RAPIDITY OF CONSTRUCTION. 253 
‘gmpleted twenty miles of roofing on the Ist of January 
‘ais year. It is hard, after so much has been done, to be 
iged to pronounce this summit railway a mistake. Yet 
here is no question about it. Had the Sierra Nevada been 
More thoroughly examined before this gigantic enterprise was 
ndertaken, Beckworth’s Pass—thirty miles to the north, 
nd only 4,500 feet in height—would most certainly have 
een adopted. So expensive is it to carry freight up such 
steep grades for so great a distance, that although the Central 
vacific Company at present ignore the Beckworth route, 
hey will be obliged ultimately to adopt it if the freight traffic 
t all equals their expectations. Although the engineering 
lifficulties upon other points of the Pacific Railroad are not 
reat, yet the rapidity with which the work has been 
1c omplished is marvellous. It was not until January, 1866, 
hat the first forty miles of railroad were laid down from 
Omaha; in January, 1867, 305 miles were completed; and 
January, 1868, 540. In the meantime the Californian 
npany were hard at work tunneling, and had only ninety- 
miles open to business on the 1st of January last year. 
uring 1868, 866 miles were added to the railway by the 
Ae ae 
; Sas aren 
a 
rs is 
ds a day, Sundays excluded, and the remaining 346 miles 
completed in 107 days more. In the history of railway 
action this rapidity has no precedent ; and when it is 
mhered that for 1,600 miles wood for ties could only be 
ned at three points accessible to the road, and also that 
country is mostly an uninhabited desert, the result 
s even yet more marvellous. The following quota- 
1 explains, in true American style, how the track is 
‘One can see all along the line of the now completed road 
