Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1894 — A BIG SCHEME. [ARTICLE]

A BIG SCHEME.

Proposed Railroad From the United States to South America. People who have considered the proposed railway from the United States through Mexico, Central America and South America to the region bordering on the far southern limits of the continent a mere idle fancy, will find cause to revise their idea on seeing the report of the chief engineer, Mr. Shunk, to the commission. The survey appears to have been made all the way to Buenos Ayres, and to be found feasible. Much of the tropical region in South America will be traversed at great altitudes. for railway travel —the survey including sections that rise to heights of 7,000 and 12,000 feet above sea level. Such elevated rapid transit ought to afford much striking scenery, as well as decidedly cool weather for travelers, irrespective of the season. The survey makes the length of the proposed line 4,300 miles from the Mexican starting place to Buenos Ayres, and the cost of the completed road is put at $50,000 per mile, including some formidable grading and bridging—or about $200,000,000 in all, for which the funds are to be paid proportionally by the countries interested. The beginning of,the line will be at a point in Mexico which will make the new line continuous with the existing system in that country and the United States. Thus the completion of the road will enable a passenger to go by rail all the way from Canada almost to the very borders of the vast and bare South American region known as Patagonia. It will be a good while, yet, before the proposed road is constructed as far as Buenos Ayres. And it will be a great deal longer before a railroad is built through Patagonia. But Buenos Ayres (a large city, now) is itself located almost down to south latitude 35 degrees—or nearly as far south of the equator as the city of Richmond is north of it. From Buenos Ayres on still southward to Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Desolation, is 20 degrees farther; and the inhabitants of that country beyond the Strait of Magellan are not yet petitioning for railroad accommodations. Looking from the decks qf the Beagle in the great desolate strait, off through a water-way reaching farther south through that forbidding land, Darwin, in his notes made in 1832, remarks that the passage ‘ ‘seemed to lead to another and worse world.” Doubtless a large part of the road will pot pay for a long time; but its construction will aid in building up towns and trade along the line. Some sections, even in South America, are expected to pay from the start.—[Portland (Me.) Eastern Argus.