Meiggs married a Chilean woman and built a magnificent residence in Santiago. But his later enterprises were in Peru. He built the railroad from Mollendo to Arequipa. His greatest undertaking, however, was the famous Oroya Railroad over the Andes, the highest railroad in the world and one of its wonders. Great gorges were surmounted, rushing streams spanned with bridges where such work seemed impossible, tunnels bored where men had to hang over precipices by means of ropes to secure a start and other obstacles of nature were overcome. Before the completion of the road Meiggs was compelled to use his own private fortune. But he accomplished the task. One hears many tales of this eccentric man in Chile and Peru. It stands to his credit that, although he lived in luxury and spent money lavishly, he paid all his debts back in the land of his birth in order to stand before the world as an honest man. The problem of connecting the widely separated sections of Chile with easy and convenient means of transportation has been and is a serious one. It was but natural, owing to the long extent of coast line, that the first attention of the Chilean government was given to ocean navigation. Furthermore, the Chileans have proven to be good navigators, and the record of their steamships has been very good. There has been the further advantage in developing this means of transportation in the fact that no part of Chile is very far distant from the Pacific coast. This has developed a large number of short railways, which run from the ports to the mineral or agricultural districts of the interior. There are in all sixteen ports open to international commerce, and forty-four inferior ports which are used in the coast trade. The different character of the northern, central and southern sections has created a demand for exchange of products between those sections, which has made the coast trade of great importance.