New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-05-29


to their sides; the train is creeping up the face
of the precipce now
Then the gorge turns sharply and the Cor
dillera itself is at the head of it. Three thou
sand feet half snow, half rock. the cliffs go up
to the crest. The train swings across the river
quivering bridge, pierces another rocky
shoulder and dives into the mountain like a
rabbit into his hole. Four minutes of smoke
and darkness and then the train bursts out into
the light
The mountains fall away in huge leaps.
straight down to the green country and the
wooded hills The Cordillera is behind, and this
is the slope of Chilli Forty more miles of ter
rife down grade and hair-raising curves then a
change of and ride Of three hours, and
the traveller is looking out on the roadstead
Of Valparaiso where the ships are swinging On
the long swell of the Pacific
The building of the railroad work of
long delays and many difficulties. The first
concession granted in 1873, and work has
been going on since, with frequent pauses for
lawsuits, bankruptcies strikes and revolutions
Each country controls the road on it's own side
of the divide. The Chilians were more tardy
than the Argentinos in finishing their share OF
the work. For years only the gap at the Cor
dlera itself lay between the ends of the two
lines a gap that shrunk from 100 miles in 1881
to 43 miles in 1903.
The long tunnel at the crest was the last Work
Of all. 1t is few yards short of two miles in
length, and its altitude is 10000 feet. 1t was
built by an English firm, with materials brought
largely from the United States, most of them
through Buenos Ayres, $50 miles away. For
weeks at time the workings were entirely cut
off from the rest of the world by billiards..
Workmen were hard to get and harder to keep.
Even their food had to come hundreds of miles
pushed through at last early this year, and a
regular train service between Buenos Ayres and
Valparaiso was begun April II
What may be the effect of the new railroad
upon South American growth it is not easy to
say. Certainly it will be important. The road
furnishes the first convenient commercial route
between the two neighboring countries, and GER
tainly it Will be great stimulus to trade be-
tween them. For one thing, it will probably give
Argentina the timber of which she stands IN
such need at much less cost than 1t comes to
her at present through her seaports.
1t brings the cities OF Chill from seven to ten
DAYS nearer to the ports of Europe than they
have been before. 1t does the same service for
Buenos Ayres with the ports of the Pacific Coast
of America and of Asia.
It has been suggested that with the opening
of the Panama Canal fast service from New
York to Valparaiso would reach Buenos Ayres
over the railroad quickly than a direct
steamship line would do. For passengers be-
tween the two republics the railroad does away
with the hardshps of the Cumbre Pass, which,
because of its altitude and the atmospheric con-
dtions there, many persons could not attempt
at all.
But more than anything else Argentina will
praise the railroad because the first trunk line
of her continent crosses her soil and furnishes
an advertisement to the world of the might and
growth of her great new land
Jerome S. McWade Duluth millionaire, has
already begun his summer work with the
various chdrens country week associations in
which he is interested.
Mr.. McWade in a recent address behalf
of these charities, narrated many stories OF
slum children in the country.
lone little girl from the worst slums OF Chi
cago" he said, ran into old-fashioned farm
kitchen the first day of her rural sojourn and
exclaimed to the farmers wife:
"'Say, lady, what do you call that there
handsome animal with the roses under its