F.— 6

60

From Santa Lucreeia to Salina Cruz there is a daily service of Pullman oars in connection with the trains on the Vera Cruz and Pacific Railway. The headquarters of the Tehuantepec Railway are situated at Rincon Antonio, where the principal offices and repair shops of the company have been erected. The railway-station is a solid and commodious steel-frame structure, filled in with brick and cement. Comfortable modern houses have been erected for the general manager and superior officials, whilst the subordinate officials, clerks, mechanics, &c, are provided for in excellent staff houses, provided with electric light, bathrooms, and all modern sanitary requirements. Electric-power is used throughout the shops, generated by a steam plant, crude oil being used for fuel. The river at Coatzacoalcos forms an excellent natural harbour, with ample depth of water; but the bar at its mouth has prevented the entrance of ships except those of very light draught. To remove this obstruction to navigation, two converging jetties have been nearly completed from the mouth of the river into the sea, to confine the river-water within such a narrow channel that it will itself scour away the bar, assisted at first by a certain amount of dredging until a depth of 33 ft. is obtained. The jetties will be about 1,300 metres long, and built of rock and rubble. Both jetties are practically completed, with the exception of the protecting blocks at the extremities. Four steel wharves 136 yards long have been built, with iron warehouses along them 136 yards long by 36 yards wide, and one timber wharf 216 yards long, all ready for service and provided with the necessary railway-tracks. Six electric cranes and twelve capstans have been provided for handling cargo, and an electric plant of 1,000 kilowatts installed to furnish the necessary energy for these cranes and for other purposes. More cranes are now being erected. The creation of a port at Salina Cruz has been by far the most difficult part of the whole undertaking, involving enormous breakwaters to form an outer harbour of refuge, and an inner basin, or harbour proper, dug out of the foreshore. The east breakwater is 1,100 yards long, whilst the west breakwater will be 630 yards long. Both are curved, with the convex sides of the curves turned seawards. The entrance to the outer harbour between the breakwaters is 216 yards wide. The construction of these breakwaters is as follows : First a rubble-formation is laid to 33 ft. below low water, varying in width from 8? yards at the base to 54 yards at the top. Upon this foundation random blocks of rock or concrete - , weighing 25 tons or more, are deposited by means of steamcranes, the bank of separate blocks having a slope of 45 degrees. On top of these are two rows of concrete blocks, 40 tons each, carefully placed in position, having a joint width of 33 ft. by 6 ft. 6 in. high, their surface being nearly 18 ft. above low water. Above the placed blocks will be a parapet 19| ft. wide by 6 ft. 6 in. high. At the end of 11)05 the cast breakwater had been advanced to a length of 660 yards, and is now (September, 1906) practically completed, excepting the parapet. The west breakwater is about two-thirds completed. The total depth at the entrance to the outer harbour is 65 ft. This enclosed harbour has an area of about 200 acres. The inner basin, which will be wholly artificial, occupies the former site of the old Town of Salina Cruz. About one-third of the excavation has been completed by means of dredges which pump sand into their own hoppers and afterwards deposit it at sea. The basin at first will be 1,085 yards long by 240 yards wide, with a depth at low water of 33 ft. A wall, about half finished, of concrete monoliths backed with masonry forms a division 76 yards wide between the inner basin and the outer harbour, an entrance of 32 J yards wide being left in the wall. Three steel sheds, 136 yards long by 36 yards wide, have been erected, equipped with six electric cranes and twelve capstans of similar type to those at Coatzacoalcos, provided with electric energy from a generating plant of 1,000 kilowatts. A fourth shed will be added shortly. A graving dock, 195 yards long by 32J yards wide, built in concrete, is nearly completed. The bottom is to be nearly 31 ft. below low-water level. By the new route goods can be sent from the eastern seaboard of the United States of America to Japan, China, and Australia in less time than by either Suez or Panama. The saving in distance from New York to Sydney by way of Tehuantepec, as compared with the Suez Canal route, is 5 700 miles, and calculating that steamers can carry cargoes at a profit at the low rate of $1 per milesi any railway rate across Tehuantepec less than $5 70c. per ton will show an economy as compared with the Suez route, with an actual saving of time of fifteen days. Tehuantepec is nearer to the axial line of the world's trade than Panama, and even when the Panama Canal is opened will probably be able to hold its own for all fast freight from the Eastern States and Europe to points on the Pacific coast northwards and from Eastern American ports to China and Japan. The average saving in distance by the Tehuantepec route over that of Panama to all points on the Atlantic coast of the United States of America and to Europe is about 1,250 miles or, say, five days' steaming for an ordinary freight steamer, and if freight takes two days to cross Tehuantepec by rail and the steamer only one to pass the Panama Canal, a net saving in time of four days, whilst the railway rates will probably be less than the canal dues.