ulk of this immense
prospective traffic. With this view, Chicago had projected three lines
across the State of Iowa, all of which were ultimately to converge at
Council Bluffs. Thence across the coffee-colored Missouri, over rolling
prairies, and up the slowly curving line of the Platte, stretched an
easily rising ascent, which, engineers affirmed, had been graduated by
nature as the most direct and practicable route for the interoceanic
railroad. As yet no one of these Iowa lines was complete; but they all
had a corporate existence, and their stockholders formed a nucleus for a
distinct Pacific movement.

St Louis, on the other hand, aided by the State of which it was the
commercial capital, had as early as 1851 commenced the construction of
the Missouri Pacific Railway, whose line shot straight as an arrow
westward across the State, curving slightly to the north at its
terminus, which was fixed at Kansas City. Four years later, the
Territorial government of Kansas incorporated the Leavenworth, Pawnee,
and Western Railroad, with privilege to build from Leavenworth to Fort
Riley, and thence westerly. It is apparent that the two companies might
readily connect, and thus form a rival grand trunk Pacific road.

Both the upper and the lower-enterprises, however, remained for many
years after their inception in a quiescent state, serving simply as
topics of newspaper discussion, or of buncombe addresses from local
rostrums. But in 1860-61 the unexpected discovery of large deposits of
the precious metals in Colorado and in Nevada gave an enormous impulse
to the carrying trade of the plains, and the same argument which proved
so cogent in California aroused the Western capitalists from their
lethargy. Rumors of the new line over the Sierra also found their way
East; and the Legislature of Kansas, now a young and vigorous State,
passed a joint resolution in March, 1862, urging on Congress the
immediate creation of a national Pacific Railroad Company. In
anticipation of this action, the agents of the lower route had already
proceeded to Washington, where they found themselves suddenly in the
presence, not only of the representatives of the Central Company of
California, but also of the Chicago projectors and their New York
friends.

It will scarcely be profitable at the present time to descend into the
particulars of the rivalry which interests in many respects so divergent
necessarily entailed. A gentleman who had singular o