Among the Cascades the tremendous ravines separating one peak from another taxed the ingenuity of the engineers sorely. It was practically what in railway parlance is described as “cut-and-fill” all the way; that is, the digging of deep cuttings here, and the raising of lofty embankments there. The cuts through the shoulders of some of these monarchs became quite respectable defiles in themselves by the time the steam shovels had retired from the scene. And the cuts were equalled in their magnitude by the “fills.” One, “Topographers’ Gulch,” is exceptionably notable. The track creeps through a deep cutting on either side to the edge of the mountain, the sides of which drop away in a steep slope to a depth of 282 feet. At track level the gulch was 800 feet across. A viaduct was at first suggested to span the gap, but it was found that the approaches were unsuitable to such a solution of the problem. The engineer resolved to make a daring effort. He would not bridge the gulf; he would not go round it; but he would fill it up! There was plenty of material on the spot for the purpose. The question was the quickest way of accomplishing this end. When it is remembered that a twenty-storey building could have been dropped into that ravine, and that its roof then would have been only level with the proposed permanent way, it will be seen that it was a big fill indeed. How was it done? Why, by means of water jets--hydraulic sluicing--being directed against the mountain-side, dislodging the earth and speeding it down conduits into the depression. Little did the western railway foreman anticipate, when he first suggested washing down a hill to fill a rift by means of a hose as already described, that his much-ridiculed proposition ever would be called upon to fill up a chasm like this. A powerful pumping-plant was set up, hundreds of feet of hose were laid down, and fitted with huge, powerful nozzles. Gigantic and powerful streams of water were thrown against the mountain face, and the debris thus dislodged was diverted into flumes, or wooden troughs, which emptied themselves into the valley. Before a yard of debris was tossed into that abyss, £12,000, or $60,000, had been spent. When the full blast of water was brought to bear on the face of the hill the gravel rushed down into the depression like lava pouring from a volcano in eruption. The water jets literally moved a hill into the ravine. In the course of a few weeks a neck of solid earth stretched across the abyss, affording a path for the railway.