the Mississippi navigable by the largest ships. The jetties stretch outward toward the sea like great arms, so narrowing the channel as to force the river to scour it out, doing the work for itself.

The gigantic task is now practically completed. Not only is the railroad finished, with the requisite locomotives and cars supplied, but the terminal ports are in a position to deal with the expected traffic. Huge steel wharves have been erected, with warehouses and all facilities for loading and unloading freight. Extensive railroad yards have been provided, and everything imaginable is at hand that can help in the rapid handling of merchandise of all sorts. The Mexican government, which owns the entire outfit, will have its own lines of steamers plying between New Orleans and Coatzacoalcos and between Salina Cruz and San Francisco.

The Tehuantepec Railroad proposes to compete for all traffic between our own Atlantic ports and the Orient; also for the trade between New York and San Francisco, and between European ports and the Orient-in a word, for all of the traffic that is now moving around Cape Horn, over our transcontinental railroads, and through the Suez Canal. Even were the proposed Panama Canal an accomplished fact, this Mexican outfit would be a formidable rival, for a number of reasons presently to be stated. Mr.

John F. Wallace, former Chief Engineer of the Panama Canal, in the course of a recent address, declared that our Panama investment, which already represents a cost of $70,000,000, may suffer serious impairment by the attractiveness of the Tehuantepec route.

As compared with Panama, the average saving of distance to all points in Europe and on our Atlantic coast is no less than 1,250 miles. An ordinary freight steamer travels at the rate of ten miles an hour,

STEEL BRIDGE OVER TEHUANTEPEC River.

are required to transfer freight from ship to ship, ocean to ocean, by the Mexican route; but, even considering this drawback, there is still a saving of four days, or $2,000.

Another advantage of the Tehuantepec route is that it is out of the region of calms and variable breezes. Sailing vessels, which must always carry much of

PEON GATHERING PULQUE.

the world's commerce, are likely to find Panama inaccessible. They cannot reach it, and they cannot get away from it, because of the lack of reliable winds. It is in what sailors call the Doldrums. One of the foremost of modern authorities in navigation, the celebrated Maury, said: "Should Nature by one of her convulsions rend the American Continent in twain, and make a channel across the Isthmus of Panama as deep, as wide, and as free as the Straits of Dover, it could never become a thoroughfare for sailing vessels."

The Tehuantepec Railroad will be able to transfer freight across the isthmus at $2 per ton from ship-hold to ship-hold. "It is estimated," says Mr. Wallace, "that modern steamers can carry ocean freight with profit at the rate of $1 a ton per 1,000 miles. On this basis, from New York to Sydney, Australia, the saving in distance by the Mexican route would be 5,700 miles, and any rate across the neck less than $5.75 per ton should take this business from the Suez Canal. This does not count the time required to steam 5,700 miles-from which, of course, should be subtracted the time consumed in transferring the freight by rail across the isthmus. From New Orleans to Hong Kong, the saving over Suez would be 4,800 miles and fourteen days in time; and from New Orleans to Yokohama the saving, similarly reckoned, would be 8,400 miles and twenty-four days."

One of the difficulties encountered by the Tehuantepec enterprise is the tendency of the luxuriant tropical vegetation to overrun the tracks, obstructing the line. To overcome this trouble a novel and ingenious contrivance is employed, which, it is reckoned, will save $12,000 a year in labor. It is an apparatus, which, by the help of a huge atomizer, distributes a powerful chemical fluid on either side of the road, the liquid being heated in a tank car by steam coils. Applied hot in this way, it kills even the

roots.

The climate of the Tehuantepec Isthmus compares most favorably with that of Panama, being mild and healthful. Coffee, cacao, tobacco, vanilla, and sugarcane are grown in the region, which has a population of about 50,000. The inhabitants are hardy and industrious,