unerring than the mathematics. They are the wild animalsbuffalo, elk, deer, antelope, bears-which traverse the forests, not by compass but by an instinct which leads them always the right way to the lowest passes in the mountains, the shallowest fords in the rivers, the richest pastures in the forests, the best salt springs, and the shortest practicable lines between remote points. They travel thousands of miles, have their annual migrations backwards and forwards and never miss the best and shortest route. They are the first engineers to lay out a road in a new country; the Indians follow them; and hence a buffalo. road becomes a war-path. The first white hunters follow the same trails in pursuing their game; and after that the buffalo road becomes the wagon road of the white man, and finally the macadamized or railroad of the scientific man."1

Benton's project, so far as its proposed route was concerned, was probably intended as a sort of compromise between the conflicting northern and southern interests. The southern politicians, on account of its expected influence upon their pet institution of slavery, were opposed to any road, and particularly any road in a northern latitude; but Benton appears to have thought they might be reconciled by a route south of Mason and Dixon's line, and that the north would consent to almost any route to secure a road. It is doubtful, however, even if the proposed road had been practicable, whether there would have been any conciliation between the warring factions. On the contrary, it is likely, if the secession struggle had been postponed and there had been no elimination of the slavery influence from the councils at Washington, that the building of any transcontinental road would have been deferred for many years. Nevertheless, under any circumstances, there could be no great objection to gaining information upon all subjects relating to a matter of such general interest and importance to the country; and for this reason, when the Californian resolutions for surveys and explorations were presented to congress by Senator Gwin on December 30, 1850, they met with favorable consideration and eventually led to the magnificent series of railroad surveys and reports, conducted under the authority of acts of congress passed in 1853 'Con. Globe, 2 Sess. 31 Con. 1850-1, 56-58.

and published by the United States government a year or two later.1

Meanwhile, on August 4, 1852, congress passed an act granting a right of way one hundred feet wide in ordinary cases, and two hundred feet where deep excavations or heavy embankments were required, over any public lands of the United States for any railroad, plank road or macadamized turnpike then or within ten years thereafter chartered; and on March 3, 1855, its provisions were extended over the territories.' This latter act, and the publication of the reports above referred to, tended to keep the subject alive; and, though to a very great extent public attention was monopolized by the slavery question, a new railroad bill was introduced, providing for a grant to any person or company that would build the contemplated road of the alternate odd sections within twenty miles on each side of the line selected. To this Gwin, who appears to have been at heart adverse to any road but took his own mode of manifesting his opposition, offered an amendment or substitute providing for three roads-one from Texas to be called the Southern Pacific, one from Missouri or Iowa to be called the Central Pacific, and one from Wisconsin to be called the Northern Pacific. Gwin's substitute passed the senate but failed in the house of representatives, as was probably expected, as did also several other bills introduced in the course of the next few years-there being a decided opposition to any feasible project on the part of southern members.

During all this time California was urgent for something to be done. On May 1, 1852, the legislature passed an act granting the right of way to the United States for the construction of a road connecting the oceans. In 1853, Governor Bigler in his message said that few questioned the feasibility of the road and all conceded the incalculable benefits that would be derived from its construction. In the senate of that year, the committee on federal relations reported that no question of public policy had engrossed a greater degree of popular attention; that it had been

2

Con. Globe, 2 Sess. 31 Con. 1850-1, 132; 10 U. S. Stats. at Large, 217, 579. 10 U. S. Stats. at Large, 28, 683.

Con. Globe, 2 Sess. 33 Con. 1854-5, 805-814; 1 Sess. 34 Con. 1855-6, 1720-1726.

Stats. 1852, 150.

the almost constant theme of the farmer, the miner, the merchant and the statesman, and that every class of the population had been, as it were, a unit demanding the undertaking of the great work. They called attention to the fact that the distance from San Francisco to Washington by way of Cape Horn was nineteen thousand miles or more than the entire circumference of the globe in latitude thirty-eight degrees, the parallel of San Francisco, and that the distance by way of Panama or Nicaragua was as long as a direct line from Washington to Pekin. They urged the necessity of a road not only in a business and social, but also in a military point of view. It had been rumored, they said, that the British intended building a road from Halifax to Lake St. Clair, a distance of sixteen hundred miles. "Shall we," they continued with patriotic fervor, "who have beaten them in clipper ships, swift steamers and other useful notions, yield to them the palm of building the longest railroad on the American continent? Never!" Though it might cost two hundred millions of dollars, it would add five times the cost to the value of the public domain; and, viewed merely as a business proposition, considering the returns to be expected, it might be built without costing the government a dollar. The committee thereupon offered a series of joint resolutions, which were concurred in and approved, to the effect that the increasing demands of commerce, mail transportation and emigration from one portion of the Union to the other required the construction of the road, and that, as efforts in that direction in the last congress had failed, the subject should be again urgently pressed upon the attention of the sitting congress. In 1854 Bigler again called attention to the subject; and several resolutions, calculated like those of previous years to encourage the work, were adopted. In 1855 Bigler reiterated what he had said before; but the legislature appears by this time to have become tired of forwarding memorials to a discordant congress, and accordingly the usual resolutions were omitted.3 On February 22, 1856, what may be called the first railroad in California was formally opened. This was the Sacramento

1

Senate Journal, 1853, 25, 524; Stats. 1853. 315.

2 Senate Journal, 1854, 36, 428, 472; Stats. 1854, 266, 276.

3 3 Senate Journal, 1855, 45.

Valley railroad, which ran from Sacramento to Folsom. The original project appears to have been to run from Sacramento along the American river to the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada and thence northward to Yuba county, apparently with the idea of supplying the Northern Mines. The legislature had provided a general law for the organization of railroad companies in 1850, which was superseded by a new act in 1851. The latter was amended in 1852 and superseded by another new act in 1853.1 Under the last mentioned act, the Sacramento Valley Railroad Company, which had already been formed, was reorganized and a start, which proved very important for California, was made for the construction of the road. This start consisted principally in the engagement in the eastern states of a young engineer of extraordinary ability, named Theodore D. Judah, a native of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and in an arrangement for the supply from the east of the necessary materials for construction. Judah at once came to California and, setting to work, selected the route from Sacramento to Folsom, a distance of twenty-two miles. Grading commenced in the early part of 1855; track laying in the summer, on the arrival of a vessel with rails; and, as before mentioned, the road was opened in February, 1856. For various reasons, principally the great cost of labor and materials in those days and the dropping off of business consequent upon the deterioration of the placer mines, the enterprise stopped at Folsom. As a financial operation it did not prove as profitable as was anticipated; and in 1865, after passing through several hands, it was purchased by the principal owners of the Central Pacific Railroad Company and formed the first outside acquisition of that subsequently extensive aggregation embracing nearly all the railroad lines of the state, which became known first as the Central Pacific and afterwards as the Southern Pacific system.

The next important move, not counting various minor projects that were talked of and some that were started for minor roads, was the adoption on April 5, 1859, by the California legislature of a concurrent resolution calling for a railroad convention. The object, as stated in the resolution, was to promote the interest 'Hittell's Gen. Laws, 825.

and insure the protection and security of the people of California. Oregon, Washington and Arizona; to consider the refusal of congress to take efficient action for the construction of a transcontinental railroad, and to adopt measures whereby the building of such a road might be accomplished. For these purposes it provided for the holding of the proposed convention at San Francisco on September 20, 1859, to consist of delegates from the states and territories named-the people of each county being requested to send delegates equal in number to the members of the legislature of such states and territories to which they were respectively entitled.' In accordance with and under the authority of this resolution, a railroad convention was held in San Francisco and numerously attended by delegates from Oregon and Washington as well as from California. John Bidwell was chairman. Among the delegates the best posted and most efficient was Judah, the engineer of the Sacramento valley railroad, who appeared as a delegate from Sacramento. He had devoted much time and study to the problem of a transcontinental road; had thrown his whole heart into the project and thoroughly convinced himself of its practicability, and was in fact the main promoter of the convention. And it was chiefly, if not entirely, due to the fulness, clearness and satisfactory character of the information he furnished, that the convention declared its decided preference, among the routes mentioned, for the central one which he advocated, and appointed him to act as its accredited agent in presenting its proceedings to the president of the United States, the heads of departments and the congress at Washington and bringing to bear all legitimate influences to secure favorable action for a Pacific railroad bill."

Judah proceeded at once to Washington and undertook the framing and pushing of a bill in accordance with the views of the convention. He had already spent much of his time during the three previous sessions of congress at the national capital, endeavoring to procure the passage of a bill making grants of land to California for railroad purposes. He was therefore familiar with. the methods of congress and seems to have omitted nothing in

1 Stats. 1859, 391.

2 Report of Theodore D. Judah, &c., San Francisco, August, 1860.