Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-04-18
NORTHERN Pa CIFIC RAILROAD.

Hon. Schuyler Colfax has an interesting art-
Gle in the New York Independent, on the sub
ject of the Northern Pacific Railroad, from
which we make the following extracts:
OF the suspicious influence of this enter
prise, which but few years ago would have
been considered so daring, the most sanguine
of its friends have scarcely yet full realiza-
ton. Even taking Chicago as the starting
point, it will be (via st. Paul, where an arm
of the Northern Pacific Railroad is reached),
two hundred miles less distance to Puget
Sound than to San Francisco. Besides this,
vessels from the Golden Gate to China sail
on what is called the grand circle, instead of
in a straight line and any one testing this by
a string on globe will be surprised at the
result, if they have not previously studied
the effect of the roiundity of the earth, and
its diminished protuberance as you go north
ward toward the pole. Hence, when they
have sailed eight hundred miles from San
Francisco, they are only one hundred miles
from the entrance to Puget Sound; and this
striking fact shows the advantages this route
will have in commanding the through traffic
of Asia with our Atlantic States, or that por-
ton of it which will pass over the soil of this
nation on its road to Europe.
Along the line of the Northern Pacific
Railroad, as it follows up the water-courses,
the Missouri and the Yellowstone on this
side, and descends by the valley of the Column
bia on the other, vast body of agricultural
land is waiting for the plough, with climate
almost exactly the same as that of New York,
except that, with less snow, cattle in the lar
ger portion of it can subsist ON the open range
in winter. But this Road is fortunate also in
its pathway across the two ranges of noun
tains which tested SO severely the Pacific
Railroads built on the central line, and the
overcoming of which reflected such well de-
served honor on their energetic builders.
At the Deer Lodge Pass in Montana, where it
crosses the Rocky Mountains, its altitude
above the sea is $500 feet less than the Union
Pacific Railroad at Sherman, which is said to
be the highest point at which locomotive
can be found in the world. And on the Pa
cific side of the Continent it is even more for
tunate. From Arizona up to the Arctic Cir
Gle the Columbia is the only river which has
torn its way through that mighty range, the
Andes of North Amirica. Nature has thus
provided pathway for the Northern Pacific
Road through these mountains, the scaling of
which, on the other line, at an elevation of
over seven thousand feet Ga most wonderful
triumph of engineering), cost the Central Pa
cifc company millions of dollars. 1t is fortu-
nate also in its terminus on the Pacific coast
No one who has not been there can realize
the beauty of Puget Sound and its surround
lngs. ono hundred miles long, but so full OF
inlets and straits that its navigable shore-line
measures seventeen hundred and sixty miles,
dotted with lovely islets, with gigantic trees
almost to the waters edge, with safe anchor
age everywhere, and stretching southwark,
without shoals or bars, from the Straits of
Fuca to the capital and centre of Washington
Territory, it will be magnificent entrepot
for the commerce of that grandest ocean of
the world, the Pacific. The Land
Grant of the United States, exceeding Fifty
Millions Of acres in the winter-wheat region
Of our nation ten times as large as the area of
Massachusetts), 10 doubtless sufficient for the
completion Of the Road; but besides this,
millions of private means are already invest
ed IN 1t. The bonds based on the Land Grant,
and mortgage on the Road itself in addi-
ton, are being sold as rapidly as the money
is needed; and, as an investment, yielding
about eight per cent per year in currency,
rank already with the best class of railroad