SAN FRANCISGO TO PARIS BY RAIL.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 11999, 17 October 1906, Page 4

SAN FRANCISGO TO PARIS BY RAIL.

"A jouhnky of over 8000 miles, and never a patch of water to pass on the way that will furnish the suggestion of qualms of sea sickness," says the San Francisco Bulletin. "San Franciscans are not thinking of this question very much in these days," continues the journal, "but all Europe is. The slogan of the Cape to Cairo railroad in Africa and the all-American line from the United States to Cape Horn has been laid aside in a fervid discussion of the Paris-San Francisco railroad. It id not so chimerical as one would think. Indeed, M. de Loebel, a Frenchman, has already surveyed part of the road. Russia has jumped into the proposition with energy, and is moving heaven and earth to interest the right people. In fact, when you delve into the matter most of the railroad is already completed. The trans-Siberian road furnishes most of it, and brings Paris into communication with Vladivostock, the terminus of the line of the Pacific coast of Asia. From that point only two stretches of railroading will have to be done to bring the line into San Francisco; a line from Vladivostock 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 with Vancouver. The engineering feat in the whole scheme is the 38-mile tunnel connecting America and Asia. Experts who have studied the subject pronounce the tunnel perfectly feasible, and they have so reported to the Russian Government. The tunnel would be pierced through solid rock for the whoh distance, and it is said that the material to be excavated . would not exceed that takeu out of the New York subway." The idea of an Alaskan-Siberian road itself is not exactly new. la tho early eighties of

Ahe past century the .question of uniting the old world with the new by this means was discussed in European and American periodicals. Serious doubt was expressed at that time as to the practicability of the plan. In 1886, however, Mr J. W. Powell, director of the United States Geological Survey, was requested by the Sonate to report to that body on the possibility oi railroad communication between Alaska and Siberia. Mr Powell reported that his investigations and inquiries led him to believe that the establishment of railroad communication between the United States and Asiatic Russia and Japan would inTolve no greater difficulties than were encountered in the construction of the existing trars-continental railroads.