RIO DE JANEIRO.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15308, 5 June 1922, Page 2

RIO DE JANEIRO.

MOVING A MOUNTAIN. CITY IMPROVEMENTS. The old saying that with faith it is possible to remove mountains is being proved true in America to-day, the mountain in this ease being one of rock. Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, which from its lovely situation is known as the Paradise City of South America, although it already has nearly a million and a quarter inhabitants, needs-room for still further expansion. But a mountain stands in the way. The' Morro de Castello, that overlooks the wonderful Bay of Rio and covers an area at its base equal to a small town, forms an absolute bar to the extension of the city in that direction. The sides are far too steep to be built on, and, after much consideration, the authorities decided that the only possible hope for the city was to remove the mountain and build on its site. The Brazilians, however, had not enough faith to believe that they could move the obstacle. Not so the engineers of the United States, who have already performed so many wonderful feats. They examined the obstructing eminence, and decided that it could be shifted out of the way so as to allow the city to grow. An American firm of contractors undertook to do the work for two and a half million pounds. Already the great task has begun. Devices and the finest machinery known to modern engineering science are to be utilised. Hard rock is to he blown away with blasting powder, hut, as most of the mountain is composed of comparatively soft and loose earth, the chief means used in its removal will he hydraulic pressure. In other words, most of the mountain will he washed away.

In such a gigantic task one of the main problems that has to he faeert is where the removed matter shall Ibe dumped. This has been solved. J however, in a way satisfactory to Rio de Janeiro, for not only will the mountain be removed from the spot the material of which it is composed will be deposited at a certain part of •the shore where the bay curves round, so as to extend the area of that shore, arid thus add a little more • land to the city and the country. A crescent-shaped break-water will protect the newly dumped area. Three pumps driven by gasoline will draw water from the bay at the rate of,seven thousand gallons a minute each, and by directing this at high pressure on the hill the material will be washed away on the place desired. The work will go on continuously for the whole 24 hours of each day and for . the 365 days of the year, so that the water used will be over thirty million gallons a day, or a total for the year of nearly 11,040,000,000 gallons. When the bulk of the mountain has been removed by this hydraulic means, steam shovels and automatic dumpears will finish levelling the site. The land thus made available for the spread of the city will be laid out in beautiful, tree-lined avenues, and seventy large blocks of modern buildings will be erected. The additional stretch of shore will be made into a park. It is a great task, but the American engineers and their three thousand workmen will carry it to a triumphal conclusion,. How astonished the old Portuguese builders of the original settlement of Rio would be could they see the modern city with one of its principal geographical landmarks removed!