There are innumerable devices to facilitate work, as, for instance, an ingenious arrangement for disposing of the smoke and vapor formed in firing up and testing locomotives. Most wonderful of all are the huge electric cranes which traverse the building and serve not only to bring quickly to the shop cylinders, boilers, wheels, frames, and other parts, but are even capable of lifting and carrying the heaviest locomotives clear of the other engines on the pits.

The photographs herewith produced, and which tell the story of the building of a locomotive more graphically than any other manner in which it could be conveyed, were taken during the construction of a locomotive for the Paulista Railway

A pair of compound cylinders are first brought to the erecting floor by one of the travelling cranes mentioned above, and are suspended over the track upon which the locomotive is to be built. They are deposited upon jacks, and with little delay the frames are placed in position. While the workmen are waiting for the boiler to arrive many minor fittings are applied, and when this great cylindrical structure is brought in from the boiler shop by a crane of tremendous power and carefully lowered in place, the mass begins to have the semblance of a locomotive.

Workmen hurry about, applying more fittings, and then the crane arrives and lifts the whole structure bodily into the air, while the wheels, which have been in

waiting on the forward end of the track, are rolled under the suspended machine. The engine now lacks only the cab, stack, and pilot, and with the running-board and other minor details they are supplied in an incredibly short space of time. Touches of paint and varnish are quickly made here and there, and the locomotive is ready for service, the boiler and moving parts having been thoroughly tested meanwhile.

It must not be supposed, however, that because the hundred-ton engine is here and the hundred miles per hour speed is in sight, that the lighter and slower engine is to be immediately displaced. No more will it do for the enthusiast to imagine that, because English railroads have

shops were too crowded with work to turn them out in the time required, and on the other hand the fifty or sixty ton locomotive will continue as a factor in railroad operation in this country for many years to come.

The evolution of the American locomotive from the standpoint of design has been quite rapid during recent years. As the size has increased, the number of driving-wheels has grown from four, originally, to eight or ten, and in ratio as the number of driving-wheels has increased the smokestack has been reduced in height. With the increase in size the duties of both engineer and fireman have become more arduous. With tender-tanks hold

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As

ILL it pay to go to the Klondike? That depends altogether upon one's reasons for going. A more delightful summer trip (barring mosquitos) could scarcely be conceived. The distance from Seattle to Dawson City is about 1,600 miles. With the exception of about forty miles the whole journey can be made by steam. It is difficult to imagine anything more beautiful than the trip from Seattle to Skagway or Dyea. Imagine yourself on a floating palace, gliding from island to island, over a sea of deep, transparent blue, heading toward the northwest. far as the eye can see,- ahead, to the left, or behind,— lie innumerable islands covered with perpetual green. In the far distance arise mountains that seem to grow from the depths of the sea and lift their heads into the midst of the floating clouds; their bases fringed with green, and their tops covered with everlasting snow. Now and then, to the left, one can see long stretches of blue water opening out into the broad Pacific Ocean. The scenery is ever changing, but always charming. Now the steamer is headed straight for a lofty perpendicular wall of rock, but just as it seems that the vessel must crash against its face, a passage, scarcely wider than the ship itself, opens, as if by magic, in the apparently solid wall. Through this outlet the steamer glides into broader seas, the surface and the very air of which are white with thousands of gulls which part to the right and left as the vessel approaches.

Many hundred miles have been traversed now to the north and west, and an entirely new world from the one left a few days since opens up. Far off to the right are turquoise-tinted glaciers, dazzlingly bright in the glaring sunlight of a cloudless day. Seeking, in the soft blue waters, a rest from this brilliant reflection of glacial glory, one sees huge porpoises sporting in the waves, now rising high above the surface, and now diving down into the depths, but always keeping up with the vessel, as if sharing the exhilaration the voyagers feel from breathing the delightful ocean air, laden with the invigorating odors of the spruce, balsam, and fir which crown the surrounding islands.

All too soon this delightful voyage is ended and the land journey begins. If it

is summer, the only way to get to the head waters of the Yukon is from Skagway over the White Pass to Lake Bennett, a distance of about thirty-eight miles. This part of the trip must be made either on foot or on horseback, with pack-mules or horses to carry the baggage. The road is rough and difficult, and the scenery rugged and wild. It requires two days of hard work to make the trip. Upon reaching the lake the hardships of the journey are left behind. The little steamer which here continues the route has very poor accommodations, but this inconvenience is necessarily incidental to a trip to the Klondike. All the lakes and rivers mentioned herein, down to the Pelly River, are but parts of the Lewes River. Lake Bennett is a sheet of beautifully clear blue water, lying between two mountain ranges. It is about nineteen miles long, and from half a mile to three miles wide.

After passing Lake Bennett the country becomes less mountainous and more monotonous, but there is some exhilaration and even excitement as the little steamer passes down the swift river, especially at such points as the Five Fingers and Rink Rapids and Thirty Mile River.

At Miles Cañon the passenger changes boats; for while a boat can, at the risk of being knocked to pieces, run down through the Cañon and White Horse Rapids, it is impossible for it to return. It is about two miles from the upper end of the Cañon to the lower end of the rapids. After an enjoyable walk along the brink of the chasm through which the waters rush, the traveller enters a boat that awaits him or which he may have to await ― below the rapids. Meantime his baggage is brought over on a tramway, on which he may ride if he prefers. passes on through Lake Lebarge and Thirty Mile River to the confluence of the Hobtalinqua or Teslin River, where the Lewes is greatly augmented by this stream. Thirty-three miles below, the Big Salmon empties its waters into the Lewes. Thirty-six miles still further, the Little Salmon contributes its contents, while at Fort Selkirk the Pelly joins with all the rest to form the big Yukon. The river grows turbid in its course until, by the time the White River is reached, it is thick with mud. From Selkirk down,

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the river continues to broaden. It is five or six miles wide in places, and filled with a bewildering maze of islands. Sandbars abound, and if the boat, which usually does not draw more than three feet of water, does not get stuck, the trip from Lake Bennett to Dawson City is generally made in about four days.

So much for a pleasure trip to the Klondike in summer-time; but for one going in for a year or more, for the purpose of gain, the experience would be altogether different. Such a traveller would have to reach Dyea or Skagway while there was still plenty of snow, -say from the Ist to the 15th of March. No one should start with less than a year's supplies. These will weigh about a ton, and must be hauled on a sled from Dyea to Chilcoot Pass,

an ascent of 3,500 feet in 171⁄2 miles, the last climb being up a flight of 1,900 steps cut in the ice and snow. Then the prospector must haul his stores ten miles further on to Lake Lindemann, saw out his own lumber, build his boat, and make his way down a chain of lakes and rivers, as treacherous and dangerous to small boats as can well be imagined, for nearly 600 miles. The motive power on these rough lakes is the wind, which blows constantly up or down. The wind on Lake Lebarge is known to have changed five times in an afternoon, and the changes are sometimes so sudden that one scarcely has time to lower the sails before the wind is blowing a gale dead against him. An inexperienced voyager is in much danger of being swamped.

Miles Cañon and White Horse Rapids are perilous. Above the cañon the river is about one thousand feet wide. The entrance to the cañon is as marked and well defined as a door. Its walls are of basaltic rock which rise perpendicularly

from sixty to a hundred feet. Through this sinister gorge, but one hundred feet wide, the waters rush at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, and woe unto him who loses control of his boat in this place; for it would certainly be dashed to pieces, and its crew would not have a chance for life. The cañon is about three eighths of a mile long, and on emerging from it the traveller will find

SHOOTING MILES CAÑON

himself in danger of being drawn into the White Horse Rapids. These are considered the more perilous because of hidden rocks upon which many boats have been wrecked. At one spot the bed of the river, which is of basaltic rock, slopes from either side to the centre, and narrows the river to about one third of its width above. This throws the water, as it comes rushing down from Miles Cañon, to the centre, and it goes surging and seething through this throat with indescribable fury and power. Many a man has entered here, never to appear again, for it is said that no person drowned at this point has ever afterward been seen. White Horse Rapids safely passed, it may be said the greatest dangers are over, though there are still perils ahead.

There are more boats wrecked in Thirty Mile River below Lake Lebarge than on all the river besides. This stretch of water is between Lebarge and the Teslin River. Its current is very swift,-in some places six or seven miles an hour,— and