mantic and thrilling experiences of Parkman and
his companions in their summer journey across the plains of Nebraska and
through the mountain ranges of Wyoming, Montana, and Oregon. We read of
their hairbreadth escapes from the Indians; their chase of the buffalo
and other wild animals of the far Western country; of the wearisome
weeks that they spent in crossing the deserts where absolute loneliness
reigned; and finally of their arrival, after months of hardship, in the
vast Oregon country, which with its great natural resources, splendid
climate, and large extent has come to be known in these modern days as
the Empire of the Northwest.

It was to penetrate and bring this great virgin region within reach of
the East that the Northern Pacific Railroad Company was chartered by
Congress in 1864, just prior to the closing of the Civil War. During
this same period the Union Pacific route was being surveyed, and the
first ground was broken in December, 1863, for the line which was later
to connect Omaha with San Francisco.

Like the Union Pacific charter, that of the Northern Pacific also
contained an extensive land grant. From the modern viewpoint, such
land grants look colossal, but in those days the general opening up and
development of the Western country had progressed to so slight an extent
that the significance of giving away millions of acres of the public
lands to encourage a precarious railroad enterprise was then no more
than the passing over to capitalists today of exclusive rights in
extensive tracts of territory in Brazil and the other South American
Republics. Even these great opportunities to acquire almost an empire
of fertile lands or rich forests were not as a rule looked upon as
attractive enough to tempt capital into the wilderness. The old saying
that capital is the most timid thing in the world and does not like
pioneering is strongly emphasized by such instances as this, and no
doubt in 1864 the enormous grants of free land made by Congress did not
appear especially attractive to the man who had money to invest.

Whatever the public attitude may have been, the Act of Congress of July
2, 1864, creating the Northern Pacific Railroad, gave that Company the
right to construct a line from some point on Lake Superior, either in
Minnesota or in Wisconsin, westward and north of latitude 45 degrees,
to or near Portland, Oregon. The land grant consisted of forty alternate
sections of public land for each mile