At one point there is a very impressive piece of engineering. The line winds along the hill-side high up on the bank of the rushing Aconcagua River, disappears into a tunnel through a spur, and then emerges at the other side on the brink of a narrow chasm--the Soldier’s Leap. This is a mere wedge-shaped fissure in the rock, but a few feet in width, and through which the river tumbles over 200 feet below. A narrow bridge carries the line across the rift to a narrow ledge blasted out of the opposite cliff-face where the mountains overhang the water. The resources of the engineers will be taxed to a supreme degree in order to keep the line clear from snow during the winter. In fact, it was asserted freely that for about six months in the year the upper levels of the line would be well-nigh impassable. The engineers on the spot, however, have risen to the occasion. They have studied the massive hills of snow which, lashed into furious whirl-storms by the hurricane winds, sweep rapidly and irresistibly forward, often burying the railway to a depth of 30 feet or more. A powerful rotary plough was placed in service to tackle this obstacle, and although found highly successful in the places where the line was open, it could not be utilised in the deep cuttings. Special situations demand special methods. So the engineers set to work to devise their own means of combating Boreas in his wildest fury. They evolved a push-plough of a special wedge-shape pattern which can attack a 16-foot drift and cut a channel clean through it with ease. The trouble is not so much the snow, but the large masses of rock which are rolled down the mountain sides, and lurk in the white mass. When a rotary strikes one of these formidable boulders when running at full speed, the auger-like rotating mechanism is smashed to pieces, and the whole apparatus is thrown out of action. With the special push-plough, however, no such disaster is to be feared. The nose of the apparatus glides over the concealed obstruction without suffering any damage whatever, and the boulder can be removed by manual labour, as a skilled gang of snow-clearers are attached to every snow-plough train. A new line is approaching completion among the Andes which compels attention, even in South America, the land of railway wonders. This is the new main line which is to connect La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, with the coast. Hitherto, in order to gain the metropolis of the interior land-locked State, one has had to embark upon a circuitous journey either via the Antofagasta railway and its connections, or by means of the Peruvian Southern railway from Mollendo, by way of Lake Titicaca and Puno.