Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

1853-1860.] THE MAYOR OF DAVENPORT'S ADDRESS.

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sippi, fit monument to the genius Redfield. That is the road
to California and the Indies.
"We have harnessed up a horse which, like the fabled
steeds of Diomedes, vomiteth fire from his nostrils, and,
without grants of land or other aid than your own, we intend
to land the first train on the Pacific. We are on a great line.
It is not a line dividing states and empires; it is not Mason
and Dixon's line, but it is Dix's line to the great West.
"Our train is now ready to start through the Iowa prairies. We have a Dix for a conductor, a Flagg for a financier, Farnam for an engineer, and Sheffield for a fireman,
and we have all the men who have been engaged on this
road from Chicago to aid us in the enterprise. We wish
you to join us, and with such a noble company we shall be
at the metropolis of this State in December next, and we
invite you to celebrate another such a scene as this in two
years on the Missouri.
"Embark in this train, and before our rivals are done talking of their projects we shall have the railroad to California's
golden sands half finished, and invite them to celebrate the
completion of another link in this great chain on the summit
of the Rocky Mountains."
In reply General Dix made a speech, from which I take
this extract. It shows the cherished purpose of New York
and the East:
"We have, as yet, gentlemen, only reached the Mississippi.
But the tide of population has flowed far beyond it. Iowa,
the great State of which we have merely touched the boundary, one of the youngest of the American sisters, is still west
of us. With I know not how many hundred thousand inhabitants-you, fellow-citizens of Iowa, cannot tell yourselves
from week to week how many people you have, so rapidly is
immigration adding to your numbers-with fifty thousand
square miles, and the richest fifty in a body in the whole
Union-if the reports of the government surveyors are to be