Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1917 — ZIGZAG ROAD IN AUSTRALIA [ARTICLE]

ZIGZAG ROAD IN AUSTRALIA

Famous Piece of Railroad Now Replaced by Dozen Expensive Tunnels to Make Big Descent In looking back over the history of the original settlement at Sydney, at first it seems strange that the base of the Blue mountains, a plateau 3,000 feet in hei gl 11 and ada y's ride Iromthe coast, should mark the edge of known land for 25 years after ctvnizatlom a writer in the National Geographic Magazine observes. There are. however, good reasons for tins seeming lack of enterprise. The Blue mountains, though not lofty, are broad, and constitute a formidable barrier. There are no long valleys heading in practicable passes and furnishing access from the east and the west; the stream heads are boxes inclosed by walls, and it was only when the narrow divides were chosen for causeways that the passage of the mountains was successfully accomplished. The famous “zigzags” of the first railroad, now replaced by a dozen expensive tunnels required for the precipitous descent of 2,000 feet, give even tlie casual tourist an impression of the ruggedness of the plateau; and when one is led out onto one of a hundred - -flat-topped promontories and gazes down into canons whose walls may be scaled only by an experienced •mmmttdueei and —hwks —out over—atangle of canons and cliffs and tables at lower levels, he realizes that “magnificent scenery” for the present generation must have been obstacles” to the scout in search of tillable land. It is as if the only feasible crossing of the Appalachians which confined the American colonists to the coastal belt were through the most rugged portion of West Virginia rather than along the Mohawk or through the Cumberland gap.