in separate divisions. And as this report is based upon our preliminary surveys, my object will be to give correct general views rather than much minute detail.

From Pittsburg to Beaver, 25 miles.

This portion of the road, being in the valley of the Ohio river, on its northern side, is estimated to cost $10,000 per mile, for grading and bridging. This supposes the work to be done in a substantial manner, for a single track and turnouts. It would be easy to make a lower estimate; but, considering the importance of this part of the road, a less sum ought not to be expended upon it. The public is too often misled by insufficient estimates of the cost of such enterprises; but it should never be forgotten that only a certain amount of work can be done for a certain sum of money; and, on main trunk-lines, if the means required to build them well cannot be raised, it only shows that the time for beginning them has not arrived.

There are few places in the United States where a piece of railroad is likely to pay so well as between Pittsburg and Beaver.

The valley of the Ohio river here is the narrow neck of a vast funnel, of which Pittsburg is the outlet, and which expands at the mouth of Big Beaver, to the north-west towards the lakes, and to the south-west towards the Mississippi.

At Pittsburg the Pennsylvania Canal terminates, and at Beaver the canal connecting with Lake Erie, at Erie and Cleveland, begins. The termini of these canals have no canal connexion, and the only land carriage is by a common country road. The Ohio river, between these points, is a broad, rapid, and shallow steam, falling 35 feet in 28 miles, and having, in low water, a narrow and crooked channel obstructed by bars. In summer and autumn the droughts stop all but the smallest class of steamboats, and in winter the navigation is sometimes closed by ice. These facts are well known to the merchants and manufacturers of Pittsburg, as well as to the hotel-keepers and the traveling community. The remedy is obvious. A railroad, 25 miles long, will carry people in an hour, where they are now often detained on steamboats half a day.

Without taking into the account the passengers on the larger boats, an examination of the books of the small steamboats plying between Pittsburg and Beaver has shown that they carry, on an average, 163 passengers each way per day, or 326 in the two directions between those points. If we follow the English rule of multiplying by four to estimate the number of passengers that will travel after good railroad facilities are established, it will give us 1300 passengers per day, which, of itself, without counting anything for freight, or anything for through travel, would more than justify the construction of this portion of our road.

If we estimate for only 600 passengers per day throughout the year, at 50 cents each, it will give us $300 per day, to which we may add half that sum, or $150, for freight and merchandize of all descriptions, making $450 per day; which, multiplied by 313 working days per annum, gives a product of $140,850 gross receipts. If we deduct one-third for expenses, there will remain a balance of $93,900 net receipts, or more than 15 per cent. per annum on an invested capital of $600,000; supposing so large a

sum to be invested in constructing, furnishing, and stocking the first or city division of the road, extending from Pittsburg to Beaver, 25 miles.

If any one considers the foregoing to be an extravagant estimate of travel, let him recollect the fact that on the Glasgow and Greenock Railroad in Scotland, which competes with the steamboat navigation of the tide-way of the Clyde, the introduction of the railway, with low fares, has increased' the number traveling from 110,000 to 2,000,000 per annum, being an increase of 19 fold, and equal to five times the population of the district.

We may estimate the population of the twin cities of Pittsburg and Allegheny, with the contiguous towns, at 70,000, and that of Beaver, including Brighton, Rochester, and the adjacent villages, at 10,000. Pittsburg has vast steam power, and Beaver great water power. Both are important manufacturing towns, united by numerous and constantly increasing commercial ties. Pittsburg is the greatest place in the west for the working of iron, and Beaver ought to be the greatest for the grinding of flour. In my opinion, the construction of our railroad, passing through four of the best wheat counties of Ohio, will make it so.

The population of both is rapidly increasing, and, with the increase of facilities, the travel will increase in a compound ratio, and Beaver will become a suburb of Pittsburg. The land along the line will be brought, as it were, close to the city, and will be valuable for many purposes, and especially for kitchen-gardens, dairy-farms, and country seats.

There need be no fear of the construction of a rival railroad between Pittsburg and Beaver. On the same side of the river space cannot be found for it, and on the opposite side road would have to encounter the cost of two enormous bridges, which must be so lofty as to clear the tall chimneys of the largest steamboats at the highest water, making the track so high as to be out of the reach of facilities for business. No other plan seems open to a railroad attempting to enter Pittsburg on the south, unless it be by a line built on the river, cutting off Sligo from its river front, and crossing above the Monongahela bridge. Such a line could not, by any convenient means, connect with the Pennsylvania Railroad, excepting at a point on the Monongahela, some miles above Pittsburg.

On the whole it is clear that our road between Pittsburg and Beaver must be a most profitable investment, provided it be judiciously constructed and managed, and provided the requisite funds are obtained, so as to protect the interests of the stockholders, and not to permit financial sacrifices to add to the cost of the work.

Wherever a railroad is begun for which the whole capital required to complete it throughout cannot at once be raised, it is highly important to finish and bring into speedy use some portion of the most productive part of the line, the usefulness and success of which will insure its extension.

Such a course secures original subscribers to the stock from loss, and gives confidence to capitalists, who are thus induced to seek the stock as a profitable investment, and to furnish the funds for the rapid extension and completion of the work.

One main cause of the remarkable success of the railroad companies in New England has been their not beginning more than they were able to finish; and the losses on such enterprizes, experienced in some other parts of the Union, are to be attributed, not so much to bad engineering, as to

the pursuit of a contrary policy, which, preferring the counsel of hope to that of experience, and beginning the work along an extended line with insufficient capital, has resulted too often in swamping the company in debt, and compelling it to submit to the most injurious financial sacrifices. While our work is in its infancy, we have the opportunity of profiting by all the experience of the past, in order to make its success certain.

From Beaver to Salem and Mount Union.

On this part of the line we reach the elevated table-lands of the State of Ohio, so favorable for railroad construction, and so celebrated for the production of wheat.

Under the head of Ohio, in a book on the Public Works of the United States, published in 1840, by the distinguished geographer, Henry S. Tanner, there is a remarkably correct description of the topography of the

State.

Mr. Tanner says: "Westward from the valley of the Allegheny, that of the Beaver exhibits the commencement of the CENTRAL PLAIN, which divides the basins of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence. This plain stretches westward, and, widening in extent over the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, reaches the Mississippi river."

It is over this elevated plain that the route of our railroad runs, and our point of divergence from the Ohio river is at the mouth of the Beaver, which is the first practicable point of divergence west of Pittsburg.

To quote again from Mr. Tanner's book, he says: "For the construction of canals and railroads, the entire region comprehended by the States of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, presents fewer impediments to the construction of such works than any other with which we are acquainted." "Perhaps the best idea of the topography of Ohio may be obtained by conceiving the State to be one vast elevated plain, near the centre of which the streams rise, and in their course wear down a bed or valley, whose depth is in proportion to their size, or formation of the earth over which they flow; so that the hills, with some few exceptions, are nothing more or less than cliffs or banks, made by the action of the streams; and, although these cliffs or banks, on the rivers or larger creeks, approach the size of mountains, yet their tops are generally level, being the remains of the ancient plain."

The results of our surveys corroborate the foregoing description. The southern and south-eastern parts of Ohio are cut up by the deep and crooked valleys, in which numerous streams flow on their way to empty into the Ohio river. Railroad lines following these streams must be very crooked, and lines crossing the streams and the intervening ridges must encounter still greater difficulties.

We have found that the northern route, which we have adopted, turning the hill country on its northern flank, is the shortest and best route to the table lands of Ohio.

It has also the advantage of crossing the streams where they are small, thereby reducing the amount of bridging required, as we cross no stream where it is large, excepting the Beaver at New Brighton, which at that point may be readily bridged.

The northern route, by Salem, by means of its connexion with the Cleve

This

land Railroad near Mount Union, will afford the shortest and best line between Pittsburg and the important city of Cleveland on Lake Erie; 75 miles of the distance being traversed on our road, and 60 on the Cleveland road. The line will cross the river-hill summit near the present mail stage route. The summits here are materially lower than on the more southern lines, and our course has less curvature and a shorter distance. matter has been very fully investigated, and the results of our preliminary surveys show, that of the different lines examined, the one by way of Yellow creek comes next in order to ours, and that, from Pittsburg, ours has an advantage over it of about ten miles in distance, to Cleveland on the lake, and seven miles to Canton, Massillon, and the west. If we adopt the usual estimate of $50,000, as the amount of capital, which is equivalent to the saving of one mile of absolute distance on a great railroad thoroughfare, this will make a difference of $500,000 in favor of our road as a route to the lake, and of $350,000 as a route to the west, and both these advantages are combined by us in one line.

Besides which, in view of the construction of rival roads to Wheeling, it is evidently of the first importance to the interests of Pittsburg, that her GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD should strike the Ohio river as high up as possible, which our line does at Beaver.

A line has been talked of from Pittsburg across the hill country of Washington county, and through a portion of the territory of Virginia, to strike the Ohio river opposite Steubenville, and to connect by means of an immense bridge, with a railroad chartered in Ohio, to terminate at that place. Such a line would encounter much unnecessary elevation for the purpose of cutting off the northern bend of the Ohio; it would be of no avail as a line to Lake Erie, or to those rich agricultural counties traversed by our road; and even as a line to Cincinnati and south-western Ohio, the saving in distance would be inconsiderable. Assuming $5000 as the average cost of grading and bridging a mile of railroad in Ohio, the bridge at Steubenville, if built in such a way as not to obstruct the navigation, would probably cost as much as the grading and bridging of fifty miles of such railroad. The distance down the river bank from Steubenville to the Wheeling bridge is about 20 miles. The difficulty of bringing such a line into Pittsburg without obstructing the harbor has already been adverted to; and if it should ever be constructed, it will probably connect with the "Pennsylvania Railroad" at or near the mouth of Turtle creek, on the Monongahela. Many persons are misled, when judging of railroad routes, by what they see on ordinary maps of the course of cominon roads, forgetting that such maps do not indicate the elevations of the ground, and give very imperfect information as to the distances by railroads of moderate grades and curvatures in a broken country. If, in order to avoid bridging the Ohio, a railroad should be brought from Steubenville to Pittsburg, along the river bank, via Wellsville, the distance to Cincinnati by that route will be greater than by our "back-bone line," diverging at Beaver, and if the route across the country and across the river be adopted it will be very little less, and the important towns at the mouth of Beaver will not be touched, though they are more populous and important than Steubenville.

Heavy bridges cost much to build them and much to keep them up, and are liable to casualties from fire and flood. If of long span, great ex

pense is required to make them stiff enough for locomotive engines; they need watchmen, and are not easily insured.

The results of our preliminary surveys conclusively show that our route from Beaver and New Brighton, by Salem, to Mount Union, possesses a combination of advantages not to be met with on any other line. The distance from Beaver to the point of intersection with the Cleveland Railroad, near Mount Union, will be about fifty miles; and progress will speedily be made in the definite location of the line, the experimental surveys of which have been already tested. The passes of the natural summits of the river hills, from which the selection of a point of crossing is to be made, vary from 450 to 500 feet above low water at the mouth of Beaver, being a less elevation than on the more southerly routes. In reaching the summit between Big and Little Beaver, grades of from 40 to 50 feet per mile will be required; the latter of which is the maximum used on the Western Division of the "Pennsylvania Railroad."

The line which we have adopted traverses the broad belt of elevated, highly cultivated, and populous table-land which intervenes between the Sandy and Beaver canal on the south, and the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal (commonly called the "cross-cut" canal) on the north, and not far from the centre of which the flourishing town of Salem is situated. On an average, our "back-bone line" is about ten miles north of the Sandy and Beaver canal, and twenty miles south of the "cross-cut" canal. We traverse a very fruitful country, inhabited by a moral, industrious, and thriving population, who now have no communications but common country roads, made over an alluvial soil, and very bad in wet weather. The expense of land carriage is so great that, in my opinion, the increased value of real estate, caused by the construction of our railroad, will more than equal the whole cost of it, without reckoning its other advantages.

In Beaver county our line opens an extensive field of bituminous and also of cannel coal, both of excellent quality. For making steam, for making gas, and for domestic use, the cannel coal is a most beautiful fuel, and the bed is about eight feet thick. We will thus have every opportunity of obtaining for our locomotives the best fuel at the lowest rates, and of reducing the expense of motive power to a minimum. Those familiar with the management of railroads in operation best know the importance of this advantage. Cheap fuel is the first element of cheap transportation. The same cause which enables us to carry cheaply, will also give us a heavy tonnage to carry, for the coal trade upon the line will be of great magnitude and importance.

These are some of the reasons why the interior route which we have adopted is preferable to a route along the river shore below Beaver. Instead of being hemmed in by the river on one side and the hills on the other, we have a broad tract of open country tributary to our line on both its sides. The table-lands are very favorable for the construction of improvements, and we have reason to expect branches, either by railroads , or plank roads, both from Newcastle and Warren.

The distance from Beaver to the State line will be about twenty miles, estimated to cost for grading and bridging $10,000 per mile. After crossing the State line into Ohio, we estimate the average cost of grading and bridging at $5000 per mile. These estimates are for a substantial single