock bot tom, with arches fifty feet in diameter and twenty feet above the surface of | the water at high tide. The construc- | ton will be so heavy and firm that there will be no danger from the surf or the winds.
 l At Key West the terminal facilities l will be on a large scale. constructed with the same thoroughness that char acterizes all of MT. Flagler's undertak | ings. He has planned ten covered piers, each 800 feet in length and 100 | feet in depth, with basins furnishing berths for forty vessels at one time, drawing thirty feet of water. The piers will De equipped with the most | improved hoistinR machinery and other facilities for handling freight. because MT Flagler desires to make Key West | the most important railway channel on the Gulf of Mexico when the Panama Canal is finished He intends that it shall compete with Galveston and New Orleans and be the entreport of lines and steamers from all parts of the globe, and particularly from South America. While his plans have not yet been developed. he has often con templated establishing a line of freighters to the isthmIs from Key West. touching at Cuban and Jamaican ports.
 It is just 100 miles from Key West | to Havana, across very turbulent strait, in which the two tides from the gulf and the Atlantic meet and pro- duce a rough sea like that of the Eng fish Channel Mr. FIagler proposes to send solid trains from New York to Havana and carry them across the straits on big transports like those used by the Pennsylvania Railroad for it's through Boston service. Passen- gers can go to bed in the cars before leaving Key West and wake up in Havana in the morning.
 As I have already stated, the South ern has carried more than 5000 labor CTS from New York and Philadelphia to work on this road. and an enormous quantity of material It is estimated that the complete viaducts will require 4,S10 tons of steel and 3o0,o00 barrels l of cement | xuifa a-This hook saws that in India