The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1868-11-06

across the summit of the Sierra, over a
heavy ascending grade, requires about so
cars and 10 locomotives daily. The COM
pany needs more motive power for this and
its other business, and has ordered IA To-
comotives to be shipped from New York by
way of the Isthmus Immediately. Iron is.
coming fast enough already, and the tang
rack groves furnish the ties. The trans
porting power Of the company is so largely
devoted to pushing its road material ahead
that it is obliged to refuse great deal of
custom freight, much to the Inconvenience
of traders in the mountains and in Mashoe.
Everything must bend at present to the
construction of the railway. The company
is playing for big stake, in which the
farmers, manufacturers and merchants of
California are equally Interested own
ership Of the route to Salt Lake, and the
control of the trade of Utah, with its pap
ulation of nearly two hundred thousand, in
creasing at the rate Of 10 per cent. per an
uun, t.. -. +..
1.-THE Union Pacific Company is working
from the eastern side for the same object
i've, and has pushed grading force beyond
the three hundred mile limit fixed by Con-
gress but the Central folks are not afraid
of being passed, and have made arrange
ments which they are confident will enable
them to reach the north end of the lake first,
ifthey do-not even get beyond it. They de-
ny the report that the Union Pacific had
telegraphed an offer of the free use of so
much of their grade as the Central could
first iron, and of payment for SO much of
the Central grade as the Union should be
able to iron. The two companies are not
grading in parallel lines near the lake, as
supposed by some, but have left gaps in
the one main line in their anxiety to press
forward either way, and are bound to con-
meet at some point as required by law
There is now very little difference between
the distance which each company has to
build to reach the same point north of the
lake, and only about five hundred miles in
all remain to be constructed of the one
thousand seven hundred and twenty-five
originally to be built between Sacramento
and Omaha. ...- .te
"The work of grading across the Nevada
and Utah Plains eastward is not difficult
The country is an elevated plateau broken
into series of valleys by successive ridges,
rising above the generalievel from few
hundred to several thousand feet These
ridges are passed through easily by follow
ing mainly the course of streams, and the
intervals of small "plains" offer level sur
| face that needs only little smoothing to
be ready for the ties. Down the eastern
slope of the Sierra Nevada and far towards
Humboldt Lake the road usually follows the
bed of the Truckee. Leaving this bright,
clear stream, the journey becomes less in
teresting, and treeless hills, red or black
with volcanic rock, are succeeded by des-
ert tracts. ......r ...
"The most barren and forbidding por-
lions ofth route 10 Winnemucca are, how
ever, chiefly passed in the night, when the
alkaline dust is less apt to rise or if it rises,
does so in smaller quantities. The appear
anee of large camps of laborers, and of vii
! lagos just built of spice-scented pine
boards, intermixed with tents, is in sharp
contrast to the barren solitudes of the plains
and desert Construction trains frequently
passing, and the numerous groups of Chi
nese laborers that stop to gaze as the pas
senger car halts or goes by, increase the
strange discrepancies OF the scene which is
altogether wild and peculiar 1t is diff
cult to realize that over this same ground
once passed so slowly, laboriously and dam
gerously the OK trains of the pioneer emf
grants, and only, when this IS realized are
the full value of the Pacific Railroad and
the enterprise and energy of its builders
heartily appreciated" fe.- .r... r