25.26 pounds power used per ton. Then it is clear that the 18-inch engine, with 22,674 pounds tractive force, should pull as many tons as 25.26 is contained in 22,674, which equals 898 tons, or the rating for the 18-inch engine. The 18-inch engine would have the advantage on ac

count of having a greater heating surface to her cylinder volume and in service would stay hot easier and stand harder hitting in taking a run for a hill. The above would be a fair comparable rating in the absence of a practical test.

Railway Club

A Railroad in the Far North.

MR. J. R. VAN CLEVE: The head of Lynn Canal, the extreme northern limit of what is known as "The Inland Passage," is the logical starting point for this rail connection. It is as near the head of navigation of the Upper Yukon as salt water can take one. All that could be desired in the way of a deep and sheltered harbor marks the entrance to the Skagway Valley, the key to the best route through the mountain range which separates the head waters of the Yukon from tide water, known as the White Pass. Several surveys were made before sufficient distance was found for a feasible grade; but when a survey was finally made which demonstrated that twenty miles could be had to make this climb of 2,940 feet, on a maximum grade of 3.9 per cent., little time was lost in financing the undertaking and getting to work. The grading outfit reached Skagway May 27, 1898, and, as a sort of initiation fee, paid $500 for the privilege of pitching camp on the only spot suitable for such a purpose, title to the ground not entering into this transaction. Skagway has so far found room for itself in an acute-angled triangle, whose base, some 3,000 feet in length, is the water-front at the foot of this valley; one side, the east wall of the valley; the remaining side, the Skagway River, which, as a last act, cuts this much-chopped-up little valley in two on the bias. The altitude of this triangle is a mile and a half, and this first camp was pitched at its apex. Our present shops are located on the site of this first camp. The view which I have marked No. 1 probably gives as good an idea of the town as could be had from one view-point. It shows but a corner of the wharf over which virtually all business is now done, and back of which the railroad has freight tracks. No. 2 shows about half of this wharf, and gives a very good idea of its appearance dur

Proceedings

ing the season of river navigation. The natural route from "Camp 1" is along the east side of the river, which for some little distance has hugged the east wall of the valley; but a wagon road, operated as a toll road, occupied the only available ground for such a purpose for a distance of about three miles, with a price set upon its right of possession which forced the railroad to cross the river at this point, recrossing again as soon as it could be done without interfering with the toll road. Our railroad, now some five miles from tide-water, with no opportunity thus far to make any material progress skyward, lost no further time in that direction, but soon got above and beyond any further danger of conflict with the toll road. Good progress was now being made, with every indication that the summit would be reached before winter set in, when a stampede to the Atlin gold fields set in, which in three days carried with it more than a thousand men off the grade, and virtually put a stop to everything. It was well into the winter before men could be had and active work resumed. Notwithstanding this exasperating delay, the track reached the summit of the well-named White Pass on February 18, 1899, having pushed its way through the ruggedest kind of mountain work in our heaviest snow district, this task including the building of thirty-seven bridges, the material for which was in most cases snaked up the mountainside by man power. The fight for a railroad over this pass being thrown into the winter months, furnished a continuous performance for an army of snow shovelers. View No. 3 will give some idea of the magnitude of this undertaking. The lone figure in this picture is standing at one of the storm-swept points in the path made by our rotary plow, which last winter accomplished the task of keeping this mountain open to daily traffic, without a skip, in spite of the fact that, every winter since this road has been in operation,

the outside papers have brought us word that the "White Pass and Yukon Route" is hopelessly buried in snow and abandoned for the winter, the depths under which reports have us buried ranging from fifty to 200 feet.

While the item of snow is before us, it might be well to state that our snowbucking outfit consists of a standardgauge rotary, with its trucks closed in to our three-foot gauge, and two of our heaviest engines to keep it up to its work. This outfit makes daily trips over our mountain district through the winter months, and a duplicate outfit is held here in reserve. Aside from an occasional trip by the rotary to the foot of Lake Bennett, flangers and pilot plows on our road engines take care of the snow north of Bennett, as the station at the head of the lake is called, for, strange as it may seem, the farther north we go, the less snow we encounter. On account of the great amount of water used by the rotary in heavy snow, as compared with that used by its pushers, the injector piping on the engines assigned to rotary service has been so arranged that their injectors can put water either into their own boilers or into the tender ahead. This arrangement permits the rotary to work as long as there is water in the outfit, which arrangement has in many cases cut out a stop for water by the snow-melting process, which in some of our storms might easily mean a tie up.

But, to get back to construction work: The completion of the track to Lake Bennett marked the end of another chapter of trying delays, including a laborers' strike. In spite of these delays, no opportunity to push the work at every point was overlooked, a large portion of the work on the Canadian side also being done in the winter. Although track laying north of White Pass Summit was not begun until June 21st, Lake Bennett was reached July 6th, these twenty-one miles of track being laid in sixteen days, in addition to three miles of grading, part of which was rock work. It is hardly necessary to add that every minute of those sixteen nightless days was improved. The train which put the track into Bennett returned to Skagway on the same day, with over a ton and a half or gold dust and 200 passengers glad of a chance to ride on flat cars over the pass, which recalled to the minds of many of them hardships and tests of endurance they had no desire to experience again.

It being apparent that the heavy rock

work along Lake Bennett would be the last piece of grade ready for the track, an engine, together with a few flats and enough material for a start at track laying, was put over the lake before the freeze up. Work on the grade north of Caribou Crossing, at the foot of the lake, was begun the latter part of August, and, together with the work along the lake shore, was pushed with vigor all winter. The balance of the material for the track north of Caribou, together with another engine and flats, was taken over the lake the following spring, and on July 8th these forty-two miles were open for traffic. During the seven weeks' wait for the track along the lake shore, the lake was used as a connecting link, and freight began moving into White Horse, the name given to the town created by this new condition of things, and situated at the foot of the rapids from which it takes its name, the rapids which mark the first break'in the navigable waters of the Yukon above Dawson. On July 29, 1900, the final connection was made at Caribou Crossing, with ceremonies befitting the driving of the last spike, and through rail service between tide water and the head of unbroken navigation of the Upper Yukon was at last a fact.

The work north of Caribou was comparatively light. What might be called the spectacular feature of this part of the work was the draining of Lewis Lake. The locating engineer conceived the idea of lowering the level of the lake about five feet, to give a better line and to make the work lighter along its shore. It was found that a ditch connecting Lewis with a couple of small lakes about a quarter of a mile away would accomplish this, these small lakes in turn having the Watson River to take care of their surplus. A ditch ten feet wide was decided upon, and, while this was being dug, the question was raised as to the length of time it would take the lake to find its new level. One engineer set the time at three months, and pronounced the ditch too small. The engineer in charge, however, thought it safe to leave something to the action of the water, and decided that a larger ditch would be a needless expense. Subsequent events more than bore him out in this view of the matter, for the nature of the material through which the ditch was dug proved so yielding that this little stream soon became a raging torrent, and the bottom proceeded to drop out of that lake with a celerity fairly dazzling. When the rush was over, such a change was found to have been wrought in

the topography of the neighborhood that a revision of the map, as well as of the plans of the locating engineer, became the next logical order of business. The new level of the water impounded in the pockets of the lake's former bottom was found to be eighty-one feet below the old level of the lake. No. 5 is a corner of the lake's old bed crossed by the road, and gives a fair idea of the work accomplished by the digging of that little ditch. If a train were to be caught on the bridge to be seen in this picture by a sudden res

and sent up here for erection. But little time was lost, however, in getting together the necessary tools and organizing a force sufficient to take care of our running work and to keep up with the demand for freight equipment, which included flat, box, stock and refrigerator cars and coal dumps. With the exception of our baggage cars and an official car, we have so far looked to the outside for our passenger equipment. But our aim has been to make ourselves as independent of the outside world as we consistently could,

toration of the water of the lake, it would be entirely submerged. The awe which this act of the "Boston man" inspired in the Indians would have been no more profound had he reversed the current of the Yukon and turned its waters into Lynn Canal.

While construction work was being carried on, the question of equipment was, of course, being given attention. The engines for this work were picked up where they could be had the quickest, for there was no dallying between the decision to build and getting to work, and waiting for engines to be built was out of the question. A score of flats were also picked up at second hand, and, while a start was being made toward a shop, a few of the first freight cars were framed in Seattle

the wisdom, not to say necessity, of which can readily be seen when it is borne in mind that a thousand miles of water separate us from any possible market. To this end we have included in our modest plant a brass and iron foundry, which provides us with everything in that line entering into the construction of freight cars and into car and locomotive repairs, as well as into the repairs of the fleet of lake and river boats which constitute a part of this route to Dawson and to the Atlin district. With high mountains close at hand on every side to further shorten our all too short winter days, the question of light became an important one. Electricity was decided upon as the best and most reliable substitute for daylight, and,