Greater Britain: a record of travel in English-speaking countries during 1866 and 1867 . ps showedthat from St. Louis to San Francisco the distance was twicethat from the head of navigation on Lake Superior to the Brit-ish Pacific ports. America has gone through a five years agony since thattime; but now, in the first days of peace, we find that theAmerican Pacific Railroad, growing at the average rate of twomiles a day at one end, and one mile a day at the other, willstretch from sea to sea in 1869 or 1870, while the British Hneremains a dream. Not only have the Rocky Mountains turned out to
Greater Britain: a record of travel in English-speaking countries during 1866 and 1867 . ps showedthat from St. Louis to San Francisco the distance was twicethat from the head of navigation on Lake Superior to the Brit-ish Pacific ports. America has gone through a five years agony since thattime; but now, in the first days of peace, we find that theAmerican Pacific Railroad, growing at the average rate of twomiles a day at one end, and one mile a day at the other, willstretch from sea to sea in 1869 or 1870, while the British Hneremains a dream. Not only have the Rocky Mountains turned out to be passa-ble, but the engineers have found themselves compelled to de-cide on the conflicting claims of passes without and frowning as the Rocky Mountains are whenseen from the plains, the rolling gaps are many, and they areeasier crossed by railway fines than the less lofty chains ofEurope. From the heat of the country, the snow-line lieshigh; the chosen pass is in the latitude of Constantinople orOporto. The dryness of the air of the centre of a vast conti- PT ¥_l. ^ ? The Pacific Railroad. 77 •nent prevents the fall of heavy snows or rains in winter. At eight or nine thousand feet above the sea, in the Black Hills, or Eastern Piedmont, the drivers on the Pacific line will have slighter snow-drifts to encounter than their brothers on the Grand Trunk or the Camden and Amboy at the sea-level. On the other hand, fuel and water are scarce, and there is an endless succession of smaller snowy chains which have to be crossed upon the Grand Plateau, or basin of the Great Salt Lake. Whatever the difficulties, in 1869 or 1870 the line will be an accomplished fact. In the act creating the Pacific Railroad Company, passedin 1862, the company were bound to complete their line atthe rate of a hundred miles a year. They are completing itat more than three times that rate. When the act is examined, it ceases to be strange that theroad should be pushed with extraordinary e
Size: 1201px × 2079px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade186, booksubjectvoyagesaroundtheworld
