Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

130 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. great numbers of alligators. These brave men suffered terrible hardships in this inhospitable region. One party had to be rescued by a relief expedition, and was found on the verge of starvation. In the end it was decided to run the line down to Homestead, and from were comparatively easy. At this point the Everglades are entered, and the next 17 miles, down to Water’s Edge, are virtually through a heavy mangrove swamp, and it was here that the first difficulties were encountered. An embankment was thrown up for the track CLEARING FOR VIADUCT THROUGH COCOANUT GROVES ON LONG KEY. there across the Everglades to Water’s Edge or Land’s End, the distance between Home- stead and Water’s Edge being some 17 miles. At this point the road becomes truly marine, or, more exactly, amphibious, reaching its destination, Key West, by crossing forty- seven islands. The channels between these vary in width from a few hundred yards to several miles, with a depth of water from a few feet to over forty feet. The road is carried over these gaps on embankments and viaducts of concrete built up from the ocean bottom. Surveying in the keys was particularly diffi- cult. Most of the work had to be done afloat, and some of the engineers were lost among the hundreds of islets for days at a time. Tall towers had to be built for sighting the instru- ments on account of the distance between the islands. The first 28 miles of line south of Miami with the help of specially-constructed dredges. Before these could be set to work, however, the engineers had to dig out a channel on each side of the Dredging i the route. Down these channels Swamps, the dredges, navigable in feet of water, made their way, using the material excavated for building up the railway embankment. They were contin- ually hampered and delayed in their task by the rock, which came so near the surface as to necessitate the construction of locks to float the machines over them. Then had to be filled two arms of a large bay—Jewfish Creek— over which the railway is carried. The filling of these arms made it necessary for the engin- eers to form an artificial outlet to the creek. So the line continues right down to the shore, and reaches, by means of a handsome steel drawbridge, the first of the keys—Key Largo,