irteen hundred thousand dollars. All other
expenses were upon the same magnificent scale. Nebraska, though
admirably adapted for agriculture, is singularly destitute of woodland.
The lumber for building, and the cross-ties for track-laying, could only
be obtained in small quantities and at great distances. Many of the
sleepers travelled two hundred miles before they found repose on the
road-bed. The labor market also was but scantily supplied, and agents
for procuring navvies were despatched east, west, and south. But the
splendid energy of the contractors had been fruitful of success. A vast
aggregate of forces stood ready at the melting of the winter's snow and
the click of the telegraph key to spring into enormous activity.

About the middle of April, 1866, the message came, and the work began.
Along the dead level of the Platte Valley, through endless reaches of
prairie, and behind the meagre shelter of outlying hills, the rails are
still falling in place,--a continuous belt of iron out-rolled over black
loam and arid sand,--mile after mile, day after day; and with the close
of the present year there will stretch an unbroken line of five hundred
and twenty miles of rail across the Plains to the foot of the Black
Hills. There is no occasion to dilate upon the wonderful systemization
of labor which has characterized the work of construction. The public is
already well apprised of the details, from the pens of industrious and
graphic newspaper correspondents. The company itself has been by no
means laggard in celebrating its enterprise. Excursion parties of
capitalists, editors, and Congressmen have severally given in their
testimony; but, after all, the one fact that in less than twenty months
American energy has brought the Rocky Mountains within two and one half
days' journey of New York--though the distance is two thousand
miles--tells the whole story. One of the chief difficulties of this
Nebraska route has been, as we have intimated, the scarcity of suitable
material for cross-ties, and of fuel for the engines. The employment of
Burnetized cottonwood, and the discovery of a very considerable quantity
of cedar in the interior, have, however, effectually solved one phase of
this problem; while for the production of steam science now offers
petroleum as a practical substitute for wood and coal. But independently
of this, the road has already reached the bituminous beds of the Black
Hills, where it will probably find