one, but attended with difficulties almost as great. The work to be done must be widely distributed, and must cover an immense area, and when done constant vigilance will be the price of permanence. The dams and catch-basins will fill with silt, the washings of the mountain sides. The ditches will wash and break; the first cost will be enormous; the care will be costly and continuous. But the question is one that must nevertheless be met. We have grown to more than seventy millions. The waste and idleness of any of our natural resources will soon come to be regarded as a culpable negligence, if not a crime. The richest soil and the most favorable climate lie within the arid regions. To utilize all the water that the sky yields is unquestionably within the genius of a nation that thus far has been daunted by no obstacles and deterred by no circumstances.

A long residence in the West in contact with its people, have turned the writer's attention to such features of the irrigation problem as are here set down, and as such they fall within the scope of the present volume. Aridness, a condition of nature, is, indeed, the only bar to the complete victory of that vanguard which the soldiers led. It must be conquered now by science, and under the law of the greatest good to the greatest number.

CHAPTER XLIII.

TRANSPORTATION.

THE UNBRIDGED SPACE BETWEEN THE EAST AND THE WEST-EARLY RAILROADS - EARLY RAIL-
ROADS OF THE UNITED STATES-CHANGE IN RATES OF SPEED - PROPHECY OF SIMON CAMERON
-VAST AND RAPID INCREASE IN MILEAGE-THE SLEEPING CAR-THE OLD PASSENGER
CAR THROUGH TICKETS AND TRANSFERS-THE ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF A
TRANS-CONTINENTAL LINE-THE UNION AND CENTRAL PACIFIC LINES-
THE NORTHERN PACIFIC-THE THIRTY-FIFTH PARALLEL ROUTE-
THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC-LAND GRANTS TO THE PACIFIC LINES
-SUM OF LAND GRANTS TO ALL LINES-GROSS INCOME
OF THE RAILROADS OF THE UNITED STATES.

N the preceding chapter I have described the vast country which
lies between the region which now by universal consent is the East,
and that which in recent times has become the actual West; the
West which lies beyond the supposed possibilities of even a few
years ago, and which is now bounded not by an idea of comparative
locality, but by the Pacific.

This arid region had not within it the inducements to rapid settlement and remarkable growth which had already made rich and populous all the splendid commonwealths which were once called Western States; which had dotted them with cities and had crossed them in all directions with railroad lines. Yet, beyond it lay the beautiful State, which I shall describe in the last chapter of this volume, and in its center lay gems like Colorado, with vast resources as yet only surmised along its length and hidden in its nooks and corners. More than fifteen hundred miles of mountain and plain lay almost uninhabited between the most eastern settlements of the western coast and the western borders of the Valley of the Mississippi.

With a brief glance at the history of the small beginnings of the vast railroad system of the United States, I shall in this chapter describe how this arid and then unproductive region was bridged, how the farther East was united with the utmost West, and the means by which all that lies between was made accessible to the energy of the American people, with the vast results, some of whose beginnings have been sketched in these pages.

The locomotive with its long attendant train of cars has now become such a familiar feature of our landscape that it attracts but little notice. Still it is less than the three score and ten years that are the allotted span of human life since, through the magic power of steam, was evolved so potent a factor in our civilization. A journey that once might have consumed weeks can now be performed in a day; and a journey, which in winter, could only be accomplished at the cost of exposure to cold and storms and the suffering entailed thereby, can now be taken with as much comfort as if we remained in our own homes. Now the products of each respective section are no longer enjoyed merely in that particular portion of the country, but are obtainable everywhere; and in our new West are populous cities, that seem to have sprung up almost in a night, which never could have been born, much less attained such a growth if they had not been connected with the older portions of the country by the shining bands of steel over which glides the swift train.

The idea of a graded or artificial roadway is not a new one by any means, for as far back as when Rome was mistress of the world, her people, who were always famous road builders, constructed ways of cut stone. About one hundred and fifty years ago what were known as tramroads were built in England to facilitate the conveyance of coal from the mines to the place of shipment, and here iron was used instead of steel for rails, as at the present day.

Railways would be of little value without some power of rapid transportation, so when James Watt invented the steam engine in 1773, earnest thinkers began to conceive the idea of a locomotive, and the tropical imagination of Erasmus Darwin led him to make in 1781 his famous prediction:

"Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam! afar

Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car."

The first locomotive that was successfully used was the " Puffing Billy" built in 1813, which can to-day be seen in the museum of the English Patent Office. In 1821 the Stockton and Darlington Railroad in England used a steam locomotive, built by the Stephensons, but it was only used to haul freight over a road twelve miles long. In 1825 a locomotive drew the first passenger train over this road, making the distance of twelve miles in two hours. In order that no one might be injured by their indulgence in this swift rate of speed the kind-hearted manager sent a horseman ahead to ride down the track in front of the engine and warn people to get out of the way.

The Carbondale Railroad in Pennsylvania was the first road in this country on which a locomotive was used. This engine was known as the "Stourbridge Lion," and was built in England by Horatio Allen, who went there for that express purpose.

The locomotives invented by the Stephensons could not go around sharp corners, and vast sums were therefore expended to make the line as straight as possible and to obtain easy grades. When the Americans first began to build railways in 1831, the English designs were followed for a time, but

our engineers soon found that their money would not be ample if such a course was pursued, and so were either forced to stop

building or find

some way to over

come these obstacles. The result

was that the swivelling truck was invented, and also the equalizing beams or levers, by which the weight of the engine is always borne by three out of four or more driving wheels. These two improvements, which are absolutely necessary for the building of roads in new countries, are also of the greatest value on the smoothest and straightest tracks. Another American invention is the switchback. By this plan the length of line required to ease the gradient is obtained by running a zigzag course instead of going straight up a mountain. This device was first used in Pennsylvania to lower coal cars down into the Neshoning. Then it was employed to carry the temporary tracks of the Cascade Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad over the Stampede Pass with grades of 297 feet per mile, while a tunnel was being driven through the mountain. This device has now reached such perfection that it is quite a common occurrence for a road to run above itself in spiral form.