Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/600

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��Popular Science Monthly

���© Brown & Dawson

Madeira's winter sport in summer time — sliding down a mountain on a wicker -chair sled

Sliding Down a Mountain on a Summer Sled

INSTEAD of wheeling you down the mountains of Madeira, as you might suppose, the hardy natives slide you down. You seat yourself in a comfortable wicker chair mounted on a wooden sled fitted with steel runners and come down the rocky path of the mountain side as if you were sliding on snow. The human locomotive in the rear steers you down the mountain and pulls the empty basket-cars up again.

��The Only Railroad on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska, is a "Pupmobile"

THE "pupmobile" is a passenger train drawn over a regular railroad track by dog-power. The one shown in the photograph is the only one in existence. It carries passengers from Nome, Alaska, across the level land near that town into the mountains.

The track is a narrow-gage railroad built in 1900. A high tax was placed on rail-

��roads in Alaska soon after that, and as there was not enough traffic over the road to justify the expense of operating locomotives, the regular train service was discontinued. Then the "pupmobile" was instituted. The accommodation for passengers consists of a platform on which are two seats. To this from seven to fifteen dogs are harnessed, and the rate at which they travel compares favorably with much of our "rapid transit." Fur- thermore, it is about the cheapest rail- road to operate that we know of. Six pounds of dog meat a day is considered to be a fair expenditure of "fuel."

���From seven to fifteen dogs draw the two-seated passenger car over a narrow-gage track at "rapid transit" sp4d

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