What the Railroad Will Bring Us [pp. 297-306]

THE
VERLAND MIONTHLY
DEVOTED TO
THE DE VEL OPMEVT OF THE CO UNTR IY.
VOL. i. —OCTOBER, i868.-No. 4.
WHAT THE RAILROAD WILL BRING US.
PON the plains this season rail U road building is progressing with
a rapidity never before known. The two
companies, in their struggle for the
enormous bounty offered by the Government, are shortening the distance between the lines of rail at the rate of from
seven to nine miles a day-almost as
fast as the ox teams which furnished the
primitive method of conveyance across
the continent could travel. Possibly by
the middle of next spring, and certainly,
we are told, before mid-summer comes
again, this "greatest work of the age"
will be completed, and an unbroken track
stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Though, as a piece of engineering, the
building of this road may not deserve
the superlative terms in which, with
American proneness to exaggeration, it
is frequently spoken of, yet, when the
full effects of its completion are considered, it seems the " greatest work of the
age," indeed. Even the Suez Canal,
which will almost change the front of
Europe and divert the course of the commerce of half the world, is, in this view,
not to be compared with it. For this
railroad will not merely open a new route
across the continent; it will be the
means of converting a wilderness into a
populous empire in less time than many
of the cathedrals and palaces of Europe
were building, and in unlocking treasure
vaults which will flood the world with
the precious metals. The country west
of the longitude of Omaha, all of which
will be directly or indirectly affected by
the construction of the railroad, (for other
roads must soon follow the first) is the
largest and richest portion of the United"
States. Throughout the greater part of
this vast domain gold and silver are
scattered in inexhaustible profusion, and
it contains besides, in limitless qiantities, every valuable mineral known to
man, and includes every variety of soil
and climate.
The natural resources of this country
are so great and varied, the inducements
which it offers to capital and labor are so
superior to those offered anywhere else,
that when it is opened by railroadsplaced, as it soon will be, within a few
days' ride of New York, and two or
three weeks' journey from Southampton
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year.868, by A. ROMAN & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the
District Court of the District of California.
VOL. I-20.