ACROSS THE GULF. BY RAIL TO KEY WEST 
207 
which must find a daily market, is limited to the local demand. 
"With rapid transportation the Florida keys would supply the 
country with fresh vegetables all winter. 
Key West is destined to become the Newport of the South. 
Not since the exceptional year 1886 has the temperature risen 
above 92° F. or fallen below 44° ; in fact, the mean annual maxi- 
mum of the last nine years has been only 90.4°, while the mean 
annual minimum has been 50.5°. In 1891 the minimum was 
53°, in 1892 53°, and in 1893 52°. Soft breezes from the ocean 
blow continuously over the island. The sun shines for 365 da}"s 
in the year and is never obscured for more than a few hours at 
a time, except occasionally in the months of September and 
October, when a West India cyclone is passing up the gulf. There 
are no malaria-breeding pools or streams, and sooner or later the 
thousands of tourists who are restlessly seeking a milder and 
more equable winter climate than the mainland affords will find 
in Key ^^"est their ideal health resort. 
The products of the West Indies and Caribbean sea will be 
ferried across from Cuba in five hours and taken b}^!^ railroad 
for distribution to all parts of the United States. Capital seek- 
ing investment will reap no handsomer return than from a dry 
dock at Key West, into which would come for repairs the trad- 
ing-vessels of the gulf which now have to go hundreds of miles 
out of their way to Newport News, and with the completion of 
the Nicaragua canal Key West would be a port of call for sup- 
plies and repairs for no small part of the shipjnng of the Avorld. 
A railroad to Key West will assuredl}'- be built, ^\’hile the 
fact that it has no exact counterpart among the great achieve- 
ments of modern engineering may make it, like all other great 
enterprises, a subject for a time of incredulity and distrust, it 
presents, as has been shown, no difficulties that are insurmount- 
able. It is, however, a magnificent enterprise and one the exe- 
cution of which will call for the exercise of qualities of the very 
highest order. ^^'llO will be its Cyrus W. Field? The hopes of 
the i)Cople of Key West are centered in Henry INI. Flagler, whose 
financial genius and jmblic spirit have opened up to the tourist 
and health-seeker 300 miles of the beautiful east coast of the 
state. Tlie building of a railroad to Key West would be a fitting 
consummation of Mr. Flagler’s remarkable career, and his name 
would be handed down to jtosterity linked to one of the grandest 
achievements of modern times. 
