Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 285 ventures of the engineer explorers, and the steady toil of those who drilled and blasted the rocks, hewed and placed The Great the timbers spanning the Hotels of . it. .. rivers,, creeks, and ravines, the ’ C.P.R. and finally laid the steel. We have noted the development of the whole country that has followed the gift of communication and transportation between its various provinces. We have considered the ocean fleets on the Atlantic and the Pacific which make it possible for the C.P.R. to carry passengers under their own care the whole way from England to Japan and to China. Before concluding, we should mention the Company’s great hotels. Perhaps these might be omitted from a story of which the avowed object is to deal with its subject from an engineering point of view, were it not that, to ensure the successful completion of at least one of them, the Company not only built the hotel itself, but made the land upon which it stands. repairing A c.p.r. engine. (Done once every four years.) province of British Columbia erected with such lavish expenditure. The bay between the two was spanned by a fine bridge separating the harbour on the one side from the tidal flats on the other. Where once the residents of Vic- toria shot ducks there now stands the western- most of the C.P.R. hotels. To make its erec- tion possible a strong retaining wall was built to protect the bridge, and the flats were filled AN ADVERTISEMENT TRAIN. The Empress Hotel at Victoria. the city, and The city of Victoria was formerly cut in two by James Bay, an arm of the sea which, uncovered by the retreating tide, was at low water merely an expanse of mud. On the western shore of the bay stood the main business portion of on the east, facing the harbour, the imposing Parliament buildings which the with mud pumped from the bottom of the harbour. The pressure exerted by this sea of mud while it dried was so great that the massive stone walls were cracked and had to be again strengthened to ensure the safety of the bridge itself. Deep into this “ made ” ground the foundations of the hotel were sunk, the excavations having meanwhile . to be protected by massive piling. The magnifi-