Eurasia | Page 9

mail matter and telegraph, telepost and telephone lines and
wireless stations and all newspaper books and magazine publications,

and we edit the National Gazette; besides we have charge of all
Government scientific research parties, and if you will call again
to-morrow I think I will be able to introduce you to the Chief Engineer
who stands very high in his profession, and who has, by placing an
Astronomical Observatory on the summit of Mount Everest, attracted
the attention of the civilized world."
CHAPTER VI.
DEPARTMENT OF MINES.
I called at the appointed time and was introduced to the Chief Engineer,
who invited me to accompany him on an inspection tour, to which I
gladly assented, and, after a week's pleasant travel by rail, we arrived at
the station on the southwestern slope of Mount Everest at an elevation
of twelve thousand feet above the sea. We had arrived in the evening
and enjoyed a good night's rest, and, eating a hearty breakfast, we
walked out to take observations of the locality, before taking our trip to
the summit, and the Chief told me of the way by which they finally
erected an observatory on the highest mountain of the earth.
"Five years ago the President sent for me," explained the Chief
Engineer, "and asked if I could plan an observatory on Mount Everest. I
replied that I would try to do so if the Government saw fit to place me
in charge of the undertaking. I received my commission the next day
and, calling to my aid two of the ablest engineers in the service of the
Government, we selected a site for the entrance of the tunnel and next
we searched for suitable power to do the work. We found a waterfall
twenty miles distant, where we built a power house, installed turbines
and dynamos and built an electric line to this place. We then erected a
machine shop, in which we placed our electric engines and air
compressors, and built a railroad connecting with the main line, and
after we had done that we started the tunnel. As you will observe, the
tunnel is a round bore twelve feet in diameter, and no explosives were
used in making it. We used a tunneling machine driven and operated by
compressed air, boring on the average fifty feet every twenty-four
hours, and we washed the debris away by a powerful stream of water

directed against the face of the tunnel so as not to obstruct the work.
We gave the tunnel for the first five miles a grade of one foot in ten and
from that point to the summit a grade of sixty degrees, and laid heavy
steel segment rails six feet apart bolted to the solid rock, by this means
dispensing with ties and permitting a free flow of water and slum. We
found it necessary to build a chamber within the mouth of the tunnel
sixty feet long, with automatic doors opening and shutting, to secure an
abundance of air in the tunnel, and also in the observatory. The tunnel
required no timbering, as we bored all the way through synetic granite
and encountered very little water, and when we were about to break
through at the summit we provided the workmen with fur clothing, and
with air respirators, so that they would not be overcome by the cold and
rarety of the atmosphere. We had a car driven by electricity to carry the
men and material into the tunnel, having four cogwheel drivers on each
side, and the tunnel throughout was lighted by electricity. We built the
observatory of composition metal and glass, which was carried up on
the car-but come along and you shall see for yourself."
We entered an observatory car that was run by its own dynamo but in
case of the dynamo giving out a trolley wire overhead- could furnish
power any moment. After a pleasant ride of an hour's duration we came
out of the tunnel into the observatory and I saw two magnificently
mounted telescopes, one for visitors to look through and the other one
for taking photographic views. I looked through the visitors' telescope
and to my astonishment the sun was blue and when I asked one of the
astronomers present the reason for it he replied that the sun was a great
dynamo and that the dazzling brightness seen at low altitudes was
caused by our atmosphere offering like the filament in an incandescent
lamp great resistance to the electric energy of the sun producing a
brilliant glow and if you were able to go outside the atmosphere of our
earth you would only see the sun as a dark body in space and you
would find yourself in absolute darkness and eternal silence. Night fell
and when I looked