LAYING THE TRACK. 255 
Ward before that hurrying corps of slivdy operatives with 
Mingled feelings of amusement, curiosity, and profound respect. 
jOn they came. A light car, drawn by a single horse, gallops 
Fup to the front with its load of rails. 'Twomen seize the end 
i . At the word of command the rail is dropped in_ its 
place, right side up, with care, while the same process goes on 
at the other side of the cdr. Less than thirty seconds to a 
rail for each gang, and so four rails go down to the minute ! 
Quick work, you say, but the fellows on the U. P. are 
‘tremendously in earnest. The moment the car is empty it is 
tipped over on the side of the track to let the next loaded car 
Pass it, and then it is tipped back again; and it is a sight to 
See it go flying back for another load, propelled by a horse at_ 
full gallop at the end of 60 or 80 feet of rope, ridden by a 
young Jehu, who drives furiously. Close behind the first 
" gang come the gaugers, spikers, and bolters, and a lively time 
they make of it. It is a grand Anvil Chorus that those 
sturdy sledges are playing across the plains. It is in triple 
time, three strokes to a spike. There are ten spikes to a rail, 
four hundred rails to a mile, eighteen hundred miles to San 
rancisco. That’s the sum, what is the quotient? Twenty- 
€ million times are those sledges to be swung—twenty-one 
million times are they to come down with their sharp punc- 
tuation, before the great work of modern America is com- 
lete!” (See title-page, vol. i.) 
Passing over all other collateral subjects, I must mention 
hat an abundance of coal, sufficiently good to be burned by 
the locomotive, has been discovered in several localities near 
