84 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



boring through the solid rock, until at last the waters of the Ohio and of 

 the Chesapeake were united, the Alk-ghauies were surmounted, and shrill pagans 

 to the triumph of steam in intercontinental transportation were screamed by a 

 thousand iron throats from the seaboard to the mountain summits, and from the 

 vine-clad banks of the Ohio to the cane fields on the alluvial plains of Louisiana. 



It was one of the first railroad enter])rises undertaken in the United States, 

 as it is one of the most extensive. The length of the main stem, from Baltimore 

 to Wheeling, is 379 miles ; that of the Washington branch, 31 miles. Other 

 branches increase its total length to 520 miles. Of sidmgs and second main 

 track there are built nearly 300 miles more. The original cost of the entire 

 work is thirty-one millions of dollars. 



Its heaviest pennauent grade on the eastern declivity of the Allcghanies is 

 116 feet per mile for 17 miles; its greatest altitude, 2,620 feet. It has 12 

 repair stations, 33 repair shops, 98 water stations, 30 telegraph stations and 2 

 lines of wires, 14 tunnels, 12,694 feet of tunnelling, 1S6 bridges on the main 

 stem, 15,088 feet of bridging, about 4,000 cars and nearly 238 engines, and 

 gives occupation to 5,000 officers and employes. Its annual income, in good 

 times, has been five millions of dollars. 



The road-bed is probably superior to any line of considerable length in 

 America. It is rock-ballasted, and laid with heavy rail strongly secured. The 

 first rail used weighed fifty-five pounds per lineal yard, for Avhich rail of seventy- 

 five and eighty-five pounds was substituted, and recently it has been increased 

 to one hundred pounds. 



Astonishing activity has characterized the repair of portions of the line dam- 

 aged by raids during the war, and remarkable exemption from accident is no- 

 ticed, as, during the entire existence of the road, it has suffered but one serious 

 accident, and that was due to an unavoidable circumstance when the road 

 was new. 



Several years ago it was estimated by an officer of the road that an army of 

 10,000 men could be transported over it in thirty hours. The prediction is 

 more than verified in the following, received from W. P. Smith, the well- 

 known and efficient master of transportation of the road : 



" The heaviest movement that we have made, or that has been made by any railway in 

 the country, was of the :;i:3,000 men in Hooker's two corps, in September last, from Wash- 

 ington to Cliattanootra. This great body of men, with all their artillery, equipage, wagons 

 and effects, including the cavalry horses, occupied about 1,000 cars, and were carried from 

 Washington to Benwood, on the Ohio river, (400 miles,) in about forty hours." 



The scenery of West Virginia along the line of this road has been the aston- 

 ishment and admiration of travellers from all quarters of the globe. 



From Harper's Ferry, where the road has broken a rough passage through 

 the frowning mountains of the Blue Ridge, to the crossing of the Potomac again 

 before Cumberland, a distance of ninety-eight miles, the road passes through 

 the eastern section of western Virginia, a mingled scene of rough ravines, river 

 rapids, widening plains, and mountain barriers, which push forth eucroachingly 

 upon the river, compelling a detour not made by the stream without a noisy 

 yet unavailing murmur. 



After a run through Maryland of little more than twenty miles, a corner of 

 Hampshire county, in West Virginia, is struck at New Creek and Piedmont, 

 the tei-minus of the first division of the road and site of extensive machine shops. 

 From this point a rise of about nineteen hundred feet is accomplished in seven- 

 teen miles, the steepest railroad grade, in the country. Passing the glade lands 

 of the summit, which are in Maryland, the traveller is again introduced into 

 West Virginia just as he commences the western descent of the Alleghanies, 

 and views a beautiful panorama of mountain peaks piled upon receding moun- 

 ta'ins. Soon the most sublime of railroad scenery is in view ; the passage of 

 the Cheat river, the winding along the almost perpendicular sides of the moun- 



