Identifier: triumphswonderso01boyd (find matches)
Title: Triumphs and wonders of the 19th century, the true mirror of a phenomenal era, a volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress ..
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Boyd, James Penny, 1836-1910
Subjects: Progress Inventions
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa., A. J. Holman & Co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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00 36,000 88.47 Tonnage carried.... Number of ears.. . 62.0052.61 Number of locomotives.. 36.30 Perhaps the railway of most recent interest is the first line in Alaska,which is twenty miles long, and was built as a result of the rush to the Klon- EVOLUTION OF THE RAILWAY G47 dike gold fields. This was opened on February 20, 1899. The great trans-continental railways, however, are of much broader interest. In 1835 theRev. Samuel Parker, a missionary in the Northwest, suggested a railwayfrom the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Dr. Samuel E. Barlow proposed onefrom New York to the Columbia River, 2000 miles, to cost $10,000 per mile,and to carry traffic at about seven miles per hour. From 1841 to 1849 Mr.Asa Whitney urged Congress to grant land to aid him in building a line fromLake Michigan to San Francisco, 2030 miles, to cost $20,000 per mile.Between 1853 and 1861 Congress had surveys made of five routes, but nodefinite action was taken until after the outbreak of the Civil War, in 1861,
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A RAILWAY TRAIN IN BELGIUM. when the federal government soon recognized the importance of havingdirect communication with the Pacific States, which were at that time iso-lated. Companies were organized in 1862, and work commenced in 1864,under government subsidies and military aid and protection. On May 10,1869, the Union Pacific Railway (from the east) and the Central Pacific Rail-way (from the west) met at Promontory Point, Utah, 1186 miles from theMissouri River and 638 miles from Sacramento, Cal. Now, thirty years later, we have six so-called transcontinental railways, noone of which, however, has its own line from ocean to ocean, and none ofwhich run through trains or cars. In Canada, however, the Canadian PacificRailway (opened in 1887) has a through line from St. John and Montreal toVancouver, with through trains daily between the latter points, 2905 miles.The principal transcontinental lines, with the total distances from ocean toocean, are shown on the following page. 648 TRI

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