Bisbee daily review., 1907-09-01

| 'the only railroad in Sonora was tho | line running from Nogales to Quay mas, know as The Burro." The fire man and engineer often found them ! selves short of wood. and it was theil custom to get out and cut load al
 the head of the grade, and then, aftel
 steaming up, to rush ped-mell dowr
 the grade in the wild hope that prov
 idence and momentum would lift then
 up the hill again. It is said that bur
 ros were employed occasionally tC
 haul the engine to the top of the grade
 while the conductor played monte
 monte with the passengers and the l engineer took nap. Now this jerk water railroad is becoming part o an enormous line stretching from Brit
 ish Columbia to the city of Mexico" | This is the work of Hartman, who
 is unloading barrels and barrels ot
 American dollars in Mexico. Hii
 Southern Pacific extention-1O0 miles now in operation-will eventually connect Guaymas on the Gulf of Cali
 fornia with the capital. His inter. ests have so far appropriated S5O.0 900. !! 900 for the work already outlined. and
 more than 5000 men are on his pay
 roll in the construction camps. One
 million ties are coming from Japan
 and the rails will come from Europe since American concerns can not promise satisfactory deliveries.
 ! Everywhere engineers are laying out more roads. There is the loudly
 tTumpeted Mexican and Orient, al so heading for the west coast. besides ] two or three shorte- lines. Both the
 National and Central are extending
 their network of feeders. The Cen
 tral is building from Tampico to the i capital on which route 1t spent near { ly half a million dollars for locating
 alone. One bridge that is over the
 Panuaco will cost a million. There
 is also a miilion-dollar ship canal be : ing dug by the government from Tam l pico to Tuxpan. Last of all should be mentioned that part of the mythical | Pan-American railroad that is not
 talk, but track laying. A few miles
 further. and Mexico will do it's part
 By September the rails should touch
 the boundary line of Guatemala.
 There is one gigantic enterprise now nearing completion that will turn
 nearly every wheel in the valley oi
 Mexico within a radius of 200 miles As a colossal hydro-electric proposi.
 ton it is of especial interest Also
 it Is one conspicuous example of the
 foreigners faith in Mexico, being the largest single investment of capital |. outside of railroad building. The sum is $31 ,000,0O0, and this sum comes
 not from the United States, but from
 Canada. The investor is the bank oi
 Montreal It's representatives appear
 ed in the sleepy old one-horse town of Pueblo with $6,O0O,0O They gave
 that town electric light, electric pow CT and trolley cars. Then they went
 to the capital and bought the street car system for s11.25O,OO0. They bought the lighting plants and cut rates in half. They could cut rates
 because they had cheap power that was costing them the balance of the millions. This power comes from the 1 NecaZa waterfall, ninety-five miles away. In the dry season NecaXa shrinks from its roaring cataract of 5000 cubic feet a second to a feeble | trickling broOklet. To make the ave-. ! aea- +ha- -arnIlnd tha- Canadians are walIfng m three great valleys. Six i thousand men are now at work on one of the dams. which alone will cost a million dollars.
 ! Since the mountains were stripped of their forests, the cost of coal has stifled industries in this region. But 1 the Canadians count on a manufactur- ] ing boom. They expect to market | the full 100000 horsepower of the Necaxa falls. The big stamp mills at the Fl Orc mines, 200 miles distant, now run by power from the falls, and ores are handled 25 per cent lower in value than could be handled before. The 200-mile line of transportation is said to be the longest in the world from single powerhouse. The com pany is delivering thousands of horse power to the larger cities. Thirty thousand will soon be available for Guadalajara and 5O,O00,000 in the capital.
 Another striking instance of hydro electric power and it's vitahzing ef- fleets is that of the old deserted min ing camp of Guanajuato. This camp, worked by the old Spaniards, has pro- duced $1 1,300. 100000 in gold and sil- yer, but the mountains were cleared of timber until the circle grew too big, and as the shafts. fitted with chicken ladders" could not be fol- lowed any deeper, the treasure still there had to be abandoned Then an American harnessed up a waterfall and brought a wire into camp. Tho ore can be lifted by modern hOists and then treated cheapiy because of cheap power And now they say in that camp that the old Spaniards only scratched the vein. The millions of ounces taken out were but a crumb. Costly development work, including a tunnel to open up the ore body, may or may not justify such a hope. But meantime Guanaiuato enjoys life again. Nearly 500 stamps are in op- eration and the cheap ores the Span iaFds could not touch, and their tail ings and dumps out of which they could not get the gold, are yielding handsomely. One entire village of zoe adobe houses, Tepetapa by name has been bought for pay dirt on basis at actual assays. The adobe bricks had been made from the shines formed by grinding ore, and the gold in them runs as high as SIP to the ton.
 However. all voIca2ic Mexico seems like thriving mining camp. Mexico gave our continent its very first min