OCR Text |
Show E SOUTH AMERICAN RAILROAD CHANGES. There is a craze for building and consolidat ing railroads in the United States. The last high ambition seems to be to own a transcontinental ! line from sea to sea and to have fleets of great steamers at each terminal to extend the land traffic traf-fic eastward to Europe and westward to Asia. ( This is all right, but it is a wonder that these chiefs of transportation confine themselves to 1 our countiy. From the Gulf of Darien to Buenos Ayres it is in a straight line 3300 miles. Probably by rail it would be 4000 for the first three hundred hun-dred miles the road would bo over and through i the Cordilleras and It would test the capacity of ( the world's best engineers to lay out a line. But the road should stait trom there, if possible, be-pause be-pause material would be landed ono hundred and twenty miles from the coast up the Atroto river. Then the teat would be to cross the first backbone back-bone ot the mountains; then the Canca valley and IriVer and then climb up the more eastern slope to Bogota, a city of 110000 people. The road ought, if possible, to go that way, because that Conca valley is one of the very richest on earth, while the adjacent mountains have been famous for their gold mines for two hundred years. From Bogata south and southeast there would be no serious topographical difficulties to contend against. The road would sweep southeastward through Colombia, eastern Ecuador, western Brazil, eastern Bolivia, skirting the eastern slope ct the Andes to Argentine, thence straight to Buenos Ayres, and would open up a new empire. We suspect that all those states would give generous gen-erous grants of land to any company that would go to work in good faith. It would be doing for South America what the British are doing for Africa. If the road would start at each terminus and the work be pressed until there could be a meeting in mid continent It should be put through in seven years, and with it a branch across Brazil to the coast. That would settle the Monroe Doctrine Doc-trine lor all time to come. Along the line there would be lands enough convenient to the road lor thousands of families which would be quickly occupied, lor everywhere they would be in touch with the coast and a market. The freight that would be supplied the road would include about everything that man struggles for on farm or in mine sugar, coffee, rose woods, wheat, fruits, live stock, gold, silver, diamonds everything. The north and south ends would pay good interest at once, the center would after ten years. A cross road from Chili would meet it and another from the coast of Peru, and the day of redemption lor South America would, with its completion, have dawned. It would result in making the United States dominant in influenco and trado on that continent. It ought not to cost so very much either, except the first two hundred miles to Bogota Bo-gota probably $40,000 per mile would cover the case, and this should not carry an interest account ac-count of more than 4 per cent. It is altogether favorable, it is worthy the ambition of any man or set of men. " |