The St Louis Republic from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 21

1 TO-DAY'S REPUBLIC part hi 8 PAGES Is Printed in EIGHT PARTS MMMnWWWMMMMir NINETY-SIXTH YEAR. SUNDAY MORNING. FEBRUARY 21, 1904. PRICE FIVE CENTS. ENGINEERING CONQUEST OF THE OZARKS: Construction of White River Railroad Through Mountainous Districts of Stone and Taney Counties.

This Line Extends From Carthage, to Batesville, and Provides a New Route Between Kansas City and Memphis. 0 THE ST. LOUIS REPUBLIC, 1 One year ago the most beautiful and by Tar the least-known portion of Missouri wa destitute of everything that would remind one of the rush and rattle that belong to the Twentieth Century prognss. The southern counties of Stone and Taney. In which are the roost rugged spurs of the Ozarlts, had no railroads, and the peace of the farmer who "had lived In Taney County lilsh about fifty year, and hain't m-ver needed no railroad yet." had not Wn disturbed by whistle of locomotive.

in content ho cultivated ills narrow fields In the deep vallcyB. Then one day a party of men. some thirty strong, men with keen eyes, determined. Ktudious faces, men with strange instruments, and housing themselves In tents, came down upon the quiet and forever the quiet passed away, for these men were the civil engineers on location, who know no obstacle between themselves and the fulfillment of a great purpose. Twenty years ago.

the railroads, eager for more world's to conquer and urged by vast mineral Interests had attempted this tusk and a preliminary survey was run, but no place could be found for a railroad, except on the sides of the mighty hills. Except for a few enthusiasts, the scheme was pronounced Impossible-and altogether impracticable If possible, because of the tremendous expense but the country southwest from Aurora to Batesville, was known to be rich In ores in many parts and supposed to be in others, and Rock Island and Pacific operators looked longingly across. "IMPOSSIBLE" PRONOUNCED FEASIBLE. Another and yet another preliminary was run, and when the two great systems Joined hands the "impossible" was pronounced feasible, and this locating camp was set to work to find a way to accomplish the most stupendous piece of railroad construction east of the Rockies the traversing of the Ozarks. the bridging of the valleys of the James and the White rivers, the blasting and trestling of a path for commerce high up on the side of the mountains.

In order to connect Carthage, with- Batesville. Ark. Preliminary surveys had been run so often that it was long before it was believed that these were men with method in their madness, but when slow belief began to dawn and "right of way" was being asked, land worth $10 an acre increased to $100 and $123 an acre. The locating party moved slowly southwest, tramping up and down the mountain sides through the storms of last winter, nothing daunted by rocks like flint, the tired feet staying for nothing so long as daylight lasted, with Infinite pains determined, by aid of transit and level, rods and tapo and countless consultations of the long rolls of maps, ust where the line should be run, where embankment, trestle and bridge should be. It is well-nigh impossible for any one who has not lived In an engineer's camp to realize how mucli the world owes these men, the harbingers of progress; but, having once been a part of ucifa camp, one can never look with Indifference upon any railroad work.

Any mile of It where flash in the sunlight the steel rails that gridiron this country Is a monument to the courage, persistence and endurance of civil engineers. FAILURE OFTEN PREDICTED. When these men were well started in their work they were told by one wise in many things that "they could never build railroad through Stone County, because they could never find lumber long enough to bridge the James but even this direful prophecy of failure did not daunt them, and camp still moved on through Crane and Elsah; through Galena, In the picturesque valley of James, and ten miles further cast to Ruth, on the Old Wilderness road, which runs along tho cirst of the hills, a ridge in many places i iifty'feet wide. Here on one side of tho ridge are the uad waters of Rowark Creek, running southeast into White River, and fifty feet away on the other side the waters run 'couth west Into tho James, and here the mountain must be pierced, and tunnel was planned, and camp moved toward tho southwest through a still more mountainous country. The summit of the grade is here.

The grade dips down toward the valley of the Rowark and then to the crossing of the White- River at Branson, In Taney County, and on nearly to the Arkansas border line. Behind them the engineers have left a Jong line of white stakes, of oddly blazed trees, of tacks in stumps, a cipher code with none but the engineer may read, and their duty as locating party being done, Mill other engineers and rodmen, tape-men, aimcn came to Join the forces already here and take their places on the mapped-out road which has nearly followed the line of the first survey of twenty years ago, and from Aurora to the end i)f this residency the fresh white tents of tiie seven division engineers dotted tho llderness. CONTRACTORS CAMH NEXT. Then came the contractors with their WITH BOLL WEEVIL Elight Insect, a Quarter of an Inch Long, Mar Dethrone "King Cotton." SEEMS USELESS TO COMBAT IT Scientists and Planters Unable to Destroy It Wreaks Great Havoc in Single Night to the Tender Squares. The Republic Bureau, lh St.

nd Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, 20. A name which has recently grown to be considered a synonlm for-disaster is that of too cotton weevil. So fearsome has this tiny insect become, that it threatens the stability of one of America's'greatest industries and presages a commercial revolution. If the inroads of the pest that has marched steadily onward from the fields 'Jmtt3K'13Blll 33sm' tTiFr BHHBmSrrff4SCTMii vlL 9aKPBaailBjBiill bS1 SgsE tv ffr 11 TrWtmKmmll nSt Khiis hundreds of horses, their powerful machines for moving and piling stone and earth, their great camp of men.

Irishmen for foremen. Italians and negroes, the last most woefully unwelcome in these two counties, where no negroes havo been allowed to live for many years. There Is now almost a continuous white city from Aurora to the tunnel, and the sound of tho steam drill and of blasting, and of fulling rock, the many sounds of a busy population, busy day and night at a noicy work, waken the 'echoes that have always slept and the road is building. A short distance east of. Aurora the road begins its down-grade to the valley of the James; although the mountains arc not so high as they are farther east, they are wonderfully beautiful and visited In the middle autumn, before the killing- frosts have touched the trees, they show a marvelous riot of color that I do not believe can be seen anywhere else In Missouri.

The variety of trees is not so very great, but every possible variety of tint of every color that blazes, runs up and over the mountains, glorified by the autumn haze, making every mile of the thirty-four-mile stage ride a delight. APPROACH TO THE JAMES. Fron. the west the railroad approaches the James on a long embankment and trestle, and high above the deepest flood, in this river of spring floods, stands its three mighty stepping stones, tall white piers of concrete; 'then a beautiful abutment, another long embankment, and the climb for the summit begins, for here It is up grade again, and the work is much rougher, taking great flying strides from one bluff to another, gradually rising higher and higher on the shelf that dynamite and powder have carved out for It. How many tons of powder I could not dare to say.

The side of tho solid hills had to be blown off. so that for miles the windows on one side of the cars will look out on a wall of rock, and on the other side sheer down into and across the valley, and the acres below look verily a3 though the mountains had been moved. In one place, 300 feet from where it had lain high up on the hillside, lies a sfone unbroken that measures over 8 feet long, 4H feet high and 4 feet wide larger than a cord of wood thrown, with thousands of other stones, by one blast; it struck, the earth, making a huge hole, bounded, and struck several feet away. As the road neara the west approach of the tunnel and the summit of this grade It enters a narrow gorge between two rugged hills, which are cut by cross valleys; the sides of the hill are steep, almost precipitous; the valley 13 narrow and the ground Is covered thickly with small pieces of blue limestone as hard as flint, and here, where will be the first station cast of Galena, and where there was not a house a year ago. Is the little town of Reed Springs, known by the Post-Office Department as Ruth, a scattering array of hotels, stores and houses, most of them of Old Mexico by stages into Louisiana and Tcxay, are not soon checked the name "King Cotton" will have pasted from American ownership, and the supremacy of this country In the cotton markets of the world have become but the bitter memory of a growing nation vanquished by an Insect less than a quarter of an Inch In length.

This little beast has devoured millions of dollars' worth of cotton during the past few years, and all the energies of the cotton growers, assisted by the arm of science have thus far utterly failed to find a remedy which will drive the pests from the country. Driven to the point of desperation by thelt growing losses, the cotton growers sought the aid of the Department of Agriculture, and from this went to the Congress of the United States. To the average reader of the intentions of the great department of the Government that devotes Its energies for the benefit of the farmers of the country, the name boil weevil signifies little. Many persons' do not know whether this means an Insect, a bird or a disease. They simply believe that there must be something reciliarly obnoxious about the monster, whatever his family history may be, that calls for such drastic action' on the part of the whole people, or admit the defeat of a great national enterprise at the hands of an unknown enemy.

INSECT'S" DESCRIPTION. The boU weevil is a beetle, varying in length 'from three-sixteenths to' three-eighths of an inch. He' is hungry, and with an hereditary 'appetite for cotton bolls that would -drive despair to the heart of the most, cheerful agriculturist. In a single night one of the baby weevilswllleatanamountof young cotton or the tenderest ports, that. fill mil Z.

XMmM rjcAg cw the white trivet? one thickness of board, covered with tar paper, and all clustered about a beautiful spring, whicli supplies the Immense amount of water needed by the camp and machinery of the tunnel, and by the little town itself. CAMP OF TUNNEL Here may be seen the dump cars, hauled by cable and the ever useful, if somewhat erratic. Missouri mule. On the top of the mountain, a mile from the village, is the great camp of Tunnel with its marvels of engines and dynamo. Its complete electric system of lights and telephones, its water tanks and pumps; its streets of tents and "shacks," its its corral for 1U horses, long rows of dirt movers.

Its big commissary and warehouses, dining and cook "shack," Its powder-house, the doctor's tent and drug store and hospital tent and the civil engineers' department, a city powerful enough to move the heart of a mountain. The hilltop is never quiet. The work If permitted to reach maturity, would make a bale weichlns Zi.Wl.Wi times his own weight. He i3 not an insect of the highest order of intelligence, and when he flies with -his rather underdeveloped wings, does so in an aimless manner and In a straight line, alighting on any other plant that his less happen to touch first. One of the provisions of nature that has been noted in this pest Is that he crows according to the food he has had during his confinement In the larva of his mother, lack of food never Injuring him in the least beyond a retarding of his growth entirely disproportionate to his appetite.

A half-sized weevil will eat quite as much as his larger brother, or at least will destroy as much cotton, for they all select the tender "squares," or undeveloped bolls, and never descend to the mature boll unless driven to this course by desperate straits for food. DRIVES OFF BANK ROBBERS. Stabbed, Chief of Police Bandits to Rout Tuts REPUBLIC SPECIAL. Weatherly, Feb. a).

Single-handed, Robert McLean, Chief of Police, tackled two men he detected attempting to enter the Weatherly Bank. One stabbed him twlce. The policeman landed hard blows, despite his desperate condition, and finally put burglars to rout. When they fled McLean propped himself up against the. side of a building and fired four shots, none of which took effect.

A bottle of nitroglycerin and a small quantity of dynamite were found where the struggle took place. MOTTiz-arr etrni? iSHowin-g 0ecf? in the tunnel stops neither day nor night, except on Sunday, but a night force and a day force, each with a superintendent and foreman, keeps the mighty machinery moving. At all hours the pulsating thump, thump PENSIONER OF 1812 WAR RESIDES AT BLOOMINGTON. Mrs. Syntha A.

Sacrj Has Purchased House With Government Money. REPUDLIC SPECIAL. Bloomington, I1L, Feb. 3). Among the few surviving pensioners of the War of 1S12.

and in all probability the only one in Illinois, is Mrs. Syntha A. Sacry. widow of Robert Sacry. and who resides in this city.

She is the recipient of $12 monthly from the Government. Her claim for a pension was allowed In 1S78 and a sum of accumulated back allowance paid to her, sufficient to purchase the house which she now occupies. Her wants are few. by dint of economy, she Is able to go through life Independently. She Is in her seventy-third tyear.

Her father was John Newman of Pennsylvania. His father was a Revolutionary War soldier. Mrs. Sacry was twice married, her first husband. James Henry Mc-Connell of Jessamine County.

Kentucky, being a wagonmaker. His death occurred In 1S53. In 1S37 she masried Robert Sacry. a veteran of the War of 1812, and who of the sreat engines makes itself heard above all other sounds: most startling ly at any uncicepted moment comes the awful, wild, long-drawn-out and repeated howl of the whistles, telling the pumping station at Reed Springs, a mile away. MRS.

SYNTHA A. SACRY, The only pensioner of the War of 1S12 living In Illinois. fought in the struggle with Great Britain as a private in Captain Bacon's company, the Seventeeth Kentucky Infantry. He died in 1805 from cancer. One of most prized relics of her second husband is her picture, taken by the in 1818.

It is a curious relic of the past, and before the that the tanks need more water. Its clamor soon to be followed by another, telling that tho tanks are full, while at any time you may hear from deep in the earth the muffled detonation of dynamite and powder and tne roar of the shattered days of ambrotypes and daguerreotypes. Mrs. Sacry says that the picture Is an accurate one and gives a very good Idea of the appearance of Mr. Sacry when he was Zi years of age.

He was a tavcrnkeeper in Frankfort. after tho war and when the picture was'taken. He operated a distillery in connection with his tavern, and the remains of the old building are still to be seen at Frankfort. Mrs. Sacry has resided in Bloomington for twenty-flve years.

She has five children, who see that she lacks for nothing in her declining years. SAYS BURTON WILL GO FREE. Medium at Topeka Predicts Senators Acquittal. REPUBLIC SPECIAL Topeka. Feb.

SO. The first day of sunshine has penetrated the gloom which has hung so heavily above the Burton camp in Kansas. Mis3 Anna Eva Fay, a medium, has declared that the Senator will be acquitted in his trial for bribery In SL Loui3 next month. Whether or not he is guilty will remain a mystery, as the wisdom of the medium or her knowledge of-men did not go far enough to solve the problem. Many followers of the senior Senator of Kansas were In the audience at an opera-house here when the medium announced hr decision.

The sigh of relief which went up from some of those In the audience could have been heard In the street. The person who wrote the query and sent it up to the stage signed it with initials, and his name could not be learned. Evidently the writer cared less whether or not the Senator was guilty than whether or not he would be acquitted. The stanch Burton men in the audience showed no disposition to press the medium too closely on this point stone. At each meal time, and for th different relays of each meal, the sound of the big gon roll3 over the hills, and added to these are the constant lesser noises v.herft so many i)ve.

making tho hilltop a very lively place' at times. PICTURESQUE AUSTRIAN LABORERS The great majority of tho laborers ar Austrlans. for whom tho contractors do not provide meals, but who cook for themselves, baking the bread of their country in quaint high wigwamiikc structures of stone and clay, called Austrian ovens. Just before entering the tunnel at th west end the grade begins to go down on Its way to the valley of the White River, The work of boring and blasting- is dons by electricity. The black length of tho tunnel is lighted by electric lamps, and at the inner end of this hole are the noisy, drills, run by the power generated on the top of the hill, which are boring- their, way through this solid blue limestone.

The noise they make as they work is deafening, and the men who run them do not attempt to speak to each other, all commands being siven by gesture; it would be impossible for the voice of the strongest man to be heard by the keenest ear. For the blast four vertical rows of holes from six to ten feet Ions are driven, the two inner rows are on converging planes, the outer rows boring straight toward tb center of the hill. Far back into the inner rows Is tipped the dynamite; then the men hurry out to safety; the foreman gives the signal by wire as lie leaves the mouth of the tunnel, and from the hilltop comes the power that turns the drill holes into gigantic fingers that throw out the center mass of rock. Before the smoke and dust has cleared away the electrician is back inthe tunnel putting: wires into place and the men are filling the outer rows of holes with powder, and once more they scurry away to safety, and again the signal is given: the powder flings the solid hill into the space the dynamite has emptied, and men and mules and cable busy themselves In carting away the tons of broken stone. PROGRESS IN A WEEK.

Simultaneously the game process of drilling and blasting is carried on at. the eastern end. and together the progress Is from to SO feet a week. From the east end the stone Is carried by the dump cars by power of gravity, as the grade Is down, all the stone on this end being used to make a seventy-foot bill upon which the train must cross to its shelf on the next mountain as it comes out. leaving a hole behind it 24 feet high.

15 feet wide at the bottom and IS feet at arch and 100 feet more than one-half mil in length, and all its way a solid bine limestone, with strata so level It seems almost as smooth as a floor. It is said that for general farming purposes this country is impossible. Tho ground, even in the valleys where the cultivated fields lie. Is covered thick with small stones as sharp and hard as flint. The fruits produced are as fine as fruit caa be grown.

And 'the time will not be long after trains are running on this road before these sunny hillsides will blossom with countless fruit trees. B'NAI-EL FAIR OPENS AT THE 0DE0N TO-NIGHT. Object of Carnival Is to Raise FvbM for Erection of Jewish Temple. In Sonth St. LooJ.

The B'nai-El fair and carnival, given for the purpose of raising funds for the erection of a new Jewish Temple in tho southern part of the city, win open tonight at 8 o'clock at the Odeon. It will close Wednesday night, and a matinee will be given to-morrow afternoonln celebration of Washington's birthday. Mrs. Samuel Ettman. vice president off the B'nai-El Ladies' Aid Society, Is ooa of the prominent workers for the success of the carnival.

Miss Augusta Freund. secretary of the Congregation B'nai-El. la also rendering valuable aid. These ladies have received many donations from St. Louis business men of funds, which will assist materially in making the enterprise a success.

Many prizes, among them a diamond ring for the most popular young woman, will be competed for. Otto Gutfreund, chairman of the voting booth, presented the ring. The chairmen of the various booths aret Mrs. Joseph Landau, president of the IT. H.

C. Ladies' Aid Society, infants' booth': Mrs. Samuel L. Ettman, fancy Max Well, furniture: Mrs. Simon Ont-freund.

men's furnishing goods; Mrs. Louis Gutfreund. cushions and novelties; Miss Sophie Hartmann. Rebecca's well; Sirs. Fred S.

Freund. books, periodicals and magazines; Louis Kohner. wheel of for- --Jm Photo ty-Orat. MRS. SAMUEL ETTMAN.

Vice President of the B'nai-El Ladies' Aid Society and a prominent worker for the congregation's fair. tune: Samuel L. Ettman. race track; Mrs. Henry L.

Wolfner. flowers and candy: Mrs. Jacob Weiss, liquors: Miss Josle Stampfer, post office: Mrs. Samuel Spiegel, art and bric-a-brac: Mrs. Will Klauber.

dolls: Mrs. A. Pfelffer. pickles and relishes; Mrs. Sol Boefam.

cigars: Mrs. Henry Kohner. handkerchiefs and aprons: Mrs. Max Weiss, souvenirs and Jewelry; Sirs. Emil Hartmann.

grab bag and fish pond; Miss Fannie Flattan. fortune teller; Hn. Nathan Stampfer. groceries: Mrs. Asa Hartmann.

restaurant and kttritea; Charles Stdner. wardrobe coaznlttce. vSj MBSMfex -jrcV 'BSBSBSBSr 2BBBH -R'sSiLsssH tW WbCWT, iKlTassB PBBftt 'VsBbsbsbsbsB pBSBsi w.BBBBBBSPVX OaIbUbBB I 1BBBB'S l'i' 4-aSB SaSBSBSBVpW BBSBiff? 'VBSBBBBSBI BSBElBk 'BL Sk ABBBBSBS.