A road on Vesuvius gave promise of being a good speculation.  Naples and the other resorts of the neighborhood annually attracted many thousands of visitors, and a considerable number of these every year ascended the volcano, even when forced to contend with all the difficulties of the way.  Many, however, desiring to ascend, but being unable or unwilling to walk up, a chair service was established—­a peculiar chair being slung on poles and borne by porters.  In course of time the chair service proved to be inadequate for the numbers who desired to make the ascent, and the time was deemed fit for the establishment of more speedy communication.

Notwithstanding the necessity, the proposal to establish a railroad met with general derision, but the scheme was soon shown to be perfectly practicable, and a beginning was made in 1879.  The road is what is known as a cable road, there being a single sleeper with three rails, one on the top which really bore the weight, and one on each side near the bottom, which supported the wheels, which coming out from the axle at a sharp angle, prevented the vehicle from being overturned.  The road covers the last 4,000 feet of the ascent, and the power house is at the bottom, a steel cable running up, passing round a wheel at the top and returning to the engine in the power house.  The ascent to the lower terminus of the road is made on mules or donkeys; then, in a comfortable car, the traveler is carried to a point not far from the crater.  The car is a combined grip and a passenger car, similar in some points to the grip car of the present day, while the seats of the passenger portion are inclined as in the cars on the Rigi road.  But the angle of the road being from thirty-three to forty-five degrees, makes both ascent and descent seem fearfully perilous.  Every precaution, however, is taken to insure the safety of passengers; each car is provided with several strong and independent brakes, and thus far no accident worth recording has occurred.  The road was opened in June, 1880.  Although there have been several considerable eruptions since that date, none of them did any damage to the line but what was repaired in a few hours.

The fashion thus set will, no doubt, be followed in many other quarters.  Wherever there is sufficient travel to pay working expenses and a profit on a steep grade mountain road it will probably be built.  Already there is talk of a road on Mont Blanc, of another up the Yungfrau, and several have been projected in the Schwartz and Hartz mountains.  A route on Ben Nevis, in Scotland, is already surveyed, and it is said surveys have also been made up Snowden, with a view to the establishment of a road to the summit of the highest Welsh peak.  Sufficient travel is all that is necessary, and when that is guaranteed, whenever a mountain possesses sufficient interest to induce people to make its ascent in considerable numbers, means of transportation, safe and speedy, will soon be provided.  The modern engineer is able, willing and ready to build a road to the top of Mt.  Everest in the Himalayas if he is paid for doing so.—­St. Louis Globe-Democrat.