vative minds deduce disastrous consequences, but auguries of this character have greeted every forward movement of civilization, and have failed seriously to alarm mankind. Grave difficulties, it is admitted, have arisen from the imperfect coördination of these new and powerful interests with the vested rights already subsisting. But experience has shown that evils of this character are closely associated with their appropriate correctives, and that the ultimate, aims, and results of progress will be favorable to the best interests of man, both individually and socially.

Railways in this country have a political and social importance which they can attain nowhere else. They have proved to be the bond of an indissoluble union of the States. The question of permanent union of the eastern and western slopes of the Alleghanies lay with deep anxiety upon the mind of Washington. Prior to the Revolutionary War he had made careful reconnoissance of the country intervening between the Ohio River and the James and Potomac Rivers, with reference to a practicable communication between them. In 1783, after the close of the war, he followed the course of the Mohawk River to its head, detecting the only subsidence in the Appalachian Mountain system through which a canal communication between the Atlantic and our great northern lakes has yet been secured. He subsequently made another examination of the Alleghany region, and presented the results of his observations in a memorial to the governor of Virginia, a paper remarkable for thorough comprehension of the situation of affairs, and for sagacity and ability unsurpassed by any of his productions. In that paper the illustrious patriot says:

"I need not remark to you that the flanks and rear of the United States are possessed by other powers, and formidable ones, too; and how necessary it is to apply the cement of interest to bind all parts of the Union together by indissoluble bonds, especially that part of it which lies immediately west of us, with the Middle States. For what ties, let me ask, should we have upon these people in the Mississippi Valley? How entirely unconnected with them shall we be, and what troubles may we not apprehend, if the Spaniards on their right, and Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing stumbling blocks in their way, as they now do, should hold out lures for their trade and alliance? What, when they gain strength, which will be sooner than most people conceive-from the emigration of foreigners who will have no predilection for us, as well as the removal of our own citizens-will be the consequence of having formed close connections with both or either of these powers, in a commercial way? It needs not, in my opinion, the gift of prophecy to foretell.

The Western States (I speak now from my own observations) hang upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way. They have looked down the Mississippi till the Spaniards, very impoliticly, I think, for themselves, threw difficulties in the way; and they looked that way for no other reason than because they could glide gently down the stream, without considering, perhaps, the difficulties of the passage back again, and the time necessary to perform it; and because they had no other means of coming to us but by land transportation and unimproved roads. These causes have hitherto checked the industry of the present settlers, for, except the provisions, occasioned by the increase of population, and the little flour which the neces sities of the Spaniards compel them to buy, they have no incitements to labor. But smooth the road and make easy the way for them, and then see what an influx of articles will be poured upon us, how amazingly our exports will increase, and how amply we shall be compensated for any trouble and expense we may encounter to effect it.

Thus the Father of American Freedom, not satisfied with having pledged upon the battle-field life, fortune, and sacred honor to the cause of independence, devotes his great mind at his first leisure, to the problems of peaceful civilization. The danger which so profoundly moved his patriotic feelings has since passed away. The Spanish flag no longer waves over any portion of the North American Continent, and the British colonial empire, then so threatening upon our northern borders, is rapidly gravitating toward the American Union. Our area has expanded westward to the Pacific Ocean and southward to the

Rio Grande. A homogeneous population, drawn from the best blood of Caucasian Europe, is spreading rapidly over the wilderness, constituting the greatest civilization the sun ever shone upon. While European military establishments embrace five and a half millions of men in time of peace, and levies en masse in time of war, to decide the selfish issues of dynastic ambition, we find an army of thirty thousand men sufficient, not only to protect our frontiers but to enforce the authority of the Union even amid the smoldering fires and bitter remembrances of a recent gigantic rebellion.

How much are we indebted for our present security to the patriotic cares of Washington and his contemporaries, who detected and grappled with the earlier obstacles to our National Union! They indicated the nature and difficulties of the task of coördinating the communities separated by the Alleghany Mountains into a single community, and stimulated that systematic effort which culminated, finally, in practically leveling this mountain barrier by means of railways and canals. Maryland and Virginia made the movement toward connecting the waters of the Mississippi with the Atlantic, by chartering a company for the construction of a water line along the Potomac, making liberal grants of money in aid of this enterprise. Washington was elected president of this company, but his assumption of the responsibilities of the office of President of the United States, in 1789, absorbed his entire attention, and the plan which he had suggested and personally urged was, for the time being, abandoned. It was subsequently, however, carried out in the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

The facilities offered by the Mohawk Valley for the construction of a water line across the Alleghany Mountain system, as tested by Washington in his reconnoissance in 1783, induced the formation, in 1792, of an association for this purpose, entitled "The Western Inland Lock Navigation Company." This organization, in 1797, completed a canal around the Little Falls of the Mohawk, 23 miles in length, and two or three other short canals around the more formidable obstructions to the navigation of this river, at an entire outlay of $400,000, securing the passage of boats of fifteen tons burden. This slack-water system, through imperfect construction, was found entirely unsuited to the pressing wants of the public, and was sold to the State of New York for a sum less than the original cost.

After the war of 1812, and in 1817, the State legislature made provision for canal construction. The work on the Erie Canal was commenced on the 4th of July of the last-named year, and completed November S, 1825, connecting the waters of Lake Erie with the tributary waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The opening of this canal was accompanied by a sudden and enormous reduction in the cost of transporting western produce to market. Previous to this time the cost of transportation had been $100 a ton from Buffalo to New York, being about four times the market price of corn, twice the price of wheat, and almost equal to that of beef and pork. On the opening of this canal the cost of transportation was at once reduced to $10 per ton, and subsequently to $3 per ton. The effect of this reduction was immediately felt in stimulating production along the line of the canal, and in concentrating at New York a large amount of trade that had hitherto been directed to Philadelphia and Baltimore by being floated in arks and rafts down the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers. The New York and Erie Canal, however, is the only successful effort to establish a water communication between the eastern and western slopes of the Alleghany Mountains. Both these sections of our country have established local lines of an aggregate of nearly 5,000 miles,

resulting in very great advantage to their respective interests. But neither Maryland nor Pennsylvania were able to tap the Mississippi basin with a water line. The importance of this measure had begun, in 1824, to be seriously contemplated as a matter of commercial advantage. The magnificent resources of the Mississippi Valley had attracted the attention of business men in the Atlantic States as promising an immense volume of trade, provided an eligible method of transport and travel over the mountains could be devised. A keen and powerful competition for the control of this trade was immediately aroused among the great commercial cities of the Atlantic slope. New York and Boston were the sole beneficiaries of the only canal line that had been established, and thitherward southern capital and enterprise had already begun to migrate.

The success of railway construction, then just becoming assured in England, suggested a new method of overcoming the difficulty. The railroad in this country, as in England, had first been employed for merely local purposes; it was destined to supersede all other public communications. Baltimore, being nearest to the Great West of all the commercial cities of the Atlantic slope, first undertook to scale the mountain barrier by the construction of a single line of railway to the Ohio River. This enterprise, commenced in 1828, required a quarter century for completion. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania and New York, equally alive to the importance of securing the trade of the Great West, succeeded in consolidating into single companies several detached lines of railway that had been constructed for local purposes. These lines are now known as the New York Central and Pennsylvania Central Roads, connecting with the Atlantic sea-board Lake Erie and the Ohio Valley, respectively. To these, New York added another through line from New York City to Dunkirk, on Lake Erie. Virginia and North Carolina have also completed railway lines across the mountains, while South Carolina and Georgia have passed it on its southern flank, reaching out into the vast cotton region of the Gulf States. While the railway system was thus being pushed westward to establish lines of communication between the Atlantic slope and the Mississippi basin, thus overcoming the isolating influence of the mountain range and fusing the two sections into a single homogeneous community, it was spreading a local network of lines all over the older States. Massachusetts now has one mile of road to each 5.27 square miles of territory; the proportion of Connecticut is 6.75; of New Jersey, 8.22; of Pennsylvania, 9.39; of Delaware, 10.10; of Rhode Island, 10.45; and of New York, 12.89. The proportion of New England is 15.12 square miles to every mile of railroad; of the Middle States in this calculation it should be observed that large portions of New York and Pennsylvania, and nearly the entire area of Western Virginia, should be credited to the Mississippi basin, and portions of Middle States east of the mountains enjoy the greater portion of the railroad mileage, making the ratio of that section greater than any other of the Atlantic slope. In the Southern States the proportion of railway mileage has been much less, South Carolina averaging but 26.71; Virginia, 27.59; Georgia, 35.11; North Carolina, 44.87; and in Florida, 132.69 square miles to each mile of railway. In spite of the immense disparity in the more southern Atlantic States, especially in Florida, the general average ratio of the Atlantic slope is less than 25 square miles of area to each mile of completed road. When the whole of this portion of our country shall have attained the ratio of Massachusetts, the aggregate will equal the present aggregate of the whole country, or about 50,000 miles. The main communications between the East and

the West, across the Alleghany Mountains, by means of railways having been established, the development of the resources of the Mississippi Valley became rapid and regular. One of the more striking indications of this fact is found in the rapidly increasing demand for local roads, and for the extension of through lines over the entire section. The` wealth of the older States had enabled them to supplement their main lines with a network of local routes covering large portions of the Atlantic slope, and bringing the whole within easy communication. In the younger States this work was greatly restricted by want of capital. But a new phase of railroad enterprise was now to be presented. Instead of awaiting the necessary accumulation of means of construction, by the slow processes of old time industry, it found means of hypothecating its future prospects, and of realizing therefrom tangible means of present operations. The railway became in this way the creator of values. It was enabled to realize this great idea through the medium of the public land system.

The middle of the nineteenth century will be memorable in the history of the world's social system as the era of development of two grand elements of commerce-the California gold deposits and the extension of ocean steam navigation. The former looked to the enlargement of the metallic basis of the world's circulating medium; the latter provided the means of an increased transportation of commodities; both indicated an enormous enhancement of the volume and activity of trade in all parts of the globe. All these innovations have been realized as permanent conditions in the great problem of industry and commerce, of produc tion and exchange.

These new agencies of gold and steam, having thus reorganized the world's productive and trading system, their activity was soon felt in the movement of our domestic trade. The development of resources became still more rapid, both east and west of the Alleghanies; but a new element of the problem was developed in the rapid settlement of the Pacific slope. The first adventurers were drawn thither by temporary motives of mining enterprise, the popular idea of the country being one of very limited productive capacity.

Unexpectedly, however, our Pacific slope has developed agricultural resources of wondrous richness and variety, and of a remarkably unique character.

The climate has assumed a most genial phase, presenting remarkable attractions to permanent residence. A rapid settlement of the country by a civilized population has already brought three new States in that region into the American Union, while several Territorial organizations promise soon to assume the full responsibilities of States.

This extension of our civilization has opened up to railway construction a wider scope, both of local and through lines of travel and transportation, than ever was known. Lying right in the new lines of the world's commerce, and presenting a novel line of communication between the eastern and western spheres of the Old World, our territory presented especial attractions to this new enterprise. But it was found that the demand for railway construction, thus created, was far in advance of the capital available for the work. To meet this necessity, however, the General Government found itself possessed of unexpected

resources.

It was endowed by the Constitution with the guardianship and dis posal of proprietary right in the national territory. The price of the public lands had long since been fixed by law at $1 25 per acre, and even at this very low price large portions had remained a drug in the

market, protracting the period of their disposal, and thus enhancing its aggregate expense. At this point it was suggested by a western statesman that railway enterprises through the public domain should be endowed with a certain amount of public land, the price of the alternate sections being doubled in order to save the national revenue. The increased value conferred upon these lands by the presence of the railway was far greater than the increase of price demanded.

This experiment was tried in the case of the Illinois Central Railroad, the even-numbered sections for six miles on each side of the line being granted by act of September 20, 1850, to the State of Illinois in aid of its construction. The aggregate amount of land donated under this act was 2,595,053.60 acres, which, at the minimum price, amounted to $3,243,750. The double of this sum represented the aid that was supposed to be given thereby to the railway, viz., $6,487,500. But by retaining the land until the government lands along the line had been sold, the company was enabled to realize much greater prices. The company, on accepting the grant as assignee of the State, agreed to pay, in lieu of all taxes, an annual impost of 7 per cent. upon the gross earnings of the road. Of the lands, 2,000,000 acres were devoted to construction, of which 435,908.24 acres remain undisposed of, in the hands of the company. To pay the interest on the bonds of the road, 250,000 acres were devoted, of which 12,745.90 acres still remain undisposed of. The remainder, 345,000 acres, were not directly devoted to any particular object; of this amount 12,745.90 acres remain at the disposal of the company. Of the total landed endowment there still remain 457,779.17 acres undisposed of. The average rates per acre of the lands already sold are, for construction lands, $11 35 per acre; for interest lands, $8 46; and for lands not specifically devoted, $12 84. The smaller rate of the interest lands may be accounted for from the fact that the earlier sale of these lands was necessitated by the bonded obligations of the company. From sales, including advanced interest, the construction lands have realized $17,763,001 26, the interest lands $1,949,886 73, and the unappropriated lands $4,255,848 79, showing a total realized to the company of $23,968,736 78. The lands undisposed of now average $12 55 per acre, at which rates they will swell the actual pecuniary aid derived from the landed endowment to $30,000,000, which is equal to the entire cost of the road and the equipment, entirely reimbursing the stockholders for their investment, while the profits remain undiminished. This road consists of a main line from Cairo to Dunleith, 560.95 miles, with a branch from Chicago, striking the main line at Centralia, embracing 146.50 miles. The gross earnings of the company for the past year amounted to $6,739,998, besides $641,000 upon leased roads in Illinois, and $1,442,484 on leased roads in Iowa; total, $8,823,482. The total expense of operat ing the main line and its leased lines, $4,924,594. The total net earnings over operating expenses amount to $3,898,888, from which, deducting charter-tax to Illinois and Iowa, and rent of leased roads, leaves $2,887,376 as the amount subject to distribution among the stockholders.

At the time these lands were granted to Illinois the public debt of that State amounted to $14,000,000. It is now less than half that amount, the reduction having been mainly effected by the application of the railroad tax to the redemption of State bonds. When that indebtedness shall have been canceled it is estimated that scarce any necessity will remain for the levy of taxes for State purposes, the railroad tax proving probably sufficient to meet the expenses of all departments of the general administration. The above figures, however,