ROUTE NEAR THE THIRTY- SECOND PARALLEL. 103 



business, to be found only at the two extremities, with but little way business, the capital required 

 must be idle an average time equal to half that required for construction, which latter will not 

 probably be less than 10 years, and the interest during that time would add from twenty- 

 five to thirty millions to the capital. If, in consideration of the great national benefits which the 

 construction of the road would confer, the government of the United States could lend its aid to 

 the road so as to relieve it from the payment of interest upon the cost of the road during the time 

 of its construction, it would seem probable from the foregoing that it might be built by private 

 means. Without this much aid from the government, the road will probably never be built. 



A donation of land, such as has been generally proposed, will be of little comparative value. 



I regret that there is not time to enter a little more into these discussions. 



The following extract from ihe annual report of the railroad corporations in the State of Mas 

 sachusetts foi 1852, giving the length, cost, yearly earnings, expense of working, &c., of the 

 roads in that State, may be found interesting. 



Following it is an extract from the annual report of the State engineer and surveyor on the 

 railroads of the State of New York, showing the length, cost, &c., of the roads in that Stale. I 

 have made these extracts as brief as possible. It will be seen that the estimated cost of the 

 route of the 32d parallel, after every consideration of the unusual circumstances that will produce 

 an increased cost, is about the same per mile as the roads in these States : 



Extract from an abstract of &quot;Annual Reports of the R rilroad Corporations in (he State of Massachu 

 setts,&quot; showing totals of the leading statistics of all the roads. 



Capital $56,236,600 00 



Capital paid in 46,539,220 34 



Cost 60,01 9,051 77 



Length 1,280.29 miles. 



Length of double track 270.33 &quot; 



Length of branches 103.68 &quot; 



Speed of passenger trains adopted per hour 23.63 &quot; 



Speed of freight trains adopted per hour 12.98 &quot; 



Earnings $7,7 1 3,208 35 



Expense of working 4,541,468 31^ 



Net earnings . 3,211,197 75 



Dividends 2,483,545 94 



Debt 16,009,095 77 



Surplus 1,112,072 95 



Extract from the &quot;Annual Report of the State Engineer and Surveyor on the railroads of the State of 



New York February, 1854.&quot; 



The length of all the railroads in operation in the State is 2,432 miles. 



The length of railroads laid is about 2,497 &quot; 



The length of double track in addition to the above is 664 &quot; 



The number of locomotives in use is 586 



The number of passenger cars in use is -- 834 



The number of baggage and freight cars in use is 6,895 



The number of miles run by passenger trains is about 6,594,963 



The number of miles run by freight trains is 4,227,807 



Total number of miles run - 1 0,822,770 



The whole number of miles travelled by the passengers is about 531,572,298 



