THE WEST SHORE
nificant, compared with the achieve
ment of modern time. They show
what can bo accomplished by the des
Iotic ruler of millions of people, with
the stolon wealth of nations at his com
mand; a ruler who counh the lives of
his subjects as nothing when weighed
against his slights whim. They do
not, however, keep pace with the grand
march of scienco in this nineteenth cen
tury. Could theso ancient builders re-visit
tho earth from that realm to which their
spirits have fled, and behold the mighty
achievements of our present age, they
would bo rendered speechless with an
astonishment bordering upon awe. The
mighty steamship, plowing the ocean at
raco-horso speed; tho telegraph, flash
ing intelligence around the world with
tho rapidity of thought; the telephone,
carrying articulato speech instantly to
distances farther than many of them
ever traveled; tho electric light, dispell
ing tho darkness like a mid-night sun;
tho printing press, disseminating knowl
odgo among tho masses; tho railroad,
uniting, with bands of stool, countries
of which they never dreamed; great en
gines and substances of deduction, ca
pable of razing to tho ground in a brief
Ioriod tho mightiest structure their
hands ever reared; theso seven only, of
tho multitude of tho products of scienco
which h avo become so common to us
that wo cease even to think of them,
would bo clawed by them as tho M seven
miracles of tho world," bolide which their
"iwven wombra" would sink into noth
ingneK. Of tho achievements of modern sci
ence, tho feats of railroad engineering
rank among the firet Tho traveler of to
day is carried through tunnels that pierce
tho rocky br-arU of mountains, is sus
pended at dizzy heights a!ove deep
gorg.n and turbulent rivers, on trestles
and bridge, threads tho mountain maz
es on a sinuous trail, clings to the face
of precipices upon a narrow shelf blast
ed from the solid rock, and crosses the
summits of mountain ranges at altitudes
bordering upon the region of perpetual
snow. But let him j:urney from one
end of the continent to the other, he can
not find such another piece of eccentric
railroading as that which he will experi
ence in crossing the Cascade mountains
by the famous switchback on the North
ern Pacific.
When the Northern Pacific finally se
lected its route across the Cascade moun
tains by the Stampede pass, the engi
neers, in order to save a long and tortu
ous line across the mountains, expensive
to construct and operate, located a tun
nel, nine thousand eight hundred and
fifty feet long, through the heart of the
highest peak in the pass, at a level of
eleven hundred feet below the lowest
point on the summit The estimated
time necessary to complete the tunnel
was two and one-half years, more than a
year longer than was required for the
construction of the road.
The company was very anxious to es
tablish tho route across the Cascades as
speedily as possible, and so referred the
question of a line over the summit to
Adna Anderson, chief engineer. The
problem was to overcome an elevation
of eleven hundred feet in less than two
miles, the length of the tunnel The en
gineer reported he could carry the line
over tho mountain on the "switchback"
principle, by building seven miles of
track, about one-half on each side of tho
summit, with an average grade of near
ly three hundred feet, and at a cost of
500,000.00. Tho original cost of con
struction, provided the plan was adopt
ed, did not by any means represent the
exponso incurred. Tho purchase of lo
comotives of enormous power, and the
expense of operating such a line, where
but a few cars could be handled at a