Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-05-13
UP VESUVIUS.
The Only Railroad Built Up a VOL

The Only Railroad Built Up a VOL
cano.
Only one railroad in the world
crawls up the side of a furious VOL
cano and discharges passengers in a
truly internal region of wild, fantastic
and contorted lava masses; deep ashes,
cinders, rocks and boulders wreatned
in steaming, sulphurous vapors, and
black eruptive smoke from the crater
of Vesuvius, the most dreaded volcano
on earth.
No railroad ever had a more preca- =
towns and villages of the smiling Cam
pagna Felice are apt to be, and have
been, overwhelmed by Vesuvius at
short notice, though well away from
her base, the railroad actually crawling
up the mountains dreary flank is a
still more precarious undertaking
Why was it ever built? When word
goes forth that Vesuvius is in eruption
from all parts of the world-or at any
rate from those parts lying within a
weeks travel. Beyond question the
spectacle Of Vesuvius in eruption is one
Of unexampled splendor, with rivers of
molten metal gushing from the main
and auxiliary craters. In torrents
which have been known to exceed 80
feet in depth and $50 feet in width.
Since the Messina disaster nearly
two hundred thousand visitors have
ascended Vesuvius, though it often
happens the track is buried with great
heaps Of lipilli otherwise scoriae or
fine ash and cinders, thrown ten or
twelve thousand feet out of the central
crater and falling in pattering tor
rents over an area of many miles.
The proprietors of the railroad keep
repairing the track, but it is significant
that the engineer-in chief, Herr Faer-
Der, is not Neapolitan at all, nor even
an Italian, but a German.
The Ferrovia Funicolare, as the
wire-rope railway up Vesuvius is call
ed is about three thousand feet In
length, and it's terminus is nearly two
thousand feet above the StaZione In
feriore, which is itself nearly three
thousand feet above the level of the
bay. The gradient is in places as steer
as sc in 100 The run up or down is
made by the cable cars in less than fif-
teen minutes, and at the upper sta
tiOn there are a number of guides
who conduct passengers through the
deep ashes and Stag to the summit OF
| the crater. Almost every distinguished
| man and woman alive has made the
| assembling and princes, statesmen
singers, actors, engineers, novelists
| The proprietors of the railroad have a
monopoly, and even on the government
carriage road, which ends about q
quarter of a mile beyond the Meteoro-
| logical observatory, the traveller must
provide himself with tickets purchased
| from the management. During the
| last violent eruption three swift-run-
! ing insidious torrents of molten meta
| glided across the tracks, then cooled
were flowed over by other streams, and
so on until at length a wall of ada
mantine rock was thrown at right an.
| giles across the track.
Herr Baerber and his assistants
were soon on the spot, but it was
| found necessary to use large charges
of guncotton and dynamite before the
rock wall of cooled lava could be re-
moved from the road. 1t is no wonder
that a return ticket on the railroad
cost s41O.
| When the mountain is in active
eruption the cars ascend by night. af-
fording passengers an inspiring spec
tacle-particularly If river of lava bt
ebbing and gursling erratically ove1
the fantastic wilderness of lava block:
cooled ages ago. and probably datin5
from the distinctions of the Roman
cities.
| Leaning out of the cable car one
sees the great, glorious southern moor
partly obscured by the colossal smoke
plume, and this in turn slOws fright
full dull scarlet, not so much through
flame as through the reflection from
the stupendOus mass of molten lava
roaring and bubbling in the abyss. Or
leaving the upper station guides are il
attendance, and some Of these carr
considerable sums by making impress
es on hot lava with copper coins of
centesim q cent?, and selling thes,
for 90 cents.
A guide is an absolute necessity
however on leaving the car: for ever
if one runs no risk of the awful fate o
certain tourists who have fallcl
through a lava crust into river of IL
quid fire precisely as the skater fall'
ones shoes to pieces and bruisc one!
feet on the old lava, which in place
is sharp as glass fragments and hare
as steel.
The receipts from the railroad
amount to several hundred thousanC
dollars year, but, as has been cX
planned, the cost Of maintenance l.
heavy and no man can safely predic
anything about Vesuvius. Remember
cattle graZed in the crater not lOnt
before the frigntful upheaval of A. d
20, which wiped out the Roman cite!
for nearly 1.S00 years. Next. or th'
week after, the Ncsuvian cable railroat
may be utterly destroyed by the fer!
breath of the monster. and the hOtc
near the summit may be sought fn