NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 123 



1860, after the law had passed, a meeting of the directors of the vari- 

 ous telegraph companies in the country was held in New York ; and, 

 after some deliberation, a resolution to unite and co-operate for the 

 construction of a Pacific telegraph was rejected, and another passed 

 instead, declaring it inexpedient to embark in the enterprise, but 

 consenting that any of the parties who chose might do so. 



When the notice for proposals was advertised by Secretary Cobb, 

 Mr. Hiram Sibley, President of the Western Union Telegraph Co., 

 who was really the proposer and author of the whole enterprise, put 

 the question to the directors of his company whether they would au- 

 thorize proposals to be sent in ; and so formidable and unpropitious 

 did the undertaking appear that it was favorably carried only by a 

 single vote. 



After long and tedious delays on the part of Secretary Cobb, the 

 contract to build the line was awarded, on the 20th of September, 

 I860, to Mr. Sibley, the President and representative of the Western 

 Union Company. Here we may add that this company at once as- 

 sumed the contract, and furnished all the money expended on the 

 line east of Salt Lake. 



They at once dispatched one of their number, Mr. J. H. Wade, of 

 Cleveland, to California, to confer with parties on that side and per- 

 sons who had travelled the various routes, and determine where and 

 how to build the line, as also to make such arrangements with the 

 companies on the Pacific, or such of them as might agree, either for 

 a business connection at the then terminus of their lines, or to induce 

 them to extend this way. After various discussions, the route was at 

 last settled on ; the California companies covenanted to assume the 

 construction of the line to Salt Lake with all dispatch, and if possi- 

 ble as soon as the eastern section should be completed to that point 

 an undertaking which they honorably performed, reaching Salt 

 Lake but a few days later than the Western Union party. 



It was not an easy matter to determine the route, and there were 

 even different opinions as to the kind of line to be built. Some fa- 

 vored underground wires, some the usual pole line. The troublous 

 aspect of affairs South induced the company at last to determine on 

 a line to run by way of Fort Kearney, Fort Laramie, Fort Bridger, 

 crossing the Rocky Mountains at the South Pass, thence to Salt Lake 

 City, thence, via Fort Crittenden, by the Simpson route to Fort 

 Churchill, Carson Valley, thence over the Sierra Nevada Mountains 

 to Placerville and San Francisco being substantially the same 

 route as that over which the present overland mail is carried. 



Mr. Edward Creighton was appointed superintendent of construc- 

 tion in the eastern part of the line, and the California State Tele- 

 graph Company got ready to commence operations on their end. 

 From the known imperfection of underground lines, so far as they 

 have been tried in Europe, it was decided to put the lines to the 

 Pacific on posts, notwithstanding the deep snow on the mountains in 

 the winter, the scarcity and expense of getting timber, its liability to 

 be burnt with the grass on the plains, run down by buffaloes, or be 

 stolen for timber and fuel. 



Mr. Creighton had already surveyed the proposed route, and was 

 convinced the poles could be maintained. The manner of his survey 



