The Colorado statesman., 1916-08-26
Uncle Sans Engineers Hard at
Work on Big Job in the
Far North.
WILL DEVELOP VAST RICHES
Steel Highway Will Provide Access to
Mineral and Agricultural Lands
Now Reached With Diff
ficuIty.

Sans engineers are busily engaged
in the big job of building the railroad
that is to open up Alaska"
The governments Alaskan railroad
will not, as has been sometimes sup
posed, take one "the farthest north
by rail-" In Alaska now, running from
Nome to Shelton, there is little mar
row-gauge line, which penetrates a
good deal farther north than Fair
banks; and from Fairbanks another
narrow-gauge line goes 46 miles north
into the Chatanika mining district.
The old Russian line from Petrograd
to Archangel runs farther north than
the Nome-Shelton line, and the new
Russian road from Petrograd to Eka-
terina beats the Americas farthest-
north-by-rail still more.
Nor, as an engineering proposition,
will the Alaskan railroad set new rec
ords. Numerous pieces of railway con-
struction in the United States, Can
ada and South America, will continue
to rate as much more noteworthy.
Still it is "some job" with peculiar
and interesting problems. Along Tur-
nagain Arm, right at sea level, the
shores are precipitous. For miles the
roadbed has to be blasted out of solid
rock. The northerly descent into Fair
banks will follow Nenana river,
through very narrow and precipitous
canyon. Here amazing difficulties
were encountered in the railway sur
vey. Engineers and surveying parties
were compelled to swim the icy waters
of the glacial streams many times
and hang by ropes over high preci-
pices.
Will "open Up Alaska"
The really big thing is the fact that
the railroad will "open up Alaska ;"
and there are no words to exaggerate
the bigness of Alaska and its promise
of wealth and sustenance for the peo-
pie of the United States.
From Seward, which is to be the
winter port and southern terminus of
the line, the old Alaskan Northern
railroad crosses the Kenai peninsula
to Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet. The
Alaskan Northern has fallen into dis
use and bad repair. 1t has been pur
chased by the government and is be-
ing put in first-class condition. This
will result in a large development of
gold quartz and copper mining in the
Kenai mountains within a few miles
of the coast.
At the upper end of Knik Arm, a
branch will run up the Matanushka
river 3S miles to the famous Mata-
nushka coal fields. This branch, it is
thought, will be open within year.
Here lies an apparently inexhaustible
field of subbituminous coal, the equal
of West Virginia steaming coal and
will provide cheap fuel to the United
States navy, to the industries of south
ern Alaska and the entire Pacific
coast.
the Nenana coal fields to consumption
in Fairbanks.
Farms to Follow Road.
The lower Susitna, too, runs through
an alluvial valley, rich in agricultural
possibilities. Here the railroad even
tually will pass a succession of farms
which will supply grain, vegetables
and meat staples for the mining in
dustry.
In the region of the summit or di-
vide between the watersheds of the
Yukon river and the gulf of Alaska,
that is to say, In the mountain section
the railroad will make possible de-
velopment of low-grade quartz gold
lodes which are similar to lodes which
have proved enormously productive
and profitable in the United States.
1t is a question wholly of costs of
transportation and smelling. With
the opening of the railroad both to the
gold and coal fields, smelling facili-
ties are expected to be quickly pro-
vided. Large interests are already
planning to locate smelters on Prince
William sound, within convenient rail-
and-water access of ores and coal.
Fifty miles west of the Nenana,
down which the railroad will pass, are
the headwaters of the Kantishna min
ing district, which is now taking out
only $4,000 of gold a year, but in
which recent explorations have indi-
Gated big possibilities of quartz min
ing.
Edes Guiding Genius.
The guiding brain of the big organi-
ization that is building this railroad is
William G. Edes, chairman of the
Alaskan Engineering commission. His
chief aids are Thomas Riggs, Jr., for
merly an officer of the Coast and
Geodetic survey, and later chief of the
Alaskan boundary survey, and Lieut..
Frederick Mears, u. s. A., trusted
aid of Colonel Goethals in the build
ing of the Panama canal. Riggs is
building from one end and Mears
from the other. Three or four years
hence, the two engineers will meet
somewhere midway in Alaskan fast