EAST FROM BOURNE ON THE COMPLETED SECTION The canal will be eight miles long and it is estimated that about five hundred thousand passengers will be carried through it yearly. years more than two thousand wrecks occurred, and between seven and eight hundred lives were lost because of that dangerous and frequently stormy and fog-bound route, the incalculable value of the canal as a safeguard to life and craft will be apparent. This heavy toll in life and property will be vastly re mum will probably never exceed double the present tonnage of two million. This New York State enterprise also is largely altruistic, as it will greatly benefit all the States bordering on the great lakes. Both the Panama and the Erie Canals are being financed and constructed by the Government, than fifty private citizens are engaged in the enterprise of constructing the Cape Cod Canal. Contrary to the expectation of some doubting ones, the construction of the canal has been found comparatively easy from an engineering standpoint. All sorts of difficulties were freely predicted, such as huge boulders below the surface, quicksands, etc., but fortunately for those engaged in the work these fears were largely imaginary. However, since the New Haven Railroad crossed the valley three times, the construction company had to build and pay for four miles of track in order to avoid all but one crossing-that at Buzzard's Bay-where a remarkable. railway bridge was erected, with an opening of one hundred and sixty feet. Here not merely ships of the present may pass, but dreadnaughts of the future, for the canal can, if necessary, be enlarged sufficiently to accommodate such giant craft. In addition to safety and the expediting of commerce, the Cape Cod Canal long has been recognized as a matter of military and naval importance. General Washington, in 1776, saw this and ordered Thomas Machin to survey the route which would "give greater security to navigation and against the enemy." MAKING THE DESERT SAFE FOR AUTOISTS O By CHARLES ALMA BYERS NLY a few years ago barren parched expanse are still strewn the bleached bones of numberless men who, lured by the hope of wealth, ventured too far into its interior. It unquestionably well deserved its name -then. Today, however, while still more or less dangerous in parts, it is pierced from end to end by an automobile road, and travel through it is quite common and reasonably safe. The Automobile Club of Southern California has logged, or mapped, a total of approximately fifty-four hundred miles of roads in Southwestern Ne vada and Southern Cali fornia, and several hundred miles of it is located in the desert areas. Recently, this organization has been giving special attention to making MAKING THE DESERT SAFE FOR AUTOISTS the roads of the deserts safe, and there is hardly a point of even minor importance in any of these vast untamed expanses but can be reached in an automobile with the use of the club's maps. Several miles of these desert roads have even been posted with guides to direct the traveler from point to point, and it is the intention of the organization to continue its work in this direction until every road will possess these sign posts. 59 back to Barstow, the original starting point, passing, respectively, through Searles, Randsburg, and Mojave. The total mileage of the loop is two hun SETTING THE GUIDES Men patiently spent weary days in the hot desert posting up these At present a total of four hundred and forty miles of these desert roads has been posted. One of the most important stretches thus treated is that which extends from Barstow to Ballarat, a distance of ninety-four miles. From Ballarat the road, also posted, makes a turn to the southwest and finally completes a broad gradual curve dred and seventy, a large part of which penetrates Death Valley, and all of which traverses desert country. Another similar road which has just been posted is that which extends from Barstow to Needles, a distance of one hundred and seventy miles. The old "Coleman-Borax Road", about one hundred and twelve miles in length, used to freight borax out of Death Valley, has been logged and is soon to be posted. The "Daggett-Borax Road", extending from Daggett to Furnace Creek Ranch, in Death Valley, a distance of eighty-nine miles, is another of the important desert roads that have been logged and will eventually be posted. ROAD to CEYLON S By C. F. Carter EA-GOING railroads are becoming so common these days as almost to encourage faith in the ultimate materialization of Lindenthal's theoretically possible bridge across the Atlantic. The latest of these seagoing railroads, constituting the so-called "Indo-Ceylon Connection", unites the peninsula of India with the Island of Ceylon. There are certain facts in connection with this railway of peculiar interest: The builders, a British corporation, had to come to America for the drawbridge by means of which navigation is kept open in the ship channel crossed by the sea-going railroad. This rolling lift bridge has the longest span of any similar structure yet built. The line was first proposed no less. than thirty-eight years ago, long before Henry M. Flagler ever dreamed of building his famous salt water railroad to Key West. Finally, the new road. follows a causeway built a great many centuries ago, but subse quently destroyed by the sea, according to Neville Priestly, Managing Director of the South Indian Railway. A glance at a map of India will show that Ceylon lies some sixty miles southeast of the southern extremity of Hin TOWARD INDIA FROM THE ROLLING LIFT BRIDGE dustan, from which it is separated by the Gulf of Manar and Palk Strait. These waters are studded with small rocky islands, some of them overgrown with palms and presenting a singularly beautiful appearance. Between the Island of Manar on the northwest coast of Ceylon and the Island of Rameswaram on the coast of India is the ridge of sand banks called "Adam's Bridge", which almost connects the Island of Ceylon with the continent, being intersected only by three shallow passages, the remainder being covered with two to six feet of water. These channels admit only very small vessels; but between Rameswaram and the mainland is Pamban Pass, a fourteen-foot channel dredged some fifty years ago for the benefit of the coasting THE GREAT VIADUCT OF THE SEA-GOING RAILROAD TO CEYLON THE LIFT BRIDGE IS THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION TO BRITISH ENTERPRISE By means of this bridge, navigation is kept open in the ship channel crossed by the sea-going railroad. trade. This is the only navigable channel between India and Ceylon. Although so near to each other geographically, India and Ceylon were so far apart in practicable transportation routes that formerly the traveler had to endure a voyage of two hundred miles in a small vessel across the rough waters of the Gulf of Manar between Tuticorin, the southernmost railroad terminus on the mainland, and Colombo, Ceylon. This voyage magnified the horrors of the English Channel ten-fold; and any man who wants to be ten times as seasick as he can get on the passage between Dover and Calais is unreasonable. No wonder the poor coolies used to think twice before venturing on such a trip, even when tempted by the comparatively big wages offered in Ceylon. Whereas American railroad men are wont to build lines first and figure out where traffic is to come from afterward, Englishmen demand to see the color of the dividends before paying out money in construction. Although the Indo-Ceylon connection was first proposed in 1876, no definite action was taken in the matter until 1894, when an estimate was prepared which showed the cost of bridging the twenty-two miles of sea known as Adam's Bridge, as likely to be $8,750,000. As this was more than the prospective traffic seemed to warrant, the idea was abandoned until 1906 when Neville Priestly, then agent of the South Indian Railway Company, proposed a return to the Adam's Bridge route on a compromise basis. That is, he proposed to build a sea-going railroad part of the distance, leaving a gap of twenty miles to be covered by ferry till the growth of traffic warranted the completion of the bridge for the entire distance across the shallow waters between India and the Island of Ceylon. This was such an obviously practical solution that the company took it up. The work consisted of an extension of the South Indian Railway, which runs south from Madras on the eastern coast of the peninsula, from Mandapam, on the mainland, to Dhanushkodi on the Island of Rameswaram; an extension from Madawachi on the main line of the Ceylon Government Rail |