CHAPTER IV. 
3 THE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 
, q Ir is quite impossible to weigh the advantages held out by 
_ the Northern Pacific route without becoming a convert to the 
scheme. By making use of the Great Lake system of the 
continent and the rivers which flow east and west above 
the meridian of New York, it would be possible to pass from 
that city to Portland on the Pacific, 3,205 miles, by steam- 
boat for 2,480 miles, and by rail for the remaining 825. 
The object of the Northern Pacific Railroad is not only to 
develop the country through which it passes, but to unite 
the following great steamboat routes with one another :— 
Ist. The Great Lakes at the western end of Lake Superior. 
2nd. Steam navigation on the Mississippi by a short 
branch to St. Paul. : : 
. 8rd. Steam navigation on the Missouri at Fort Clarke and 
Fort Benton. 
4th. The Columbian River, from the falls of which one 
branch is to continue onward to Portland at ite mouth, 
another to deflect northward to Seattle, in Puget Sound. 
| Here the advocates of this route say that they are nearly 
- 500 miles nearer to Shanghae than at San Francisco, and that 
- the distances to the ports of Japan, Northern China, and the 
- Amoor are still more in their fayour. : 
