ned solely by
their isolation.

But beyond these immediate considerations arise the magnificent
commercial certainties which the logic of history reveals. Space fails
us at this point of fruitful speculation; but it will suffice to say
that the corollary of the Pacific railroads is the transfer of the
world's commerce to America, and the substitution of New York for Paris
and London as the world's exchange. In the train of these immeasurable
events must come the wealth and the culture which have hitherto been
limited to Europe. With the year 1866 began the _rapid_ work of this
revolutionizing enterprise. The year of grace 1870 will witness its
completion. The four years' civil war is followed by the four years'
victory of peace. Already the Western cities are tremulous with the
aspirations which it excites; and the metropolis of the East, with its
new steamship lines to Brazil, its Cuban cable, and its hundred
prospective enterprises, awaits the moment which shall lift it to
imperial importance.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] The use of this phrase requires explanation. It has been previously
stated that Council Bluffs was the point on which the Chicago lines were
concentrating. It is now to be added, that beyond this growing
settlement, across the Missouri River, lies Nebraska, and the proposed
route would necessarily pass through the whole length of this State. At
the rival roads are connected to a greater or less degree with the
interests of the States in which are their respective eastern termini,
and as the legal titles of the two roads are at once ambiguous and
disagreeably long, we have preferred to designate them simply as the
Kansas and Nebraska lines.

[C] The point suggested for this divergence southward is in the vicinity
of Pond Creek, four hundred and twenty miles west of the Missouri River.
Thence it will deflect to the southwest, touching the base of the
mountains one hundred and seventy miles beyond Pond Creek, near the
boundary-line between Colorado and New Mexico. Thus, having passed
through Southeastern Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, it finds its way
northward, through the marvellously fertile region of Southern
California, to San Francisco. It is noteworthy that this project offers
to Mexico immediate participation in our commerce, affording the basis
of a far more enduring annexation. It is possible that in no far-distant
future, if this scheme is achieved, San Francisco will find a rival in
San Diego,