810 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
front north of the passenger station in the city of Milwaukee. 
For nearly a half-mile, the track runs over made land along the 
lake shore under a bluff forty to fifty feet high. For a part 
of this distance, the land on top of the bluff is occupied by 
Juneau park, and for the remainder, by the most expensive res¬ 
idence property in the city, worth $100 to $200 a front foot. 
With land on top of the bluff worth $50,000 per acre and up¬ 
ward, and the lake on the other side, it as difficult to say what 
the right of way lying between is worth. 15 
THE APPRAISAL BY THE RAILROADS THEMSELVES. 
At the request of the state board of assessment, most of the 
larger roads of the state made an inventory of their own prop¬ 
erty at the same time that the work was going forward under 
direction of the board. The following roads turned in ap¬ 
praisals for their right of way: Chicago and Northwest¬ 
ern; Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul; Chicago, St. 
Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha; Duluth, South Shore 
and Atlantic; Eastern Bailway of Minnesota; Green 
Bay and Western; Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. 
Marie; Wisconsin and Michigan, and Wisconsin Central. The 
methods followed by the various roads were not given in all 
cases, and for those that were given the differences were not 
enough to warrant a description for each road. In order, 
however, to make a comparison of results, it is necessary to 
describe some of these methods. 
Of the various appraisals of right of way made by the rail¬ 
way companies, that employed by the Wisconsin Central for 
a portion of its appraisal was probably as carefully done as 
any and may be- taken as typical. This appraisal was made 
by a careful right of way man who has been in the employ of 
the road for many years and who is familiar with the line 
throughout its whole length in the state. Careful inquiry was 
made in person of responsible men familiar with land values 
i5 The situation for this particular piece of road was aptly put by an 
Irish appraiser employed by the railway company who, when directed 
to obtain the right of way value by comparison with “lands similarly 
situated,” reported that “there is no land similarly situated.” 
