Show A remarkable RAILROAD IS IN A WONDERFUL COUNTRY THE ine ADES TO nu SCALED n THE IRON HORSE michael 11 P grace of new york the brother and partner of mayor mavor grace lately concluded the purchase from the government of peru peril of the wonderful nond bond erful borova railroad the construction st Bt ruction of which made henry licary meigs the california fugitive fugi fugl the not only rich but larno farno famous us this thi road has been counted as the eighth ellith el lith wonder of ol the world for there Is is nothing in the rocky irocky mountains lount ains or the alps which compares with it as an example of engineering science or presents mcener scenery y dat bat neither scenic grandeur nor engineering genius alone can make a railroad pay particularly if it goes nowhere in this instance the money rave five out when the road was only partially completed there remaining nifty fifty lif ty miles nilles between the present terminus idi Ini cand the point which was aimed almed at t the mines of cerro del pasco ably thu the richest and most extensive silver deposit deli in the world most alost of the grading and tunnels between chic la aud and the mines have been cord corn completed feted ind and it only remains to lay the rails ralls ra ni s and an d I 1 pot pat I 1 in a the bridges to send A locomotive E OVER tim THE ANDES into the great valley which stretches dorth north and south between the two cor di lleras this mr grace has agreed to do the completion of the line to the mining g regions will cost vat bat the portion of the line already con and in operation with all its rolling roll irig stock station stati houses and equipments of every sort he gets for drastically nothing as under the conditions of a ninety nine years lease he las kas the use of the railroad and all that belouss with it tor for nothing for the first seven years and bays pays b but t per year for rental for the property durin during the tie remainder of the term la in other othe r words mr grace gets a property which cost eighty six gix s miles ff railroad already equipped and in operation fifty miles of the tile most moat es ex pensive tunneling and grading in the world for nothing provided he will complete the line and more than tais tois I 1 he gets the cerro cormo del pasco silver mines which were discovered years ago ao by the jesuits and have yielded hundreds of millions of dollars even under the primitive system of working which has hay been applied to them by bi the monks and the native indians this cerro ceno del pasco district bas has as given peru its fame for mineral wealth and competent engineers assert that it contains the iti CREST SILVER DEPOSIT IN THE WORLD WOULD th the c A ver Is not fissure veins but in in an ehor chor enormous ulous mass of ore similar to ae te carbonates of leadville yielding yi eldin irta inta 10 to loo per ton and worked at at bast sast of 3 per ton even the tailings lich ech the priests and indians have ha ve ft during the two and a half centuries py ley have been digging away in their yde ide de manner can be shipped to new jork foils at a profit and they amount to billions lal tal lions of tons with silver enough in tem to pay the cost of constructing Ahe uke road and affording it a business that will wilday pay the expense of operation about about 10 1 per percent cent of the cerro del rasco kasco district Is now occupied by na ilive itoe miners who are pe pegging ging along in the old fashioned wa avay losing more tilvert hau han they win in their operations and sc scouring suring about one quarter I 1 of the profit they could gain by the use of improved machinery their mines ire constantly hooded with water and lave have to be abandoned the greater part bf lithe tithe the year there are art also a number of old mines which were worked first ty lythe the jesuits and then by the government but which were long since given up and allowed to fill with water 1 1 these abandoned mines mr orace grace agrees to pump and tiace place in working order and when they are cleared he ilas lias the privilege e of working them to his ilia own profit lor tor 99 years the local hiners miners haye agreed to give him 20 per cent of their gross product for introducing pumping machinery and oper i itin biting I 1 it t the same set of pumps will jerve the whole district and the rev jnue which will be derived from THE NATIVE MINERS MIXERS ivill pay the expenses of keeping in order the mines which mr ilir grace will operate it is estimates estimate that oooo i xiii will clean up the property and pay for ee the ry machinery to do thorough kork vork and the profits cannot cannat be overestimated Ati mated if all that is told of the i nines mines is true I 1 will not repeat the i fables and traditions a about b out these nines wines of which the air is fuli fall f the el Dorado Doraa of for or which the world yas was vas hunt bunt 11 ing two centuries ago was but a aid P w of the substance said to have been found here away in the heart of the ebe andes almost beyond the reach of men ben involving an enormous cost for transportation and an expense of oper aaion which miners of modern times would consider unprofitable the priests and monks in past centuries have found untold tons of treasure the one was always set part apart for tor the kirg of spain and of which a record was scrupulously kept t by 1 the viceroys Vice roys reached into tho lne anit millions aud and the tithes which were paid to the church amounted to millions more eiore during the last few decades the mines have scarcely been worked for tor as large a product of silver as peru could consume vaas vlis found in inore more convenient localities THE RAILROAD railroads 1 was astie aslie begun grun by Mr Meigs in 1870 start J s ing lu from the sea it ascends the valley of the once sacred climac ri rising s I 1 I 1 n feet in the first forty six miles to a healthy valley where the people of lima have found an attractive summer resort then it followed a winding giddy kiddy ltd y pathway p a inq hway along the edge of pre 1 I ae and 0 over ver bridges that trat seem suspended laspe ded in th the c air rt tunnels the andes at an alti altitude tude of feet the most elevated spot in the world where a piston rod is moved mosed by steam and ends at oroya aroya feet ket above the sea between the coast anti and the summit there is not an inch of down grade and anti the track has been forced through the mountains by a series of sixty three tunnels whose aggregate length Is i teet leet the great tunnel of galera by which the pinnacle of the andes is pierced will be when comple compie completed led ted feet long and will be bc bethe the hi highest hest elevation on the earths surface weere beere any such work has been undertaken besides borin borlaug the mountains of granite and arid blas bias blasting t the cliffs alon aion along their sides to rest 19 the ghe track upon steep cuttings and superb bridges the system of reverse wn tung cuts had bad to be adopted in canyons that were too narrow for a curve so so the zigzags up the mountain side on oil the switch and backup back up principle the tile train taking one leap forward and after atter being switched on to another track another leap backward until the summit is won so that often there are four or five lines of track parallel to each other one above another OX ON THE MOUNTAIN SIDE almost the entire length of the road was made by blasting there nas was no earth in sight except what was carted up for use in ballantin ballasting s and the work of grading was done not by the pick and shovel but with the drill an and d hundreds of thousands of pounds of powder it is estimated that the construction st of this road cost peru lives from pestilence and accident landslides falling bo bowl ders premature explosions sor rache a dibease disease which attacks those who are nou noi accustomed cus tomed to the raw air of the high altitudes fevers caused by deposits ot of rotten granite and other causes resulted in a frightful ua mortality during the seven years the road was under construction but the project was pushed on until the funds gave gaye out the cost in human life was no obstacle at several points it was necessary to lower men by ropes over the edge of precipices to drill holes in rocks an and d put in charges of blasting powder and this reckless style of construction was attended by frequent fatalities A curious accident occurred at a point on the line where a plumber was a leak in a water pipe A train of mules was bein being I 1 driven up the trail loaded with cans R of powder one of them rubbed against the plumber who struck at the animal with his red hot soldering iron which in some way came in contact with the powder and abid caused an explosion which blew the whole train of mules the gang sang of workmen the plumber and everybody who was by over the precipice whose sides and bottom were strewn with fragments of men and mules for tor a mile I 1 THE SCENIC GRANDEUR OF THE ANDES Is presented nowhere more impressively than along the canon cahon of the thu ki rl zit mac r river biver which this railroad follows the mountains are entirely bare of vegetation vege etalon talon and are simply monstrous masses of rock torn and twisted rent and shattered by the tremendous volcanic upheavals which often occur here at the bottom of the theca cariou hion fion and where it occasionally spreads out into a valley of minute dimensions I 1 are the remains of towns and cities whose history is unknown here liere is a region which bears no resemblance to any other picture of nature lif lifted ted a above bo ve the rest of the world as coldly and calmly silent as impenetrable as the arctic stars here was developed a civi lation which left memorials of its advancement genius geni usand and industry carved carnedia car vedin vediA int ift massive stone and written upon the everlasting hills in symbols which even the earthquakes have been unable to erase herease here are the ruins of el cities ies les more populous than auy any any that have existed in peru since evidence of industry which their destroyers st were too indolent to imitate and a skill which could cope with everything but the destructive weapons of the invaders A survey of their remains justifies the estimates of their enormous population which are that the people once herded in these narrow valleys etere ere as numerous as thos those now spread over the united states the struggle gle gie they had to maintain themselves is shown bv by the traces of their industry and patience they built their dwellings upon the rocks and buried their dead in caves to utilize I 1 what soil there wa was s for agriculture they excavated great reat areas in the desert until they reached moisture enough for vegetation and then brought guano from the islands of the sea to fill these SUNKEN GARDENS they terraced every hill bill and mountain side and fathered gathered soil from crevices in the rocks rocks until not an inch of surface that could grow a stock of malze maize was left unproductive the steep mountains along the lumac are terraced up to the very summit the terraces belu beius often as narrow as the steps of and manx many of them are walled up with stone chev an ar veritable hanging gardens and aud lie fie 0 0 stich such slopes that they look ast art if it were impossible for any one boget to set iet a foothold to cultivate them or even for the tha roots of what was planted there P P sustain the mighty winds which sometimes blow down the valley it is at I 1 least east certain that the incas did not raise rase pumpkins or watermelons water melons for they would have rolled down the the sides of these farms which look as if they were standing stand ingon on end the irrigation system telof ef the incas was perfect their ditches extending for hundreds of milesa miles curving around the hills here sustained by high walls of masonry and there cut through the living rock they were carriea carried over narrow valleys upon enormous embankments and show el evidences dences of engineering skill as great as that which lifted the meigs railroad above the clouds into the mountains massive dams and reservoirs were erected to collect the floods that came from the melting snows and the water taken to localities which aa are rainless under these conditions in this great struggle for existence the incas established and sustained a government the first in which i the equal rights of every everyl human tuman b being ein eln R were re recognized and worshiped a being bei bel ug whose attributes were similar to those of the christian god the thu great sea breakall brea breaking kirl kill with ceaseless thunder upon the rocky coast impressed I n THE DWELLER dwellen IN I 1 tue TUB DESERT with reverence and he who shivered in the snow capped mountains recognized by au an equally equall natural logic that the sun was the kource source of ii light tit lit and happiness hence these two t vo objects tiie the sun and the tile sea were personified and seated upon the thrones of the magnificent pan theoans of the incas the race which conquered them camo came with dripping swords and lust for plunder skilled in the arts ot peace but powerless in war wari there was no adequate resistance and the blood and gold thirsty pizarro rode up this valley on a mission of murder rapine and destruction the towers stand as he left them thern roofless walls in a silence which not even an echo will a agitate irate occasionally the spaniards built new places of residence to utilize the improvements of the incas but three years ago the chilean army came down the vailey valley and treated the peruvians as pizarro treated the race which here it takes a power of steam to ascend this road with its average crade erade of 4 per cent but in coming down the boilers are allowed to collaud coo cool land laud and only steam enough is kept to hold the brakes an I 1 blow the whistle we came down i attway rt way in ill a handcar hand car at the rate of nf a mile mlle in two minutes and it was as exciting a ride as one call cau imagine vew new N ew yota york sun ayn aun |