MOTOR ROAD OVER ANDES

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21156, 4 July 1940, Page 3

MOTOR ROAD OVER ANDES

FEAT OF ENGINEERING .*5 STUPENDOUS UNDERTAKING By a stroke of engineering genius traffic communications between Argentina and Chile have been suddenly increased by means that would have seemed impossible to travellers of 50 years ago. Between the two Republics stretches a vast link of the Andes Mountains, which is here a boundary 1500 miles long that must be passed before either nation can reach the other. Extending almost in an unbroken line through South America a distance of 4000 miles, the Andes are a world of marvels, comprising aweinspiring volcanoes, beneath whose troubled foundations terrible earthquakes originate. They are the source of rivers. Their mightly valleys shelter great cities. They teem with riches in gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, quicksilver, zinc and coal. But, fiery within, and in places eternally wrapped in snow, they are a barrier shutting off the east of the continent from the west. To remove this isolation engineers pierced the mountains beneath the Upsallata Pass 30 years ago, and since then railway trains have run through a mountain tunnel 7520 yards long and rising at its highest point to 10,520 feet. The tunnel through the Andes, however, restricted travel to the rail- j way for t although there is a perilous track over the mountains above its course, deep snow blocks the pass for nine months of the year. What the engineers have done now is to make a motor-way through the tunnel. A modification of the roads approaching the tunnel and running through it now makes it possible for travellers from Chile to Argentina or from Argentina to Chile to make their way through the heart of the Andes without leaving their cars. Thus one more barrier is converted into a highway. Lofty mountains are as effective hindrances as seas to communications until engineers come to pierce them. They separate nation from nation, and lead to the evotion of birds and animals peculiar to restricted heights and ranges, a notable example being the existence of those camel-like animals the llamas and vicunas. These remarkable creatures are found wild nowhere but among the coarse grass limited to certain areas of these mountains, through which motor-cars have now begun to run.