Many years ago a hotel was built on the summit of the Rigi for the benefit of the tourists who daily flocked to this remarkable peak to enjoy the benefit of its wonderful scenery. The mountain is densely wooded save where the trees have been cut away to clear the land for pastures. The ease of its ascent by the six or eight mule paths which had been made, the gradual and almost regular slope, and the throngs of travelers who resorted to it, made it a favorable place for an experiment, and to Rigi went the engineers in order to ascertain the practicability of such a road. The credit of the designs is due to a German engineer named Regenbach, who, about the year 1861, designed the idea of a mountain road, and drew up plans not only for the bed but also for the engine and cars. The scheme dragged. Capitalists were slow to invest their money in what they deemed a wild and impracticable undertaking, and even the owners of the land on the Rigi were reluctant for such an experiment to be tried. But Regenbach persevered, and toward the close of the decade the inhabitants of Vitznau, at the base of the Rigi, were astonished to see gangs of laborers begin the work of making a clearing through the forests on the mountain slope.

They inquired what it meant, and were told that a road up the Rigi was to be made. The Vitznauers were delighted, for they had no roads, and there was not a wheeled vehicle in the town, nor a highway by which it could be brought thither. The idea of a railroad in their desolate mountain region, and, above all, a railroad up the Rigi, never entered their heads, and a report which some time after obtained currency in the town, that the laborers were beginning the construction of a railroad, was greeted with a shout of derision.

Nevertheless, that was the beginning of the Rigi line, and in May, 1871, the road was opened for traffic. It begins at Vitznau, on Lake Lucerne, and extends to the border of the canton and almost to the top of the mountain. It is 19,000 feet long, and during that distance rises 4,000 feet at an average grade of 1 foot in 4. Though steep, it is by no means so much so as the Mt. Washington road, which rises 5,285 feet above the sea, at an average of 1 foot in 3. There are, however, stretches of the Rigi road at which the grade is about 1 foot in 2½, which is believed to be the steepest in the world.

The Rigi road has several special features aside from its terrific slopes which entitle it to be considered a triumph of the engineer's skill. About midway up the mountains the builders came to a solid mass of rock, which presented a barrier that to a surface road was impassable. They determined to tunnel it, and, after an enormous expenditure of labor, finished an inclined tunnel 225 feet in length, of the same gradient as the road. A gorge in the side of the mountain where a small stream, the Schnurtobel, had cut itself a passage also hindered their way, and was crossed by a bridge of lattice girder work in three spans, each 85 feet long. The entire roadbed, from beginning to end, was cut in the solid rock. A channel was chiseled out to admit the central beam, which contains the cogs fitting the driving wheel of the locomotive. The engine is in the rear of the train, and presents the exceedingly curious feature of a boiler greatly inclined, in order that at the steeper gradients it may remain almost perpendicular. The coal and water are contained in boxes over the driving wheels, so that all the weight of the engine is really concentrated on the cogs--a precaution to prevent their slipping.

The cost of the road, including three of these strangely constructed locomotives, three passenger coaches, and three open wagons, was $260,000, and it is a good paying investment. The fare demanded for the trip up the mountains is 5 francs, while half that sum is required for the downward passage, and the road is annually traversed by from 30,000 to 50,000 passengers.

Curious sensations are produced by a ride up this remarkable line. The seats of the cars are inclined like the boiler of the locomotive, and so long as the cars are on a level the seats tilt at an angle which renders it almost impossible to use them. But when the start is made the frightful tilt places the body in an upright position, and, with the engine in the rear, the train starts up the hill with an easy, gliding motion, passing up the ascent, somewhat steeper than the roof of a house, without the slightest apparent effort. But if the going up excites tremor, much more peculiar are the feelings aroused on the down grade. The trip begins with a gentle descent, and all at once the traveler looking ahead sees the road apparently come an end. On a nearer approach he is undeceived and observes before him a long decline which appears too steep even to walk down. Involuntarily he catches at the seats, expecting a great acceleration of speed. Very nervous are his feelings as the train approaches this terrible slope, but on coming to the incline the engine dips and goes on not a whit faster than before and not more rapidly on the down than on the up grade. Many people are made sick by the sensation of falling experienced on the down run.

Some faint, and a few years ago one traveler, supposed to be afflicted with heart disease, died of fright when the train was going over the Schnurtobel bridge. The danger is really very slight, there not having been a serious accident since the road was opened. The attendants are watchful, the brakes are strong, but even with all these safeguards, men of the steadiest nerves cannot help wondering what would become of them in case anything went wrong.

Bold as was the project of a railroad on the Rigi, a still bolder scheme was broached ten years later, when a daring genius proposed a railroad up Mt. Vesuvius. A railroad up the side of an ordinary mountain seemed hazardous enough, but to build a line on the slope of a volcano, which in its eruption had buried cities, and every few years was subject to a violent spasm, seemed as hazardous as to trust the rails of an ordinary line to the rotten river ice in spring time. The proposal was not, however, so impracticable as it looked. While the summit of Vesuvius changes from time to time from the frequent eruptions, and varies in height and in the size of the crater, the general slope and contour of the mountain are about the same to-day as when Vesuvius, a wooded hill, with a valley and lake in the center of its quiescent crater, served as the stronghold of Spartacus and his rebel gladiators. There have been scores of eruptions since that in which Herculaneum and Pompeii were overthrown, but the sides of the mountain have never been seriously disturbed.

A road on Vesuvius gave promise of being a good speculation. Naples and the other resorts of the neighborhood annually attracted many thousands of visitors, and a considerable number of these every year ascended the volcano, even when forced to contend with all the difficulties of the way. Many, however, desiring to ascend, but being unable or unwilling to walk up, a chair service was established--a peculiar chair being slung on poles and borne by porters. In course of time the chair service proved to be inadequate for the numbers who desired to make the ascent, and the time was deemed fit for the establishment of more speedy communication.

Notwithstanding the necessity, the proposal to establish a railroad met with general derision, but the scheme was soon shown to be perfectly practicable, and a beginning was made in 1879. The road is what is known as a cable road, there being a single sleeper with three rails, one on the top which really bore the weight, and one on each side near the bottom, which supported the wheels, which coming out from the axle at a sharp angle, prevented the vehicle from being overturned. The road covers the last 4,000 feet of the ascent, and the power house is at the bottom, a steel cable running up, passing round a wheel at the top and returning to the engine in the power house. The ascent to the lower terminus of the road is made on mules or donkeys; then, in a comfortable car, the traveler is carried to a point not far from the crater. The car is a combined grip and a passenger car, similar in some points to the grip car of the present day, while the seats of the passenger portion are inclined as in the cars on the Rigi road. But the angle of the road being from thirty-three to forty-five degrees, makes both ascent and descent seem fearfully perilous.

Every precaution, however, is taken to insure the safety of passengers; each car is provided with several strong and independent brakes, and thus far no accident worth recording has occurred. The road was opened in June, 1880. Although there have been several considerable eruptions since that date, none of them did any damage to the line but what was repaired in a few hours.

The fashion thus set will, no doubt, be followed in many other quarters. Wherever there is sufficient travel to pay working expenses and a profit on a steep grade mountain road it will probably be built. Already there is talk of a road on Mont Blanc, of another up the Yungfrau, and several have been projected in the Schwartz and Hartz mountains. A route on Ben Nevis, in Scotland, is already surveyed, and it is said surveys have also been made up Snowden, with a view to the establishment of a road to the summit of the highest Welsh peak. Sufficient travel is all that is necessary, and when that is guaranteed, whenever a mountain possesses sufficient interest to induce people to make its ascent in considerable numbers, means of transportation, safe and speedy, will soon be provided. The modern engineer is able, willing and ready to build a road to the top of Mt. Everest in the Himalayas if he is paid for doing so.--St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

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