Half Moon Bay Memories

Here’s what Congressman Ron Paul said:

Statement of Congressman Ron Paul before the United States House of Representatives.

  Madame Speaker, Burton Samuel Blumert passed away on Monday March
  30, following a long battle with cancer. Burt was a true hero of the
  freedom movement and my close friend, advisor, and business partner.

  As the founder and manager of Camino Coins in Burlingame, CA, Burt
  was one of the nation’s leading dealers in gold and silver coins. A
  student of Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian school of economics,
  Burt understood the important role precious metals played in
  protecting ordinary citizens from the damage wrought by fiat money
  and inflation. Thus, he regarded his work as a coin dealer not just
  as a business, but as an opportunity to help people by providing
  with some protection from the Federal Reserve’s inflation tax.

  After I stepped down from Congress in 1984, I partnered with Burt in
  the coin business, a partnership which lasted until I returned to
  Congress in 1996. Our partnership was based on nothing more than our
  words. As anyone who ever dealt with Burt could testify, that was
  all that was needed, because Burt’s word was truly his bond. I am
  unaware of anyone who dealt with Burt who questioned his integrity
  or his commitment to his customers.

  As well-known and respected as he was for his leadership in the coin
  business, Burt was best known as a promoter of libertarian ideas.
  Burt was a long time friend and patron of Murray Rothbard, one of
  Mises’ top American students and a pioneer in economics, political
  theory, history, and much else. Burt helped Murray establish the
  Center for Libertarian Studies, and served as its president from
  1975 until his death.

  Burt also played a key role in the flourishing of the Ludwig von
  Mises Institute, which, as its name suggests, is the leading center
  for the promotion and development of Austrian economics and
  libertarian political theory in the nation. Burt served as a
  founding board member of the Institute and the chaired the
  Institute’s board after the original chair, Mrs. Margit von Mises,
  passed away in 1993. He also published The Rothbard-Rockwell Report,
  a well-read libertarian newsletter written by Murray Rothbard and
  Mises Institute President Lew Rockwell.

  Burt played a major role in making the ideas of liberty a force on
  the internet by serving as the publisher of Lewrockwell.com, as well
  supporting the development of Mises.org. Burt also played an
  instrumental role in the development of Antiwar.com. Burt also
  served as chairman of my first run for the presidency, and important
  counselor in the second.

  In addition to his work with these organizations, Burt was a friend,
  mentor, and patron to numerous libertarian scholars and activists.
  He was incredibly generous with both his time and his resources.
  Talking to Burt was always a treat, because he had one of the best
  senses of humor I have ever known, and it seemed like he was always
  in a good mood. Events that would send his friends into fits of
  depression, rage, or both would be used by Burt as fodder for a
  series of jokes and wisecracks. Even in the last days of his battle
  with cancer he remained upbeat. One of Burt’s friends called him
  shortly after learning about Burt’s cancer, but instead of consoling
  Burt, this friend ending up having his sprits lifted by Burt’s humor.

  It is somewhat of a comfort to myself, and I am sure to Burt’s other
  friends, to know that he lived long enough to see so many of his
  efforts bear fruit. Today, the Mises Institute teaches sound
  economies and the principles of liberty to thousands of students
  every year while Mises.org is one of the leading economics websites
  in the world. Lewrockwell.com is one of the top providers of
  political, economic, and cultural commentary on the web, while
  Antiwar.com is the leading source of information for scholars,
  journalists, and activists looking for material to combat the
  propaganda of the war party.

  As I travel across the country, I m astounded at the number of young
  people I met who are interested in the cause of individual liberty,
  peace, and sound money. Many of them got their introduction to these
  ideas through one of the many organizations nurtured by Burt Blumert.

  Madame Speaker, perhaps the highest compliment one can pay to a
  departed friend is to say that they left the world better than they
  found it. That is certainly true in the case of Burt Blumert. While
  I am saddened that I will never again benefit from Burt’s good humor
  and wise counsel, I am comforted by knowing that I was blessed by
  his friendship and the thought that the vibrant and growing freedom
  movement will serve as a living monument to Burt for years to come.
  I therefore join friends of liberty around the world in mourning
  Burt’s passing, and saluting all he accomplished during his lifetime.

 

 

Creaturemag News - Spring 09





Call for Creative friends - 9th Edition - Friendship



For the next wonderful edition of Creaturemag we will be opening up  our pages to some very lucky people. Creature 9 is themed around  friendship and will be released in three parts over the next three  months, that’s one for April one for May and one in June, three hits of  Creaturemag released in quick succession to keep your creative taste  buds tingling.

Each of the three releases will consist of one long page and be  dedicated to showing the work of a different creative person or  persons, group of friends or creative collective.

The theme: Friendship

Creature is interested in friendship from an artistic point of view, inspirational and passionate relationships.

On a broad scale it’s about being inspired by the people around us,  to narrow that thought down it’s about the intricacies and intimacies  of the relationships we maintain and the sprouts of creativity that  protrude from these involvements, whether positive or negative, happy  or sad.

As always there is an emphasis on collaboration, we encourage you to  collaborate with a friend or friends in the creation of your page.

If you would like to fill a page with your interpretation of the  theme, please first consider the guidelines outlined here: http://www.creaturemag.com

For further info or to put forward you expression of interest please contact: [email protected]
      We look forward to hearing from you.

      Regards

Creature x


Urgent - Art on Beermats - Tempoary art space



Our Friends at Temporary Art Space are looking for art on beer mats... if you are looking for an easy way to have your work exhibited then this is for you...

art/writing/set-lists/owt-you-want-really-as-long-as-it's-on-a-beermat  

Send us beer mats! Everyone knows that all the best ideas for  anything, ever, have been jotted down on beer mats first. Take a beer  mat, make into a work of brewing art. All submitted beer mats will  become part of an exhibition.

Post your beer mats to by the 24th April to:

      Temporary Art Space
      Units 34-35
      Piece Hall
      Halifax
      HX1 1RE

 


Get invovlved



We are always on the lookout for collaborators and new friends. If you would like to get involved, swap links or help to spread the Creature word then please get in touch:

[email protected] 

We look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks

Creature x

 


Why are you receiving this?



You are receiving this because we thought you may have some interest in happenings at www.creaturemag.com. If we were wrong then simply reply to this email with the title "remove" and we'll take you off, no problem.

Please note: Some people are receiving this email without actually being on our mailing list. We don't know why this is and we apologise if you are receiving unwanted emails from us.

Regards

Creature

Terry Baldwin: I wasn’t comparing you to Matt Taibbi < I was comparing Matt to Hunter. I wouldn’t compare you to Hunter S. Thompson either, Your style is very straight forward and direct, whereas mine is confusing and open to misinterpretation.

June to Terry:When I find the letter that says I AM HUNTER THOMPSON, I will print it.  So there!

I’m watching the “First Ladies Detective Agency” on HBO. The new series is based on the popular books by Alexander McCall Smith. The show takes place in Africa and the characters are refreshing.

I loved the first show, the palette of bright colors, the fantastic EARRINGS worn by the main character, the adorable Precious, played by Jill Scott and Grace,  her  overly proper and wide-eyed secretary who could never get a job anywhere else. 

The accents are enchanting. In my title: “Not the Deddy,” the Precious, the inventive detective is talking with a client who believes a man who is not her father has moved into her home, living off her earnings. She tells Precious she doesn’t think the man is really her father and Precious responds with the unforgettable: “Not the Deddy?” 

The “First Ladies Detective Agency” is unlike anything I’ve seen on the HBO and the Showtimes, etc. The star, Jill Scott, is pleasantly plump and wears the most marvelous ethnic outfits, with lots of abstracty designs and the EARRINGS. 

I think some viewers will tune in just to see what the characters are wearing because the clothing is so different from the uniform jeans and tees we Americans like to don.

Sesame is a friend and artist living in San Francisco

June: I plan to add some photos to John’s post. 

From John Vonderlin

Email John ([email protected])

Note: Half Moon Bay was originally called Spanishtown

SPANISHTOWN   IN   ASHES.
But   Few   Buildings   Saved   From   the
Flames.   ;
Halfmoon Bay April 12—  The fire   which
broke   out   here   yesterday   afternoon in  the   Oc – 
cidental   Hotel   destroyed   that   building,   spread
to   adjoining   houses   and  consumed   almost   the
entire   block   in  which   the   hotel   was   located.
The   only   buildings   that   were   saved   are   the
feedmill   and   two   dwellings   belonging   to   the   J.
B.Dollof   estate   and   Charles   Bowman’s   small
saloon   building.
The   burned   block is  right   in   the   center   of
Spanishtown   and   Included   a   large   portion   of
the   business   part   of   the   town.   The   loss   is   be – 
tween   $16,000   aud   $17,000;   divided   as   follows:
Occidental   Hotel   and   furnlture   $9000,   Insured
for   $4000;   three   houses   and   outbuildings   be – 
longing   to   Charles   Bowman,   one building   occu – 
pied   as   a   drugstore   $5000,   insurance   $1000;
Robert   Walker’s   dwelling-bouse   and   bam
$1,000,   no   Insurance;   barn,   fences   and   out – 
buildings   belonging  in the  Dolofl   estate   $800,
insurance   $400;   John   Braganini tinshop
tools   $100,   no   insurance:   J.   B.   Gilchrist’s
building   occupled   by   Braganint   as   tinshop
$600, no   insurance.

And his death has been the hardest thing for me to write about. 

Burt wanted to die at home so we signed up for Mission Hospice. He had cancer and I wanted to do everything I could for him. I didn’t want him to die. It was so hard to accept, that he was really going to die. 

We had been together for 25 years, spending thousands of special hours together. We were a match, a perfect match.

Those of you who have been through what I have been through to the very end know how hard it is to communicate with the living after having lived in “hell” for much too long. I did everything I could for my beloved Burt.

He lay in a hospital bed in the living room. Every morning I would run, run, run from the back of the house to the front calling his name all the way. Oh, how happy I was when I heard his voice, heard him say my name. 

All I can tell you now is that I loved Burt Blumert with all my heart. My life will never be the same.

From: [email protected]

To all of Michael’s well wishing friends,

 

As you may or may not know, Michael Bowen passed away, he moved from this material realm into his light body a few weeks ago. Michael suffered a series of pneumonia infections during the last three months of his life. Our family was able to be close to him during his fatal convalescence in the hospital until his last moments. We would like to share this obituary written in part by Marlena Donohue, the art historian who is currently writing a book about Michael’s exceptional life and art. In honor of Michael, a memorial celebration is being organized in Stockholm Sweden. Please let us know if you would like to participate in any way, with an offering, a poem, a prayer, a song, or any help with organizing the memorial would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Love to all,

Isabella and Ram

 

More: 

On March 7, 2009 Michael Bowen passed away from complications related to childhood polio in Stockholm, Sweden. He was and is adored by his young wife Isabella and long-time confident Ram, who were both with him as he breathed his last. Bowen was a loving if oft eccentric father to his well known actor son Michael Bowen Jr., to his gifted artist daughters Maitreya and Kaela, and to his young and promising son Indra.

Born in Beverly Hills to a famous dentist into a legacy of great wealth, Bowen was the quintessential drop out from consumer culture long before the term was made popular. On the road, so to speak, from his teens, Bowen traveled the globe, engaging life and making art alongside some of the art world’s major luminaries.

Michael Bowen was either at the hub of or directly influencing many of the major moments and ideas we now associate with those profound changes history calls the birth of counter culture. Bowen was a seminal Beat figure and remained a viable, internationally exhibiting artist living from the sale of his large scale paintings and masterful etchings to pre-eminent collectors and museums up until his death.

Michael Bowen was associated with a distinct visionary surreal style whose nearly hallucinatory intensity came to be identified with the Beats   and the 60’s counter culture scene. In point of fact, Bowen coined the style and remained true to it over forty years of changing art and social tastes. Bowen is best known for highly detailed dream like, freely expressive images of San Francisco, of life in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, of literati from Miles Davis to John Lennon to Janis Joplin. His highly symbolic—part true to fact,  part reinterpreted–scenes of gritty city life, of travel and ritual in Mexico, India, Southeast Asia have endured because they indeed extend beyond the Beat scene, beyond any specific era, having timeless ties to all expressive, imaginative forms from early pictographs, to Jungian mythic traditions, from Symbolism to German Expressionism.

Michael Bowen  was not one of the highly hyped Beat names on everyone’s lips in the way that Tim Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Edward Kienholz have come to be. This was not for lack of originality or historical relevance. Of all the Beat painters, Bowen was the artist who went into his studio each and every day of his life. While counter culture advocated tossing aside all artistic tradition so as to render “everyone an artist,” Bowen demanded of himself and others a rigorous respect for and study of draftsmanship, technical acumen, and an awareness of the legacy of art’s history from the Renaissance to the Conceptual Performance Art.  Most significantly, Bowen was an artist committed to intellectual curiosity, an artist who studied– not as surface fad but with intense, active engagement–everything from Sufi poetry to quantum physics, from Kali mysticism to the biochemistry of creativity. 

In point of fact Michael Bowen’s work and person  intersected with and in many ways influenced most of the artists and thinkers that come down to us as Beat  icons. His absolute almost irascible inability to compromise on matters of personal, philosophical and aesthetic vision meant that he did not court and indeed often alienated the art market and art press. In spite of this, his historical position is undisputed: In January 1967 Bowen organized the proto performance art happening called the “Human Be-In”, inviting Ginsberg, Ram Das, and Tim Leary to participate and inspiring the famous “Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out” dictum. It was this uniquely inspired Bowen production of the Human Be-In that became the necessary catalyst for the famous Summer of Love.

 Never one to shy away from the grandiose, his plan to rent a plane and drop flowers on war protestors confronting military police protecting the Pentagon in 1968 was thwarted.  Relentless, he drove a carload of flowers to the Pentagon, dragged huge garbage bags of daisies to the front lines distributing them by hand to everyone, making Bowen the quirky force behind that now epoch-defining metaphor of “Flower Power.”

Images inspired by Bowen transmitted globally thousands of times a day of so called peace niks placing flowers in gun barrels become more and more timely in a world that is increasingly at risk. The spirit of Michael Bowen will remain alive as our globe  moves increasingly toward  those principals Bowen lived by with a demanding tenacity that could drive us crazy but always  moved us, namely: that the material is transitory, that the spiritual endures, and  that we either embrace  collective creation  together or we perish together.

Michael Bowen was a life long student and practitioner of Vedanta philosophy. In 1969, after being cured of migraine in a Kali ceremony in India, Bowen became a Kali bhakta – a devotee of the famous goddess of India.  Maintaining his secular identity as artist Michael Bowen, inwardly he remained devoted to Kali for the rest of his life, seeing and helping adepts to see through the goddess’ fearful and terrifying aspect to her powerful protective and nurturing nature.  In 1990 under his religious name of Baba Kali Das, Bowen established The Temple of Shakti in his much loved home-town, San Francisco. During this period, he discovered a huge four and a half foot tall bullet-shaped granite pillar abandoned in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Through mantra invocation and ritual veneration, he transformed the former city traffic barrier into a Shiva Lingam. Baba Kali Das performed Vedic ceremonies anointing the Linga with milk and ghee, attracting Hindus worldwide as well as the general public to use the consecrated stone as a focal point of worship and meditation. In the early 90’s The Golden Gate Park Shiva Lingam became a popular center of Hindu devotion, and a cause célèbre as the city tried to suppress all the attention being lavished on what was to them a former traffic barrier. The Shiva Linga attracted Isabella Paoli from Florence Italy who became Baba Kali Das, aka Michael Bowen’s, devoted wife for the last 15 years.

Irascible and demanding, unapologetic about a life style that required absolute freedom, ever the ultimatehipster  who was always trying to sell you something or another–whether a painting or an idea—Michael Bowen was full of energy, living his art and  his life to the very brink of exuberance and creative commitment.  He will be profoundly missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Story from John Vonderlin

Email John ([email protected])

Note: You may find some of the words hard to read–but you can make it out.)

Headline:	CONQUEST OF THE PENINSULA
Newspaper:	The San Francisco Call
Date:	January 7, 1906
Content Type:	Article

 

CONQUEST OF THE PENINSULA ..’California, greatest of. fill. States, in wenery unsurpassed by any nation on the face of iv;e gU.be. is constructing within her borders to-day a commercial railway which is soon to be liv the famous tourists of the world as he most beautiful scenic route In existence anywhere. Travel this continent rom end to end, then cross the water and jxplore the heralded regions of Europe ‘nd the Orient; nowhere will you be able ‘.. ;ind a railway which will surpass In he niagnilicence of its panorama, of natiral beauty this California line now in the \u25a0ourse of construction. The railway which is to be so wonderful is the Ocean Shore, running from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, close to the rugged coast of the Pacific Ocean all the way. It will be * marvel of natural beauty from its very ‘tart in San Francisco until it reaches rs terminal in the little seaport town; a narine view along every niile of the track. Its construction will’ be completed within i year and it will be then ready to carry he globe trotter or the Californian. On he day of its opening a new qu*en of railways will be crowned. On that day those routes which have hitherto been \u25a0^reeminent as the scenic lines of the evnrld will be forced to recognize the new ailway whose beauties pf natural scenery iurpaf* their own. IX is true enough, there is no scaling of i towering mountain peak by the Ocean Shore, as does the wheezy line up the nighty Jungfrau of the Alps; there is no nonstcr tunnel like the St. Gothard, built >y herculean <-ffoits and at a cost of many hillions of dollars; there is no great bridge :kV ihat which spans the famous Vicoria Pall? uJ Africa, nor yet like that isr.jring bridge <.n the route of the Den. .\u25a0:\u25a0 anil Kio Grande in our own country; nere :* n<> ‘JiancJ Canyon of the Arizona ilong its line, a magnificent spectacle of iia::tnn«; colors. These are the great vonders of the world to-day and they •xist thousands of miles apart. No line \u25a0an boast in its guide book that it 6hows aoreithan <.>ne of them to the traveler. A SIAUXIKICKXT PANORAMA. But t!ic Ocean Shore will take the globe rotter along a smooth line which will how him a panorama of natures beau;.* which combines the essentials of all, hese wonders of the earth and it will •omplete his journey in a little over two iourF. It will show him scenery of a ari^d grandeur so wonderful that it ‘will aiisfy his most ; it will take him close lo giant sejuoias rising majestically from gTeat for\u25a0s:f; it will carry him by peaceful valleys, where there are growing crops and icnls of cattle grazing and mineral de-»n<=iis in plain sight on the surface of the rmund; and finally it will deposit him vithin the beautiful city of Santa Cruz. with its bathing beaches and Its noted lioiei?. All of these things the globe trotter will see from the windows of electric cars of standard gauge and luxurious equipment. It will take him a little over two hours to ‘-. make the trip. Nowhere a cogwheel incline to jolt him, into_ a feverish temper and ruin his pleasure; nowhere a series of smoke-choked tunnels to,’irritate his lungs; . nowhere a long, tedious wait’ on the Ocean Shore; everything Is speedy and . comfortable, the . magnificent viev nowhere hidden . from the .sight of the k tourist. Is ; It any wonder that -the traveler of next year will say to himself OverJebme : by thQirieers in itne Construction of Ocean Shore J Road after he has made his journey- over, this wonderful line, ‘ ‘Yes, there are individual scenes in the world more inspiring, but nowhere have I ever found a railway, which shows to its passengers such ‘ a magnificent. panorama of the beauties of nature in so many, diversified forms. No line can equal it. . ‘.” It is pre-eminent.” FEATS OF CONSTRUCTION. Such is the line of the ‘- Ocean Shore which is now under the course of construction. “It is backed by San Franciscans. It means much to San ‘ Francisco.” Not only will’ it . open up a scenlo route unsurpassed anywhere ” in the world. ; but It .will; tap’ a. fertile stretch; of country whose resources will be augmented to the millions by this entrance to a market, i But ‘ the story ! of the Ocean Shore Railway. Is not merely one of enriched ‘ lands and ; beautiful, marine’ scenery. ,There, Is the . story of its building; a story’ of how engineers and contractors fought a country so rugged that to build a double track broad ‘ gauge ; railway over its” surface seemed \u25a0 impossible. They have been successful in the battle. These same wonders of, nature, these crags and precipices – and gulches.’ the solid granite .formation \u25a0, of mountains, the great sea pounding below—all producing an unsurpassed ‘ panorama of beauty— these “presented engineering .problems most difficult “to men. No wonder that the •„ project of .”opening -this railway was* so long “delayed. Few capitalists ‘ would ‘have dared sink their money in the venture;, few contractors could haye \ been found who were able to carry the work of tearing away and building up; to a successful completion. , The p*ublic will-never realize the wonder of the engineering, feats nor the amount of money in the development in this hitherto declared impossible project. ABLE \VORK OF C. E. LOSS. The man who stands pre-eminent In the conquestof rugged nature and the build- Ing of the road is C. E. Loss, a man of world-wide experience in the construction :of railways. No, not to one man alone should the credit be given, but to this man and his able lieutenant, 11. F. Wells,’ together .with a staff of able assistants. t They have done all the construction work on the new road; they will leave the line ready ‘ for the introduction of . the rolling stock, \u25a0a . line whose safety and solidity is unquestioned and which will stand for centuries as a testimonial of their engineering and contracting ability. Think for a moment of . the difficulties which confronted Mr. . Loss and his assistants at the beginning of their work. They : must- grade eighty-three miles of volcanic formed country twisted and upheaved ~ into : crags and * chasms by a subsequent earthquake. The roadbed must be made safe as a peaceful’ valley route. The ; mountains must be crossed without producing steep grades. : This contractor accepted the task from John-. B. Rogers,’ chief ‘ engineer of the Ocean Shore, and assured him that he would \u25a0 complete .the work satisfactorily. The work Is not yet ‘completed, but every official of the Ocean Shore and every engineer who has Inspected the line will enthusiastically testify that the work has progressed with such marvelous ‘rapidity that -there Is no longer any doubt aa to its speedy and successful completion. SUSPEND MEN” IX .MIDAIR. Mr. Loss began his operations with the energetic Intensity of purpose which has marked ” his engineering and contracting career. There were places where he was forced to lower men down the sides of precipices with ropes so that they, suspended In midair, the sky above- them and the sea below, might drill holes into which powder might be inserted. to blast out; a- foothold , for the graders. Such an accomplishment – meant ; days of slow and dangerous work,’ yet it was ; successfully carried out and a little pathway mads in . the solid granite – ledge along which the graders might form the roadbed. Tons of powder were ‘ used : to ‘ blow . off tops of crags. -,; An army of men and horses followed the blasters, to widen out the pathway • into \u25a0a * roadbed. Steam shovels of tremendous strength gathered up the tons of loose rock and dumped them into the sea to form . an \u25a0′: embankment. Valleys were filled from the waste of . the moun- v tarn- cuts.: Great chutes were erected to, facilitate the work of filling In. Trains of \ diminutive • dirt cars were employed. Everyjmeans known, to modern engineering .was – used iCo \u25a0 accomplish the* \u25a0 great work.’ • The – result \ is > evident. Although i the – contract – the excavating and ‘ fi
ll- ing- was only, signed last September, today, the most difficult and dangerous pieces of the work are rapidly nearingr completion. The final success \u2666La assured. CONTRACTORS ARE EFFICIENT. Is It any wonder that he has completed j?reat contracts in Europe, the . United States. Canada, Mexico and South America? Such accomplishments have given Air. Loss a reputation not only of being a successful contractor, but have given him a place in the confidence of the capitalists of the world -as a man of unswerving loyalty and faithfulness. A secret’of the success of Mr. Loss Is -the devotion of his employes to” htm- Is It- any wondar. then, that the late George M. Pullman wired J. B. Haggin, when tfie latter was about to build with Marcus Daly a railway line In Mexico which presented unusual difficulties, “Grve ‘ C. .E. Loss your work. He has just completed a $3,000,000 contract for our company to our ‘entire satisfaction.” Such a reputation comes only to one who accomplishes. Curiously enough, the hardest tasks which confronted the contractors in build- Ins the line were right in San Francisco and Just below Colma. The main freight depots of the Ocean Shore wCI be at Army street, near Illinois and Kentucky . streets. Here there was a great swamp. Into this waste the contractors are pour’ ing thousands of tons of disintegrated rock from the cuts In the mountains below. The work was very hard. . The footing was insecure and the haul was long. Solid ground has been made where for centuries a waste swamp proved a hindrance to progress. HARDSHIPS AT SAX PEDRO. It has been along the steep sides of San Pedro Mountain where the most spectacular work 13 being done. San Pedro Mountain lies abor . fourteen miles south of Colma and Its great granite nose juts out Into the waters of the Pacific, forming a sheer cliff 1000 f*et high. Here Is where the men were hwered by ropes and suspended in midair until^they could drill blast holes for the powder.- The blasts were fired and a little pathway opened. Then the graders -began their work. At. some places thV. path. -was- so narrow that only one man could work at a time. A slip would have meant a terrible fall into the sea SOO feet . below. Powder and blast dug out a way. The debris was dumped over, into the ocean to form a natural bed or was hauled out in dummy cars to be used to fill the low spots. Along the aide of this great cliff the roadbed was steadily pushed. A detour could have been made on. the other side of .the mountain, but .this would have spoiled the magnificent -view. So the work went on. Seven tunnels were at first contemplated. Here is where Mr. J. B. Rogers, chief engineer, showed bin “” genius. W«il knowing: that tunnels are the most disagreeable feature of mountain favel, -he reduced this number to only on«» tunnel and that only 400 feet long, .le accomplished this by thorough, cuts. Stretches were blasted through the solid granite rock at an enormous ex.-pense. Nine tons of . black powder were u_sd at one shooting and great masses of rock were torn from the mountain and blown into the sea from the force of tho explosion. Plunge batteries were used to touch off the powder. At one point on this ‘precipice a hole was, dug Into the mountain seventy feet deep. This was cross-sectioned by a 30-foot tunnel. This tunnel was filled with powder— lt took three days to do the filling— and the whole % exploded by the plunge battery. Thirtyfive hundred tona of solid rock were blown into the Pacific This point was Saddle Cut. EMPLOYS ARMY OF MEX. The grading along Tonltas Point, a promontory section of land below Pescadero, is within a few feet of tne-very ocean. Here the soil \was fairly loose, and great Fresno scrapers, pulled by four horses each, completed the- work In hurry tim«. The top of the bluff was cut and the low places filled in order to keep the lev«l grade. ‘ Considerable blasting was done at Tonltas Point. Much grading: was oone near Halfmooa Bay. Fresnos and steam shovel* were used to great advantage at this point. A small army of men and horses were work-. i ing on this dump. Swanson’s cut proved to be another di£s- v cult piece of work.; It seemed necessary at ) this Dolnt to drive a tunnel, but Mr. J. B. Rogers, chief engineer, again solved the- problem by- going along with hl» thorough ‘ cuts. w Tne illustrations above show how this York was accomplished, and give the reader some Idea of the difficulties which it involved. The work haj not been started from one point and completed before any other point waa touched. ” Men have been working norti from” Santa Cruz and south from ~ Saa Francisco, while crews have been stationed at Half moon Bay. Tonlta* Point, Pescadero, San Gregorio < and • many other points alonz the line. : ,\u25a0 “.-.; To John B. Rogers much praise must tTJe given. As chief engineer of the Ocean ‘Shore he conceived the possibility . of the construction and did much’ to aid in its. accomplishment. ** The officials of the new railway— Walter E. Dean. – president; J. I>owney Harvey, vice president; A. Dw Bowen,- general manager, and Burke Corbet,-attorney—have been tireless- in their effort* to make-this railway a grand benafit to San Francisco. – SAN FRANCISCO GETS BENEFIT. And how will San Francisco be benefited?. By the opening up of 230.000 acres of practically virgin land for cultivation, the advancement of .a great timber, industry and the marketing of -tixe valuable mineral products of this section. .Millions of dollars will pass through San Francisco in trade each year when this road ia completed that before knew no outlet. ~\.-“The coast country -between San .Francisco and “Santa Cruz has long been rich _ in agricultural prospects, but there was no way to -market the product” once *it was raised. Small crops have been cultivated in this district, hauled many .milea over the mountains to the Southern Pacific’and then shipped to San Francisco arid ‘ Eastern points. The cost cf such handling was ‘ enormous. The grower along -the ‘coast could not compete with bis rival -nearer : the • railroad. Now this will be done away’ with. The valleys will grow rich /witn, -.crops each year, and, the grower can market them quickly and at a small, cost. The Octan Shorp has planned to’ carry all the freight that the region will offer. There are acres of great timber standing; uncut because the co3t of marketing the ‘:. product was too “”great. Mills ;.wIH spring up and make this a great industry. Grazing * and dairying . on the mountain sides will form a profitable •„ Hying .to many settlers. There are mineral resources of untold .wealth. Chalk rock and limestone abound. r: To ” the Saa Franciscan this road ‘will offer ja : delightful means of quick escape from. the smoke and dirt of the city.” In a few minutes he can’ be. ln a land where there. aVe sun and flowers and the ocean. Or he “can get Into rusg.-tt mountains, tf he so desires.’ It will ton possible for the sportsman to leave the city; in \u25a0 lh*»f inorn- – Ing. sboot his wild garnet down hoar Peak, cadero— ducks, : deer: arid fish* aboundV.^ cook * his noontlay meal -midst- forest” scenes ; of Lwildest ;” nature and then ‘ board a. train. which will, land him in San Fran^ ctsco” in : time * for ; supp«r. . Could ‘asy thins moxVU deairtd* .._ __<_