SHIP RAILWAY.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1269, 17 August 1880, Page 3

SHIP RAILWAY.

"Atlas" in the World says :— I hear from an authentic source that it is more than probable that M. de Lesseps may find himself, and his Panama Canal project superseded in a way he does not expect. A new eeheme, said to have been already seen and approved in the highest quarters at Washington, is not to make any canal, but, in lieu of it, to construct a ship railway, by means of which ships of any size can be transported bodily from ocean to ocean in about half a day. The idea is to construct immense docks or tanks, like graving docks, into which ships will sail or steam, and in which they will be securely fastened by hydraulic appliances. When the ship is hard and fast in her cradle on a level keel, the motive power will be applied, and the cradle containing the ship will be hauled forward on a gently inclined railway, with several pairs of rails, and the whole mass will be steadily run across the forty miles from ocean to ocean at the rate of six miles an hour. The existing Panama railway will be incorporated with the * ship railway.' The plan — which is patented — is already in France, where heavy canal boats, with full cargoes, are transported from one canal to another over the intervening space of land with the greatest ease and safety. The proposed • ship railway' will be made in a third part of the time required for the canal, at less than third the cost ; and a tariff less than a third of the estimated canal dues will leave a handsome profit for the projectors, who are an association of French and American companies."

Lettfrs received from the Cape per Balmoral Castle give accounts of tho movements of the Empress Eugenic. During her stay at Durban she was to occupy the same room in Government House, ride in the same carriage, and eat from the same table as the Prince Imperial did. Travelling' in Cape carts she was timed to reach Hyotyme, where the Prince was killed, on the anniversary of his death. A ditch has been dug and a wall raised round the graves of the Prince and two troopers who fell at the same time, and trees and violets have been planted on the spot. Gebooda, leader of the Zulus who attacked the Prince and party, has solemnly declared that the graves shall never be desecrated.