The Railway Library, 1909. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ its completion in 1800. The Delaware and Schuylkill canal may be cited as a third exception. But it early became evident that public works of the number and magnitude required could be constructed only at national expense. As the constitution contains no direct provision for internal improvements, the subject became a party question.

      From the first Congress had appropriated money for lighthouses, public piers, buoys and other aids to navigation, and about such action there had been no dispute, for it was agreed that these matters lay strictly within federal jurisdiction. From the first, also, Congress had been petitioned for appropriations for internal improvements. Most of these demands were local in character, and so were easily disposed of; but when the directors of the Chesapeake and Delaware canal asked Congress to supply the funds which they had been unable to obtain from sales of shares, the question was forced to an issue. Two facts were incontestable, the general importance of the work, and the ability of the national government to carry it on in view of the revenue surplus in the treasury.

      In another way Congress had already committed itself to the support of public works. So long as the country was made up of states bordering on the Atlantic seaboard, improvements were matters of interest to all alike, but with the admission of new states in the interior, and the prospect of future accessions to the westward as the country expanded, an element of injustice seemed to enter these appropriations, which benefited the seaboard states at the expense of all. The feeling of discontent was intensified by the fact that the favored states were more thickly settled, and therefore better able to incur the expense. With the admission of Ohio, however, this was remedied by the establishment of the five per cent. land fund, and the self-interest of the seaboard was appealed to by the argument that the building of roads into the West would so stimulate sales of the public lands as to increase the national revenues.

      The matter of national aid to internal improvements was again brought before Congress in 1816 by Calhoun, who presented a bill providing for the direct construction of roads and canals and the improvement of waterways out of a fund to be created by setting apart the bonus and dividends received by the government from the United States bank. This bill, which was drawn up by Clay, passed through Congress in 1817, but it was vetoed by Madison, who, though favorably disposed toward public works, had inherited from Jefferson a doubt as to the rights of Congress to participate in their construction without a constitutional amendment specifically granting the authority. And Monroe, holding the same opinion, vetoed a bill for the repair of the Cumberland road, and submitted to Congress a long statement of the principles involved in his decision. In the meantime, weary of waiting, New York had succeeded in building the Erie canal. Its success shifted the whole plan of promotion. With credit established abroad, internal improvements were taken up by the states, and for the next two decades transportation interest centers in state funding.

      It was during this period of struggle for means of transportation facilities adequate to meet the demands of those whose fortunes had been cast in the remote interior that the railroad became the subject of serious economic interest.

      (In subsequent chapters, Messrs. Cleveland & Powell trace the beginnings of the railroad, the physical and financial difficulties that beset them at every turn; the indomitable spirit with which they were projected, promoted and built into every quarter of the Union, until through the investment of billions of private capital the United States has been furnished with the best system of internal transportation in the world. To their pages the reader is referred for the continuation of this most interesting narrative.)

FIRST ANNUAL REPORT of The Chief Engineer of the PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY

       Table of Contents

      June 12, 1848.

      By J. Edgar Thomson.

       Chief Engineer.

      Engineer Department, Pennsylvania R. R. Co.

       Philadelphia, June 12, 1848.

      To the President and Directors of the

       Pennsylvania Railroad Company:

      Gentlemen—I have the honor to communicate to you the following Report of the operations of this Department since it was committed to my charge, now something more than a year.

      Under the organization of the Engineer Department, as adopted previous to my acceptance of the office you have conferred upon me, the Road was to be divided into three divisions, Eastern, Western and Middle: Edward Miller, Esq., as associate engineer, was assigned to the Western, and W. B. Foster, Jr., to the Eastern division. These gentlemen had entered upon the survey of their respective lines, previous to my arrival, under instructions from the president, each with two full corps of assistants. The middle, or mountain division, not having been provided for, I concluded after a full consideration of the subject that the interest of the Company would be best promoted by so altering the organization as to abolish it altogether, and extend the eastern and western divisions to the summit of the Allegheny mountains, the natural boundary between them. Under this arrangement, the surveys have since been prosecuted.

      The Board having directed me to cause a location of the whole line, from Harrisburg to Pittsburg, to be made at the earliest practicable period, I at once commenced a reconnoissance of that portion of the intervening country, over which it seemed—from an inspection of a map of the State—that the Road would probably pass, for the purpose of determining the best plan of operations to carry out their views.

      

      The Legislature, in their grant to the Company, wisely left the choice of a route for the Road, between its termini, entirely free, throwing upon the Board the responsibility of selecting, upon the wide field that was opened to them, a line for their great work, which would offer the cheapest railroad conveyance for the transportation of freight and the most expeditious for travel that could be selected between the west and the northern Atlantic cities.

      Such a route, it was believed from previous surveys, lay within the borders of Pennsylvania, an expectation which has been fully justified by the results obtained from our examinations.

      Of the several routes proposed, I found no difficulty—after a careful inspection of the plans of the various surveys, made under the authority of the Commonwealth, and my reconnoissance of the country—in coming to the conclusion that the valley of the Juniata offered advantages for a line which, whether we consider the low gradients that may be obtained along it or its general directness, the desiderata required, is without a rival.

      This stream has its source in the Alleghenies, and consequently severs, as it flows towards the Atlantic, all the secondary mountain ranges that lie east of them, and it heads opposite to the Black Lick and Conemaugh rivers, both of which sever those on the west, leaving the main Allegheny only to be surmounted, which would have to be encountered upon any other direct route, in addition to many of the inferior mountain ranges. A more northern route, by the west branch of the Susquehanna (which has its source beyond the Allegheny mountains), would have encountered less elevation at the principal summit, but its great increased length precluded its adoption; while, on the other hand, a southern route, though not indirect, was equally objectionable on account of the rugged character of the country, and the high gradients necessary to overcome the numerous summits upon it. A partial examination of one of the proposed southern routes was made, which followed the Cumberland Valley Railroad to near Shippensburg, and thence, crossing to the west side of the valley at Roxbury, it passed through the Blue Mountain, by a long tunnel, into Path valley; thence, following around the point of Dividing mountain, it crossed this valley and passed through Tuscarora, by another tunnel, to the valley of Augwick creek. Thence it would have been traced СКАЧАТЬ