The Natchitoches enterprise. (Natchitoches, La.) 1888-1965, 1912-10-10

or the line are laying OIL Ihe P0A
nent roadbed itself on ice.
There are several thousand square
miles of glaciers still in Alaska
the walking were good enough one
could tramp northward from the sea
500 miles without leaving the Ice ana
could branch off on side trips OF sew
eral hundred miles in various dlrec-
lions with ice always under foot
But it isn't the ice, at least not as
ice, that has made the task or the
railroad builders so hazardous. Every
summer masses of the glaciers break
off SO that they are rapidly retreating.
But that only makes conditions worse
for the men who are fighting their
way across this remnant of frozen
age. For not only is the Ice reduced
from a fairly permanent to most un-
stable and dangerous material by the
summer warmth but the land Is re-
duced by water to it's least navigable
condition.
The pushing of the railroad over
the Copper river flats involved enough
logged courage to supply a dozen
books of old-fashioned romance.
These soft. shifting silt beds, with
their innumerable river channels and
quicksands, are impossible in sum-
mer to either man or beast. This was
winter work.
There were twenty miles Of storm
swept flats, covered with eight or ten
feet of snow, alternately flooded with
water and frozen solid. Over or
through this 1t was necessary to move
not only men and horses but hun
dreds of tons of supplies. timbers and
pile drivers Sometimes rails were
laid on brush piled on the snow. In
other places ten feet of snow was
shoveled away for track laying
AS spring broke the fats became
lake of slush and water and still the
work went forward. The moving OF
supplies ahead of track laying became
increasingly difficult with warm
weather. To get in horses, for I'm
stances, scows just large enough to
hold one animal we're built and towed
by launch across the river channels.
Long lines were then attached and
! the f5sdsd gcows fcwed BY -TU'ifcss 81
main strength over the soft mud and
uuicksand where men could hardy
find foothold and horses would hope
Iessly mire. A mile an hour was
often good average time for this trav'
cling even with a big crew Of every
horse, and 1t went on hour after hour
and day after day.
But this was all below the glaciers
At the three-mile face Of Miles gla
cier the river is contracted within 8
deep narrow channel Hour after hour
through the summer this glacier dis
charges bergs into the stream, making
a wash that climbs hundred feet W
the opposite bank. Nothing can stand
i before it.
Just above Miles glacier the rive
makes a sharp double turn and on thu
other side meets another great dis
charging glacier. Between these TIVE
ice cliffs the railroad runs. The prob
lens involved are unique In railroad
construction Where the river il
bridged between the glaciers the chan
mel is 1900 feet wide, and piers mus
be set that would withstand the pound
ing of the enormous bergs from Child
besides the field ice which is in a I'll
reen-mile current often six feet deer
These piers were built of solid cor
chr
rails set a foot apart all around an
they were carried SIXTY feet to bee
rock. Their greatest horizontal d
mension also is sixty feet. In additio
the piers are protected by concret
breaks also sunk to bedrock and c
unexamplied solidity.
Just above the river at this poin
a long and rather high trestle was RI
uuired. and in order to fulfill COZ
tract this had to be built after VIII
ter had set in. With the thermomete
around zero and fifty to sixty-mil
wind beating heavy snowstorm a
most horizontally the men worked 0
this trestle, while on the level tn
wind gathered snow and gravel into
frightful mixture and hurled it at tn
workers with terrific fury.
One hour was long shift. Engine
were stalled and had to be dug GU
Shovelers sometimes could make n
Roadway whatever against the fyin
drifts in digging out supplies. FC
DAYS the wind blew more than eight
miles an hour and then no man coul
face it. Eighty miles of warm win
is TOO much for most people. At gel
and well mixed with ice and grav