. The Andes and the Amazon :|bor across the continent of South America. will fall on the oppositeside of the stream. So that, in forcing the railway upthe Cordilleras, the engineers have literally threaded themountains by a series of sixty-three tunnels, whose aggre-gate length is 21,000 feet. The great tunnel of Galera,by which the locomotive is to be taken over the Andes,2 F 450 The Andes and the Amazons. will be 3800 feet long. Besides boring the flinty rock,and making enormous bridges, cuts, and fills, the work-men (of whom 8000 have been engaged at one time)have had to contend against lan
. The Andes and the Amazon :|bor across the continent of South America. will fall on the oppositeside of the stream. So that, in forcing the railway upthe Cordilleras, the engineers have literally threaded themountains by a series of sixty-three tunnels, whose aggre-gate length is 21,000 feet. The great tunnel of Galera,by which the locomotive is to be taken over the Andes,2 F 450 The Andes and the Amazons. will be 3800 feet long. Besides boring the flinty rock,and making enormous bridges, cuts, and fills, the work-men (of whom 8000 have been engaged at one time)have had to contend against land-slides, falling bowlders,sorroche (or the difficulty of breathing at high altitudes),the extremes of climate, pestilential diseases, as fevers andverrugas, and accidents by falling from the rocks and inblasting. About 7000 have died or been killed in theconstruction of the road thus far. The bridges and cross-ings number about thirty. All are of iron or are of French and English manufacture; but thebest are American. Of these, the Verrugas Bridge is the. Ven-n^iis Bridge, Oroya Railway. most remarkable structure of its kind in the world. Itspans a chasm 580 feet wide, and rests on three base of the middle pier is 50 feet square, and itsheight is 252 feet. The deflection is only five eighths ofan inch. It was made at Phoenixville, Pa., of hollowwrought-iron columns, and cost in New York $63, triumph of American ingenuity is the great attrac-tion in Peru, and is the wonder and praise of all maximum grade of this road is four per cent.; the Aeequipa Railroad. 451 sharpest curve, 395 feet radius; aud the average consump-tion of coal, 65 pounds per mile. Mules and gunpowderare indispensable in advance of the locomotive, and to-gether make quite an item; $115,000 are invested in thequadrupedal means of transportation, and 500,000 poundsof powder are used monthly for blasting. My fearfully grand ride down the Andes on a hand-cardrawn by grav
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidandesamazonb, bookyear1876
