the advances in transportation. To
the engineer of the present day there are no impossibilities. The
engineer is a wizard at whose command space and matter are annihilated.
The highest mountain, the deepest valley, has no terrors for him. He can
bridge the latter and encircle or tunnel the former. The only requisites
which he demands are that something in his line be needed, and that the
money is forthcoming to defray the expense, and the thing will be done.
But the railroad he is asked to construct must be necessary, and the
necessity must be plainly shown, or no funds will be advanced; and
although the theory does not invariably hold good, especially when a
craze for railroad building is raging, as a rule no expense for the
construction of a road will be incurred without a prospect of
remuneration.

Hence the need of railroad communication has caused lines to be
constructed through districts where only a few years ago the thing would
have been deemed impossible. The Pacific roads of this country were a
necessity long before their construction, and in the face of
difficulties almost insuperable were carried to successful completion.
So, also, of the railroads in the Andes of South America. The famous
road from Callao through the heart of Peru is one of the highest
mountain roads in the world, as well as of the most difficult
construction. The grades are often of 300 feet and more to the mile, and
when the mountains were reached so great were the difficulties the
engineers were forced to confront that in some places laborers were
lowered from cliffs by ropes in order that, with toil and difficulty,
they might carve a foothold in order to begin the cutting for the
roadway.

In some sections tunnels are more numerous than open cuts, and so far as
the road has gone sixty-one tunnels, great and small, have been
constructed, aggregating over 20,000 feet in length. The road attains a
height of 15,000 feet above the level of the sea, and at the highest
point of the track is about as high as the topmost peak of Mont Blanc.
It pierces the range above it by a tunnel 3,847 feet long. The stern
necessities of business compelled the construction of this road,
otherwise it never would have been begun.

The tunnels of the Andes, however, do not bear comparison with the
tunnels, bridges, and snow sheds of the Union Pacific, nor do even these
compare with the vast undertakings in the Alps--three great tunnels of
nine to eleven miles