Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1853-02-10
Pacific Railroad,

road to California. Various plans for accom-
plshing this gigantic work have been brought
forward and earnestly pressed by their respective
authors, but whilst all admit the importance
the enterprise, and great majority appear to be-
lieve in its practicablity. yet none of the
schemes thus far suggested command general ap
proval. 1t ia no. probable that Congress will
go further at its present session, than to order
survey of the country with the view of ascertain
ing the most practicable route.
MIR. Mason. of Virginia, in his late speech on
the Tehuantepec question, adverted as follows to
some of the difficulties that lie in the way of an
Immediate construction of a railroad to the Pa
cifc Ocean,
Now. sir, mean to wage no war in this, with
those who say that railroad can be made across
the continent through our own territory. l have
no doubt it is in the power of the country to make
such road, but doubt exceedingly whether it
can be used effectively after it has been made
You may make a railroad ten thousand miles long
as easily as one ten miles long, if you have the
means but it depends at last upon the climate
and the nature of the physical distractions you
meet, what is to be the of it after it has been
made. Compare a railroad stretched across the
northern part of the continent with one at the
lStflHnuS Oh leHudut0I6C, DuL ONO hundred ana
seventy miles in length. We can use the seas
with certainty. Steam navigation has proved that
and there is no danger of obstruction from ice
either in the Gulf of Mexico or on the Pacific
side. But in this Herculean work which is pro-
ected to throw n road between the mississippi
and the Pacific, there can be no security of pas
sage whatsoever. Passing over the depredations
of hostile Indians, you to traverse deserts des-
titute of either wood or water-both indispensa~
BILE to motive power. For nearly two thousand
miles you are beyond the reach of any resour-
ces but such as travel with you; and to end the
whole, for nearly half the year the way when
openedis INSTRUCTED by impossible barriers of ice
and snow.
There can be no comparison between the two
routes so far as certainty and security of passage
is concerned and if this railroad across our own
continent should be made, the country will find,
when done, that there are months in the year
when it cannot be used. I say then, at once,
that comparing any way that can be made across
the northern part of this continent with that
which can be made at the isthmus of Tehuante-
pee, the one furnishes a communication certain
and secure, and the other communication of the
utmost uncertainty and insecurity.
l have taken part in the discussions which
have arisen on the bill introduced by the honora-
bic senator from California Mr.. GwIN for the
construction of this railroad to the Pacific ocean;
but the most cursorv examination of the bill will
show that the whole plan it proposes is crude and
immature, not by any means from want OF ability
in those who project, but from vices inherent In
the subject itself; and understood the hon.
orable senator to say that he could not refer il to
a committee, because former committees had tried
in vain to perfect its details.
Here is a work to COST l suppose, a hundred
millions of dollars more, running for two
thousand miles through deserts, amidst hostile
Indians over stony mountains, and yet you cannot
have the details of it adjusted, although you ex-
pect to make the road. have not seen the bill
that the honorable senator from Texas Mr..
Rusk] proposes to substitute for it; but learn
that the chief difference between the two is
that one proposes that the road shall be made by
a grant of land, and the other by grant of
money as an auxiliary to the land. Whenever
this road shall be made-and doubtless it will be
at some day after the territory through which it
passes is popuated-I apprehend it must be done,
as all other roads have been, by previous careful
survey and exploration. You cannot undertake
to make a railroad without knowing where it is
to 60, and the country through which it is to
pass, the grade which is to be overcome, and the
mountains and the rivers which it is to traverse,
or whether it can be done at ALL Why, it is un-
dertaking to order railroad to be made by our
fiat whether nature will or will not permit it.
do not mean to assert that this railroad will
never be made for in all human probability. it
will be-; but doubt much if any man now living
will ever pass over it. If you could have an ap-
preparation Tomorrow in the form Ill which 1t Is
asked, and supplying all the necessary funds, if
know anything of human affairs, my life upon it,
the road would not be built in twenty years.
In estimating the cost of the road in question,
its length is usually reckoned at 1000 miles, but
we observe that Messrs Dawson and Cooper, of
the Senate. compute the distance from the Mis-
sisspp river to San Francisco at $500 miles,
and when the windings of the road through the
mountain passes are taken into account the
distance will be much greater. Mr.. Dawson ar
gued that railroad running three thousand
miles through wilderness and connecting us
with population of not more than three or four
hundred thousand, never conld sustain itself by
profit. Mr.. Douglas thought differently, and we
give an extract from his remarks, that the read
er may have glance at both sides of the ques-
tion. Ma Douglas may be right, but we must
confess, that we strongly distrus: his sanguine
Calculations and predictions.
The senator4rom Georgia went on to say that
this road was to be through Wilderness of two
to three thousand miles, where there would be
nothing to supply provisions for those engaged up
on it: and that the travel and commerce upon il
when completed would not be sufficient to pay it
expenses He says no man dreams that the road
is going to pay fair dividend after it is made
presume he was speaking in his usual beautiful,
rhetorical manner. without pinning himself dowr
to what he would expect US to regard as seriously
the facts of the case. There are men who
think thnt this road will pay when 1t Ii
made. There are men who think they
| have data bV which thay arrive a
that conclusion. have seen, within the last lou
years, road started in my own State through
a country where hardly one-tenth of the lane
was under cultivation, aud where the same pre-
dictions were made that it would never pay, an Z
yet that road, although only one half done, now