They found a delightful old farmhouse the next day, and, living in one of the sweet-scented hayricks for a time, until they could find out about the kitchen and the cook, this now happy and loving family learnt to think gratefully of that otherwise dreadful day when, adrift on the river floods, they had bidden good-bye for ever to Jealousy, Covetousness, and Spite.
MARVELS OF MAN'S MAKING.
XI.—A COLORADO RAILWAY.
HEY called it the 'baby road,' when the first rails were laid near Denver City, the capital of Colorado, in the spring of 1871; and every one agreed it was a brave baby that could start upon such a wild journey. Over the lonely, snow-topped mountains, through the gloomiest gorges the route would lie. Here the whistle of the engine would be answered by the cry of the condor, or deep in the lonely pine forest would startle some ambling grizzly bear. It was in the days when the settler was still subject to attacks by marauding Indians, and civilisation had only a slight foothold among the savage byways of Colorado.
The 'baby road' was started under the guidance of a party of wealthy men from Philadelphia, and the first steps were quite easy. Denver City lies on flat ground at the foot of a long range of majestic mountains. Along the side of these the line was laid, past Pike's Peak, which rises from the plain to a height of fourteen thousand one hundred and forty-seven feet, and on to the city of Pueblo. Here the road turns westward, along the side of the Arkansas River, and a few minutes later disappears into the shadows of a mighty gorge through which the river flows. And here the troubles of the engineer began. From the sides of the stream the granite walls of the cañon, or gorge, rise perpendicularly for three thousand feet. Nearly the whole of the space between the base of these cliffs is taken up by the river itself, though for several miles a sufficiently wide ledge was found to lay the rails upon, just out of reach of the roaring torrent of water. But, by-and-by, a point was gained where the 'ledge' suddenly ended, and for some hundreds of yards the River Arkansas took up the whole space.
Then the engineer had to think. First, it seemed advisable to use gunpowder and blow away the face of the cliff until sufficient space was made to carry the railway. But the gorge is so narrow, and the rock is so hard that the plan did not seem a good one. Finally it was decided to build the railway along a hanging bridge. And this bridge is surely one of the most curious ever erected. From the cliff-face on either side, iron girders spring at an upward slant, like an inverted V, and from the point at which they meet, steel rods descend. These are securely fastened to the river-side of the bridge. The other side of the bridge is built into the cliff-face. Thus it is neither a suspension bridge nor an arch bridge, but is sustained by the strength of the overhead girders. To make this structure, the workmen, with their tools, had to be swung in cages against the cliffs, and it was no easy task, in such a confined space, to manoeuvre the girders into their proper positions.
One of the principal desires of those who were laying this railway, was to get it done quickly. There were wealthy mining regions to be reached by it over the high mountains, and to reach them quickly meant prosperity. Improvements could come afterwards. Consequently it would never do to make tunnels if they could be avoided, even if great distances had to be travelled. In England, tunnels do not count for very much because our mountains are not large, but in Colorado a tunnel would be a serious thing, particularly for a 'baby road.' When the walls of the deep and gloomy cañon at last widened out into the broad valley, the engineers found themselves faced by the still vaster wall of snow-capped mountains. As it was impossible to go through them they would have to be climbed. The only way to do this was to go up them in a zig-zag—backwards and forwards. Miles and miles are often traversed to make only a little progress, and if after looking out of one window you cross the carriage to look out at the other, you must not be surprised to find yourself quite close to some place you remember passing half an hour ago. But you are higher up the mountain, and by-and-by a point is reached at which the trees have ceased to grow. The patient engine has dragged its train into the snowy region, too high and cold for spruce or fir to live in, and a little later the line begins to descend on the other side. The laying of this zig-zag railway was far more difficult than it looks, for great skill had to be exercised in choosing the proper places for the curves, and managing the road so that no parts of it were too steep. On one such railway in America the train travels more than four miles between two places only one mile and a quarter apart in a direct line.
Our 'baby road,' in crossing the mountain just described, climbed to a height of nine thousand three hundred and forty feet—at that time the highest point ever reached by a railway; and the first train passed over it on 16th June, 1877. Among these mountains, in certain places, where, in winter, avalanches of snow are likely to occur, long sheds like tunnels are strongly built over the railway. So terrible are these avalanches at times that the wind they cause in rushing down the mountain-side has been strong enough alone to uproot the forest trees. The sheds are so built as to form no resistance to the sliding mass, which passes easily over their sloping roofs till they are like tunnels cut through a mountain of snow. Their walls are formed of pine-logs laid on one another in the form of hollow squares, the space being filled with ballast and small stones.