Tyson will give us a copy of it. This is certainly a
wonderful country for great enterprises, and the Pennsylvania Central
Railway, by which we contemplate recrossing the Alleghanies, is in some
respects a still more remarkable undertaking, though the height at which
the mountains are crossed on that line is not so great as that on the
Baltimore and Ohio line, which, as I told you in my last, is at an
elevation of 2700 feet. It was long supposed that such a feat could not
be surpassed, but Mr. Tyson says that, encouraged by this, a railway now
crosses the Tyrolean Alps at a somewhat higher level.
To return, however, to the Board Tree Tunnel: Mr. Tyson told us that the
difficulty of restoring it to a safe condition was so great as almost to
dishearten him till he had arched it completely over from one end to the
other with solid stone masonry, which has rendered the recurrence of the
accident impossible; but the disheartening circumstance, while the work
was in progress, was the danger to which the men employed in the work
were exposed, from the constant falling in of the roof. During its
progress no less than forty-five men were killed, and about 400 severely
wounded. They were chiefly Roman Catholics, and were it not for the
encouragement given by an energetic Roman Catholic priest, he hardly
thinks the men would have continued the work.
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