Our Railroad Age. 59 



ne6l Carthagena with the Florida and New Orleans 

 terminij but when the Central American road is com- 

 pleted, the ferry will only be across the mouth of the 

 Bay of Panama, from Azuero in Panama to Cupica bay 

 in Antioquia, 135 miles, whence a special branch railroad 

 will convey passengers and freight to the central line. 

 A distinguished and enterprising American railroad man. 

 Captain H. C. PARSONS, is the originator and controlling 

 spirit of this greatest railroading proje6l ever undertaken, 

 and he has spent upon it fifteen years of study and a 

 considerable amount of money in travelling, investigating, 

 examining surveys, and colle6ting all information gene- 

 rally, and he has now been at last enabled to demonstrate 

 to the satisfaftion of capitalists its feasibility. The only 

 part of the proposed route that remains absolutely un- 

 known is that region lying between the sources of the 

 Magdalena and Napa rivers, over the dividing ridge of the 

 Cordilleras in Ecuador, and which is about one hundred 

 miles in extent, and there the only real difficulties will 

 be met with. A chain of mountains will certainly have 

 to be crossed, of the formation of which nothing is 

 known, savage tribes having hitherto rendered all efforts 

 at exploration abortive. The explorations and surveys 

 will therefore have to be made under an armed escort, 

 but there can be no doubt that the savages will soon 

 yield to the inevitable advancement of civilisation. As 

 regards all the rest of the route, the official data col- 

 lected by Captain PARSONS at the expense of so much 

 time and capital, go to show that the obstacles to be 

 encountered are far less than those overcome in the 

 constru6lion of the Canadian Pacific and the Denver and 

 Grande lines in North America. The estimated length 



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