ad to be exercised in choosing the
proper places for the curves, and managing the road so that no parts of
it were too steep. On one such railway in America the train travels more
than four miles between two places only one mile and a quarter apart in
a direct line.

Our 'baby road,' in crossing the mountain just described, climbed to a
height of nine thousand three hundred and forty feet--at that time the
highest point ever reached by a railway; and the first train passed over
it on 16th June, 1877. Among these mountains, in certain places, where,
in winter, avalanches of snow are likely to occur, long sheds like
tunnels are strongly built over the railway. So terrible are these
avalanches at times that the wind they cause in rushing down the
mountain-side has been strong enough alone to uproot the forest trees.
The sheds are so built as to form no resistance to the sliding mass,
which passes easily over their sloping roofs till they are like tunnels
cut through a mountain of snow. Their walls are formed of pine-logs laid
on one another in the form of hollow squares, the space being filled
with ballast and small stones.

But our railway has passed the top and is plunging down to the mining
district of San Juan, there to pass through more of those deep canons.
No other railway, perhaps, can claim to traverse such a variety of
scenes; but mountain and canon did not delay it half as much as disputes
with another pioneer company that claimed the path it wished to take.
Some ten years after it had started from Denver City, however, these
disputes came to an end, and the difficult road was pursued right and
left. It is hard to say if it will ever cease to grow in length, since
the merchants are ever finding fresh markets of fruit and minerals for
the engineers to take the iron road to. But since the spring day in
1871, when it first started from Denver City, it has grown in width as
well, for the narrow road which was laid down at first for the sake of
saving time, has been replaced with metals the same distance apart as
those on other American railways.

MR. AND MRS. BROWN'S JOURNEY IN THE FAMILY COACH.

The following is a story written for the 'Family Coach,' a game in which
the players sit round the room, whilst some one reads (or tells) a
story, in which the names of the different parts of a coach frequently
occur. The players each take a name, at the mention of which the owner
of it rises and turns round, on