RAILKOAJ) Kol TKS. £60 



America, and through our national domain. The change created in tin- minds of men 

 with regard to the real situation of California, in respect to its remote distance lrom 

 the Atlantic States, by the establishment of a lino of steamers on either ocean to the 

 Isthmus of Panama, which would waft the emigrant to the^ golden port of the Pacific 

 coast, the bay of San Francisco, in one-eighth of the time it was wont to take around 

 Cape Horn; quickly restore him to his friends to tell them what he had seen; and 

 speedily transmit the mails by which the news was kept constantly recurring and 

 fresh, all of which was read by the public with the greatest avidity, have conspired to 

 bring mentally the Pacific coast and its adjoining region very near to us, when, really, 

 in a physical point of view, it is just as far distant as ever. 



The consequence has been that what before was believed to be perfectly chimer- 

 ical, the construction of a railroad across the continent, is now regarded as a thing 

 certain; and not only so, but that it will be accomplished in a few years ; people do 

 not say how many, but I suppose they vaguely mean from three to live, hue 1 wae 



taken in the consummation of the project. Not a foot of railroad has been laid which 

 may fairly be called a part of the great national railroad, and which has been under- 

 taken with any decided determination to push the road across the continent. 



This long lapse of time between the conception of a project of vast importance 

 and the commencement of the undertaking is, however, only the tnut ot causes w nc 1 

 have been existing all along, and which were Inst pointed out by fcnewnter, as >c oie 

 stated, in his reports of the Fort Smith route in 1849. Nature remains the same now 

 upon this vast theater between the Mississippi on the east and the Pacific on the west 

 it ever did. The long dreary waste of deserts still are experienced by the toiling, 

 weary emigrant as Ion- and dreary as ever, and the Rocky and other mountains still 

 rear their majestic peaks and ridges, and boldly challenge the strength, energy, and 

 perseverance of the way-worn traveler. 



The truth is, facts are stubborn things, and he, be he engineer, statesman, or phi- 

 losopher who ignores them, will at length find that he has been following but a vain 

 conceit, which will eventually land him, where an attainable prescience might have 

 forewarned him, into a condition of vain inanity, or, it may be worse, of utter rum. 



We have been led into these reflections by the history of the railroad question, 

 which only within the past two or three years has been approximating toward a solu- 

 tion In our judgment, facts have been ignored, and desires and vain expectations 

 have been entertained bv politicians, and I may say the people generally, which have 

 eventuated in results that might from the first have been anticipated, under reports 

 which it appears to me (in all humility I say it) ought to have dwelt more upon the 

 difficulties of the project, and of the mode in which they are to be determined and 

 met than uimn fanning the public mind with the hot haste which thus far has resulted 

 only in finding at a late date, from actual observation and experience, that the mode 

 of building the road is, first, to prepare the way by common roads and opening them 

 to settlement and cultivation, and that then the railroad will normally come, if it comes 



Now, all this misapprehension of the failure in regard to the completion of the 



