Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 261 tage denied to those who have to build through country already settled. They could plan out the stations, round houses, Some divisional points, and tool and Advantageous . . Conditions. rePair shoPs on a scientlfic plan, unhampered by the de- mands of landlords. The stations were located about sixteen miles apart on level sections, with passing places half-way between every two stations. Heavy as was the engineering on the sec- filled up with vast deposits of timber and muck piling, used in such quantities that the contractors might well think that they had struck the bottomless abyss itself. At a point between Sudbury and Cartier a lake was lowered ten feet in order to find a base for the track. The lake being on the summit of a convenient gradient, a canal was constructed to draw off the water, and the roadway was built along the shore two feet above the low- ered surface of the lake. C.P.R. STANDARD PASSENGER ENGINE. Heavy Rock Work. tion from Fort William to Fort Garry (Winni- peg), it was easy as compared with that on the section along the north shore of Lake Superior, which cost 12,000,000 dollars for the 200 miles. Here the rocks are granite and flint, with mica schist and black trap, and to blast them 2,100,000 dollars’ worth of dynamite was needed. Even before the northern shore of Lake Superior was reached by those working west- wards, the Filling in Swamps. engineers had to face serious problems. The country north of Lake Huron was full of “ muskegs ”—lakes concealed under a thick surface growth of decayed vegetable matter and peat which is thick, but not deep or solid enough to carry a railroad track. These muskegs had to be Viewed from the lake, the' coast-line pre- sented a most forbidding prospect, but the surveyors found a number of interior lakes just inside the coast-line. “ The route was laid out, in some cases, on the smaller lakes inland, and in others upon the per- pendicular southern faces of the cliffs, while coves were encircled, crags tunnelled, and fissures and canyons crossed by lofty bridges.” In order to keep the gradient at less than 1 per cent., an enormous amount of deep rock cutting and high bridging had to be done on this section. The Pic River was crossed on an iron truss _ ... . Bridging, bridge on stone piers at 110 feet above water, and the track at Jackfish Bay winds so much that it takes three miles to advance half a mile as the crow flics. The