SAN FRANCISCO TO PARIS BY RAIL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8242, 21 September 1906, Page 3

SAN FRANCISCO TO PARIS BY RAIL.

"A journey of over 8000 miles, and never a patob of water to pass on the way that will furnish the suggestion of qualma of seasickness," says the San Francisco Bulletin. "San Franciscans are not thinking of this question very much in these day 9," continues the journal, "but all Europe is. The slogan of--the Cape to Cairo railroad in Africa and the ALL-AM EKIUAN LINE from the United 'States to Cape Horn has been laid aside in a fervid discussion of the Paris San Pranoisco railroad. . It is not so chimerical as one would think. Indeed, M. de Loebel, a Frenchman, has already surveyed part of the road. Russia baa jumped into the proposition with energy, and ia ■[MOVING HEAVEN AND EARTH to interest the right people. In faot, when you delve into them atter most of the railroad is already completed. . The trans-Siberian road furnishes most of it, and brings Paris in communication with Vladivostok, the terminus of the line on the Facitio aide of Asia. From that point only two stretches of railroading will have tc be done to BRING THE LINE into San Francisco; a line from Vladivostok to the proposed tunnel 38 miles long to be built under the Behring Straits, separating Asia and America, and a railroad / connecting the American side of the tunnel wvith' Vancouver. The engineering feat in the whole scheme is the 38-mile tunnel connecting America and Asia. Experts who had studied the subject PRONOUNCE THE TUNNEL !j perfectly feasible, and they have so reported to the Russian Government. The tunnel would be pierced through solid rock for tho wtfclo distance, and it is said that the material to bo uxouvated would not exceed that taken out of the New York Subway." The idea of an Alaskan-Siberian road itself is not exactly new. In the early eighties of the past century the question of UNITING THE OLD WORLD wkh the new by this means was discussed in EuropeHii and American periodical. Serious doubt was expressed at that time as to tho practicability of tho plan. Jn 1880, however, Mr J. W. Poweil, director of the United States Geological Survey, was requested by tiio Senate to report to that body or: ;.!.ie possibility of railroad communication be- ' tween Alaska and Siberia. Mr Powell reported that his investigations and inquiries led bun to believe that the establishment of RAILROAD COMMUNICATION between the United States and Asiatic Russia and Japan would invovle no greater difficulties than were encountered in the construction of the existing transcontinental railroads.