The Nome nugget., 1934-09-01

srspared by National Geographic Society.
 Washington. D. C.-WNU Service
 THE Andes, rooftops of the
 Western hemisphere, have ire
 quently stirred the imagina- tions of engineers. The building of early Spanish trails across these mountains was among the feats of colonial days; the Trans-Andean railroad was one of the outstanding engineering achievements of It's time; and more recently the laying of the cable that links Argentina and Chile by, voice added another chapter to engineering progress In South America.
 Braving ice. accident and ava lanches, North American and Chil- can engineers, by sheer strength and persistence dragged the heavy cable up and over the freezing. wind-swept mountain passes, blocked with drifts for months each year. Deep snow here causes frequent slides, or avalanches,. before which even the stoutest poles are as wheat straw in a Kansas cyclone. So, to keep the cable from being swept away, workmen dug ditch many miles long, over the higher Andean wastes, and buried the cable in 1t.
 Near the tiny hamlet of Las Cue vas, on the Argentine side of the Andes, the line reaches point 12,3O0 feet above sea level By contrast, the submarine telegraph cable off the coast of Chile rests on sea bottom in 21,OOO feet of water, showing the amazing physical geog- raphy in this part of the world.
 Dangerous and difficult though these lonely Andean- passes are, stubborn man has long used them in his restless transit across South America. Polling on foot or shout ing and stoning their lazy llama pack trains, native races of long ago travelled the worn trails that parallel the winding Aconcagua river, up ever-narrowing canyons, under cliffs and along the edges of dizzy precipices. -.. ; In the glittering days of Span fish viceroys, when the king of Spain ruled much of South America through his agents at Santiago de Chile, pack trains and soldiers used these same Andean trails to reach Tucuman. Cordoba. and ancient Cuyo country.
 Broke Of From Spain.
 In these same bleak passes where the big cable now carries spoken words, once echoed the shouts of San Martins famous Army of the Andes" when Chile and the Argen- tine, more than a century ago, wrested independence from Spain.
 For much of its length the cable parallels the well-known rack" rail- road crossing the Andes. It took years to build this difficult railway, whose maximum grade is 8 per cent.
 At Mendoza, on the Argentine side of the Andes. you leave the standard track and transfer to mar row-gauge coaches. For several hours q locomotive of the ''adhe- sIon' type draws the train. Finally when grades grow sleeper, your en- zine crawls on the toothed rails of the ''rack'' system. As you climb slowly higher and higher, tunnels and snowsheds increase in number and length. Vegetation disappears.
 To make thls trip in June or July, which is midwinter there. is to see the Alps of South America in all their glistening glory. Sometimes snowplows precede your train. Tn July, 1880, scores of passengers were delayed many days at each end of the Trans-Andean line, wait ing for 25-foot drifts to be cleared. Up in these passes resort hotels have risen, and holiday seekers come from Valparaiso, Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo for winter sports. One even sees soldiers training on skis.
 Winding ever upward, the road runs in the shadow of Mount Tupun- gato, 21,55O feet high. and past an odd rock formation known as "The PenitentS," from it's resemblance to . procession of cowled monks. Then you stop at Puente del Inca, . strongly formed natural bridge which gives the district it's name. Just beyond this bridge. if the day n clear von eam Rlimnaa great