. The land
thus appropriated amounts to forty-seven million acres,--more than is
comprised in the States of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and
New York! If all of these lands were sold at the price fixed by
government,--$2.50 per acre,--they would yield $118,000,000,--a sum
sufficient to build and equip the road. But years must elapse before
these lands can be put upon the market, and the government, undoubtedly,
will give the same aid to this road which has already been given to the
Central Pacific Road, guaranteeing the bonds or stock of the company,
and taking a lien on the road for security. Such bonds would at once
command the necessary capital for building the road.

THE WESTERN TERMINUS.

Puget Sound, with its numerous inlets, is a deep indentation of the
Pacific coast, one hundred miles north of the Columbia. It has spacious
harbors, securely land-locked, with a surrounding country abounding in
timber, with exhaustless beds of coal, rich in agricultural resources,
and with numerous mill-streams. Nature has stamped it with her seal, and
set it apart to be the New England of the Pacific coast.

That portion of the country is to be peopled by farmers, mechanics, and
artisans. California is rich in mineral wealth. Her valleys and
mountain-slopes yield abundant harvests; but she has few mill-streams,
and is dependent upon Oregon and Washington for her coal and lumber. An
inferior quality of coal is mined at Mount Diablo in California; but
most of the coal consumed in that State is brought from Puget Sound.
Hence Nature has fixed the locality of the future manufacturing industry
of the Pacific. Puget Sound is nearer than San Francisco, by several
hundred miles, to Japan, China, and Australia. It is therefore the
natural port of entry and departure for our Pacific trade. It has
advantages over San Francisco, not only in being nearer to those
countries, but in having coal near at hand, which settles the question
of the future steam marine of the Pacific.

Passengers, goods of high cost, and bills of exchange, move on the
shortest and quickest lines of travel. No business man takes the
way-train in preference to the express. Sailing vessels make the voyage
from Puget Sound to Shanghai in from thirty to forty days. Steamers will
make it in twenty.

TRADE WITH ASIA.

Far-seeing men in England are looking forward to the time when the trade
between that country and the Pacific will be carried on across thi