The Central Transit—Magnificent Enterprise for Texas and Mexico [pp. 184-195]

THE CENTRAL TRANSIT.
ulated North of twenty-five, and the still mere densely populatee Eastern coast of thirty-two, while the Netherlands,
France, and the British Isles, countries of equal extent with
the Atlantic slope, 350,000 square miles, have a population of
73,000,000 souls.
The Great Valley of the Mississippi, equal in extent to
China proper, has not a tithe of its population, although it
has greater advantages of soil, climate, and productions, yet
it will become in the future more densely inhabited, and be
the political, agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial
centre and mistress of both hemispheres.
It will be seen that the population of the Great Valley is
greater by near a million than that of the older States of the
Atlantic slope, which has taken centuries where the former
has taklen generations to become inhabited, and as power
generally goes with the population, it will be so in this case
after the next apportionment, and every year will add
to it with telling effect until at last the seat of the federal
government will be found on the banks of the Father of
Waters. Our last wish will be that we may live to breathe
the air of that glorious mnorn which will behold our country
the greatest, freest, and happiest land in the world.
LOUISVILLE, Ky., May, 1859.
ART; IX.-THE CENTRAL TRANSiT-MAGNIFICENT ENTERPRISE FOR
TEXAS AND MIEXICO.
TAKE a map of Mercator's projection, stretch a line from NewYork tangent to the Gulf of Mexico, and prolong it at each end;
it will cut the Pacific ocean near Mazatlan, and will strike Newfoundland at Cape Ray, opposite to Cape North, in Nova Scotia. It
will pass nearly over Boston, New-Haven, New-York, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Washington, Abingdon, Chattanooga, Jackson, Alexandria, Houston, Lavaca, San Patricio, Revilla, Parras, Durango, and
Mazatlan. Slight deflections will take it by Portland, Me.; Lynchburgh, Va.; Baton Rouge, La; Corpus Christi, Texas; Monterey,
Saltillo, and Sombrerete, Mexico. This is the shortest practicable route
for a railway/from Portland to the Paciflc, and, d fortiori, the shortest
from any intermediate point, such as New-York. It is believed to
be the only route by which private capital can build a railway from
New-York to the Pacific ocean. Political considerations may force
a road, at governmental expense, by a more northern route. But
this alone, it is believed, of all the proposed routes connecting our
railroad system in the East with the Pacific, will pay interest on cost.
Were an engineer now required to build a railroad on the cheapes
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