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Show H , I j THE LUCIN CUT-OFF. B L j , j 1 ln ancient days the people built pyramids as Bi t ! A I j sepulchres and monuments for their kingly dead, B i j J $ v and built temples to their gods. One man ruled, B " i ! la" the rest obeyed and each of the seven great Bf WiJ I ancient wonders of the world, was but the work jf u 'i 'of slaves. m , If J I' Another rule prevails in modern times. There B 1 j Li I are still costly tombs and monuments and tern- B j jf J i pies built, but they are all voluntary works of Bit 'iHl love, the love of relatives for their dead, the BB H ' 1 1 " fovo oi a state or nation for the memory of m f if those who in life made for themselves illustrious B K 1 names and gave to the state or republic honor, B y i or great service; or love and reverence for God B I ' ' But in the modern world the impelling forces 'of Bl MIL 1 1 industry are limitless in their demands and they MP'' !'? stop at nothing They exalt the valleys, they B Ij Kali level mountains, they wall out the beating billows Bij! till ne seas - mae harbors for the argosies of Bi a i commerce; they turn the seas themselves into Bfj 1 1 1 i ' mere ferries by their ships which are but bridges Bjfj f ) ? 1 I ' of fire and steel. The two objects most sought JBI 111 for are to overcome resistence and to economize Hpi i J time. The inventions of the magnetic telegraph IBl! ' i i an he telephone had for their objects the prac- i J;' ' I 1 ' tical annihilation of time in the transmission Bil I ! I SJ I of messages and they came because the world mB i 1 1 H demanded them. Every grade and curve on a HI til m railroad is a resistance which to overcome ab- Gl it! 1 ill M sorbes power and fuel and time, and as much as Bl ' ! I li possible to do away with that resistance -and Bf , ' y loss of time is the constant study of railroad Hfi 111 engineers. It was through that desire that the BI '' jl 1 Lucin cut-off was conceived and carried through Kl I 8 to completion. It is a great work. Curves ob- vl f' 2 lis iliterated, fourteen hundred feet of altitude over- Biil f IM m come, forty miles of distance saved. It was an Brill III undertaking more audacious than the uprearing of the great pyramid, or the building of the Temple Tem-ple to Jupiter. The waves of great Salt Lake when aroused beat like a moving wall of stone against any obstruction hi their path; the floor of the lake is in places treacherous, but the gift of dominion over all the earth which was given to man in the beginning remains in full force, the great highway through the lake is an achieved fact, and the completed work is enough to compel the admiration of all candid men. And if every passenger is charged as though traveling the forty miles saved, and every ton of freight is charged in the same proportion, then with the wear of rails and machinery and fuel consumed added to the score, it will be seen that the amount saved will pay a healthy interest on $he cost of the great work. There is where the practical side of the modern mod-ern world comes in, and the click of the wheels over the ends of the rails are all golden notes in the harmony of railroad accounts. The monuments to Industry are all economic triumphs, and that fact adds to their splendor. The Lucin cut-off is a superb monument to American Am-erican railroad science, shrewdness and practical practi-cal audacity. |
