The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-11-08
EUROPE'S FACE ALTERS
EFFECT OF SIMPLON TUNNEL
 THROUGH THE ALPS.

Interesting Story Regarding the Chang
 ing of the Earth's Face--The simp-
 Ion Pass Road Which Takes You
 From the Italian Plain and Lands You fin Another World.
 The face of Europe is changing. A gigantic section of the Alps has been swept aside. A portion of the Bur nese- -Oberland of Switzerland is threat ening to go. The surface of the earth has notably contracted between Swift zerland and the Mediterranean. The distance between Germany and Italy likewise promises to decrease. And France is asking fl she muss remain as geology made her, or whether Fhe shall say to mountains: "Be re- moved!"
 have only recently returned from the present day cataclysm of the Alps it is the Simplon TunnQl The caca- clysm effect is there: the only difftr- ence is that nan laJ made It. How stupendous. indded, is that great hole into Italy can only be appreciated by making the trip as we did over the mountains by way of the Simplan Pass. Everything worked together to give us vivid impression of its power to annihilate distances, regarded as in- numerable since the dawn of Europe. We had been on the shore of Lake. Ge- neva in an automobile, and to go to Italy we had taken the ancient route of the Roman legions travelling round and round and up and up, turned aside from our straight line, like ants before 8 pile of dirt, by the massive roots of Mont Blanc, and on and up over the Little St. Bernard Pass, and then down and down by endless turns and zig zags into the fair valley of Aosta. Then it was on and up and up again, till we stopped to look down upon the mighty plain of Piedmont. In the late afternoon that first panorama of the south side of the Alps was pink to ruddy with Italian glamour, while to the right and left fantastic peaks of every shade of blue had their tops gilded by the dying sun.
 Across the whole flat breadth of Piedmont we rolled in Lake Maggiore being once within thirty miles of Turin. On the lake, at Stressa we bathed in the sunlight Then we struck the heat-Italian heat in late midsummer. Back to the hills On to the north The may showed we had straight line to Switzerland by the Simplon Pass, and to that powerful automobile 1t was quick work. We passed through ravines and slipped round edges of great precipices. Up and up. There was massive old Italian town called Domo d'Ossola in high up valley sur rounded by peaks; and then, before arr irving at the tunnels Italian entrance at Isella we passed through the long, one street improvised town of the Italian laborers.
 The Italian entrance to the Simplon tunnel is a massive arch of masonry slapped up against the sheer noun tain foot. Clouds of steam were issu- ing from it-steam from the subterra- mean river of hot water that still threatens to delay the tunnels opening to traffic. It looked like the entrance gate to hell itself, and the evil faces of those laborers-the scum of Italy and many other lands-looked like those of a thousand loafing demons.
 Had we wanted to go through the tunnel in a train we must have waited, as they then said, till January 1, or as they now promise, until April l. But we were going over the pass, and we went on and stopped at Condo for the night We shall not forget Condo, at the bottom of it's canyon, with glacier torrents on one side and overhanging cliffs that make the street dark on the other Rocks fall in the night, and when the clouds roll down they fill the canyon and the town A town full of clouds! One of the party called out the next morning: There is a cloud loose in our back yard" They came into the inn, and Condo was dark at nine o'clock in the morning, In a dank, dripping misery. How can we start?'' ws said
 You can't start any way" replied the Swiss customs officer; "the( Sim plon Is forbidden to automobiles. They frighten horses; very dangerous to the stage coaches" We were prepared for that peculiar form of Swiss black mailing, and demanded horses. Tt is done" tho Swftzer answered: You can telegraph for horses to the hotel keeper at Simplon town" And it was while waiting for his answer that we had time to appreciate the true signif- icanee of the Simplon Pass. The sig nihcance of the tunnel broke on us later. You must so through these things to realize them.
 We were at Condo. To get back to Switzerland-and F'rance-would mean otherwise to retrace all those days o1 travel-down to the Italian lakes across the plain to Piedmont, on, on past Turin, and up and down, over the hills and mountains, day by day through Stressa, Ivrea, Biella and Aosta, across the valley of that name and up and over the Little St, Der. nard again Or we might return by way of Turin, the Genevre Pass, ant Briancon, and so on to Grenoble, ir France Yet here, if we could have the horses and a little sunlight, was an eight hours short cut to the hear of Switzerland-to civilized cooking the mails and the daily papers! While 1t was still dark at Condo we received the telegram:
 Two horses, $40.'
 We said yes; and in an hour or more heard a tiOkliOu Out in tho lOnf