mpared with the White Pass line.

[Illustration: CONSTRUCTING THE WHITE PASS RAILWAY.]

At Summit we cross the frontier into American territory, and here my
thermometer marks a drop of 25 deg. F. since our departure this morning.
Although this rapidly constructed line is admirably laid, portions of
the ascent from White Horse are anything but reassuring to those averse
to high altitudes, but they are not a circumstance to those on the
downward side. On leaving Summit station the train enters a short
tunnel, from which it emerges with startling suddenness upon a light,
iron bridge which spans, at a giddy height, a desolate gorge. This
spidery viaduct slowly and safely crossed, we skirt, for a while, the
mountain side, still overhanging a perilous abyss. Every car has a
platform, and at this point many passengers instinctively seek the side
away from the precipice, which would in case of accident benefit them
little, for there is no standing room between the train and a sheer wall
of overhanging rock, the crest of which is invisible. Here the outlook
is one which can only really be enjoyed by one of steady nerves, for the
southward slope of the mountain is seen in its entirety, giving the
impression that a hardy mountaineer would find it a hard job to scale
its precipitous sides, and that this railway journey in the clouds
cannot be reality but is probably the result of a heavy supper. Perhaps
the worst portion of the downward journey is at a spot where solid
foothold has been found impracticable, and the train passes over an
artificial roadway of sleepers, supported by wooden trestles and clamped
to the rock by means of iron girders. Here you may stand up in the car
and look almost between your toes a sheer thousand feet into space.
While we were crossing it, this apparently insecure structure shook so
violently under the heavy weight of metal that I must own to a feeling
of relief when our wheels were once more gliding over _terra firma_. The
men employed in constructing this and other parts of the track were
lowered to the spot by ropes, which were then lashed to a place of
safety while they were at work. But although the construction of this
line entailed probably as much risk to life and limb as that of the
Eiffel Tower, only one death by accident is recorded during the whole
period of operations here, while it cost over a hundred lives to erect
the famous iron edifice in Paris.

The gradient of this railway is nat