298 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



had been vested in a Commission consisting of high officers of state, 

 and among them, persons of large scientific attainments. Of this Com- 

 mission, Whistler was shortly made a member; the minute surveys, 

 the location of the line, and it may be even said all particulars in its 

 construction, which could properly come under the purview of ex- 

 ecutive consideration, were directed or approved of by him. And in 

 those points where his experience or reflection suggested an opinion 



different from that of his colleagues, he had the fortunate tact to win 

 golden opinions from those even whose views he did not sustain. We 

 believe that we only state the simple truth in saying, that year by year 

 he rose in the estimation of those with whom he was engaged. 



The difficulty of his task, arising from the very grandeur of the un- 

 dertaking apart from any local or physical obstacles, is not to be judged 

 of by anything in the professional experience of any other engineer, 

 living or dead. A road of four hundred and twenty miles, with a thirty 

 feet base, a road way of four hundred feet in width, a double track 

 of seventy pound rails on a five feet gauge, with an equipment of one 

 hundred and sixty-two locomotives and more than two thousand six 

 hundred cars, for whose manufacture the place and means had to be as 

 it were created amid those Sclavonic plains — all to be opened and fur- 

 nished almost simultaneously, at an expense of forty millions of dollars 

 in the short space of seven years — constitutes an undertaking that might 

 have paralyzed many a stout and self- relying heart. Fifty thousand 

 men — a force to subvert a kingdom or establish an empire — worked 

 together at once to force the Earth's reluctant materials and products 

 to submit to the forms of a severe geometry. Upon one man, rested in 

 great measure the responsibility of the issue of this large number of 

 hands. Such and so great was the task that awaited him. 



The progress made in its completion was such that in March, 1847, 

 the Emperor with his suite was able to travel over a part of the road 

 and inspect the shops where all the immense machinery was being 

 fitted. Upon this occasion, which seems to have been regarded as a 

 sort of celebration, divers promotions were made among the native 

 officers connected with the work ; and the Cross of the Order of St. 

 Anne was conferred upon the American Engineer as a token of the 

 estimation in which he was held. 



Honorable tokens of another kind were not few. Besides the appro- 

 priate work of his functions on the road, enough io try the energies of 

 one man, (who, whatever might be his abilities, could not make more 

 than twenty-four hours in a day, nor be in two places at once,) 

 various other calls were at times made upon Whistler ; implying a 

 6eeming belief in his universal knowledge. Thus, not long after 

 commencing the great work in 1843, he was consulted upon the 

 project of the docks and fortifications at Cronstadt where his ideas 

 received — no mean praise — the imperial approval. Then the plans for 

 improving the Dovina at Archangel, and the construction of a perma- 

 nent bridge across the Neva, where the difficulty arises not so much 

 from the width (only eight hundred feet) as the depth and rapidity of 

 current, were successively submitted to him. The design of an iron 

 roof of a riding-house at St. Petersburg which exceeds the enormous 

 span (two hundred and thirty-five feel) of that at Moscow, was en- 



