3. My

ADDITIONAL READINGS ABOUT DOGS. 1. "The Sagacity and Courage of Dogs," E. H. Baynes, in National Geographic Magazine, 35:253-275. 2. "Mankind's Best Friend," E. H. Baynes, ibid., 35: 185-201. Life with the Eskimos, V. Stefansson, 11-12. 4. A Wilderness Dog, C. Hawkes. 5. Rab and His Friends, J. Brown. 6. Bob, Son of Battle, A. Ollivant. 7. A Dog of Flanders, Louise De la Ramée. 8. Famous Dogs in Fiction, J. W. McSpadden. 9. Stickeen, J. Muir. 10. Lad, a Dog, A. P. Terhune. 11. Further Adventures of Lad, A. P. Terhune. 12. "What My Dog Taught Me," O. O. McIntyre, in American Magazine, 97:50-51. 13. The Book of Noble Dogs, E. Ross.

CLASS-LIBRARY READINGS

OLD-FASHIONED JOURNEYS

1. "The Story of the Motorcycle," Wonder Book of Knowledge, 52–58. 2. "The Growth of the Motor Truck," ibid., 481-489.

3. "The Carriage,” Stories of Useful Inventions, 168–189.

4. "The Platte and the Desert," F. Parkman, in The Promise of Country Life, 31-43.

5. "How Our Ancestors Traveled," Book of Knowledge, 19:6105-6112.

6. "Man's Most Faithful Friends," Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia,

3:1018-1025.

7. "The Father of the Steam Boat," ibid., 4:1381-1382.

8. "The Four-Footed Ship of the Desert," ibid., 2:588–590.

9.

"Picture Story of Transportation," ibid., 10:3998.

Read the entire selection without stopping. When you have finished, write the three most important facts you have gained from the narrative.

The gold seeker, bound for the California diggings in 1849, undertook a journey of at least four months through an unsettled and dangerous country. Nowadays a tourist leaving Omaha for San Francisco passes through a region containing millions of prosperous inhabitants and arrives at his destination in two days without needing to lose a single meal or a wink of sleep. The lumbering prairie schooner has given way to a luxurious train.

The first suggestion for a railway to the coast was made about 1835. By 1840 the plan had become popular and was discussed repeatedly in newspapers and magazines. Asa Whitney gave up his business and spent all his time urging its establishment. Thomas H. Benton, a Senator from Missouri, never ceased to emphasize the value of the oriental commerce which would enrich America when once a railway was extended to the Pacific. On one occasion he proposed that when the line was completed a huge statue of Columbus. be hewn from one of the granite peaks of the Rockies, "pointing with outstretched arm to the western horizon and saying to the flying passengers, 'There is the East; there is India.'"

Realizing the political and military importance as well as the economic value of a railway, the Government authorized extensive surveys. Fremont and others explored the mountains for years, seeking the most favorable routes. The annexation of Oregon and the Southwest, followed by the gold discoveries in 1848, gave fresh impetus to the proposal. During one year five different surveying parties were sent out.

For possession of the eastern terminus of the railway a keen rivalry arose among various cities. Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee were the chief competitors. Northerners wanted a northern route; southerners wanted one through the south.

In the meantime the people of California hoped, prayed, and worked for a railway. In 1861, some leading men of that state organized the Central Pacific, which was to be the California branch of the transcontinental railroad. Their chief engineer hurried to Washington to present plans and urge action. In 1862, Congress after a long debate voted to incorporate the Union Pacific Railroad Company, which was to be the eastern company to connect with the California railroad.

The terms offered to the company were generous. The road was to have a right of way four hundred feet wide across the continent. It was to receive ten sections of land for each mile of track built, and the Government promised to advance large sums in government bonds to help construction. President Lincoln, who had been keenly interested in the project for years, and who had been authorized to select the eastern terminus, chose Council Bluffs, Iowa.

The Central Pacific Company promptly began work at the California end of the line, turning the first sod on Washington's Birthday, 1863. Eastern business men were reluctant to put money into the enterprise, believing it would never pay a return on the investment. Not until 1864, when Congress doubled the land grant and offered certain other inducements, did capitalists put their money into it. Then the work began.

At the western end of the line all the building materials which were needed, except iron, were easy to get. On the mountains grew magnificent timber from which to make ties, trestles. bridges, and huts for the workmen. An abundance of stone was

at hand for ballast and bridgeheads. But machinery and rails had to be brought thousands of miles over the sea. Labor, too, was scarce. Not much progress was made until Chinese coolies were imported by the thousand.

In some respects difficulties were even greater at the eastern end of the line. When work was begun at Council Bluffs in November, 1865, no railway line had been completed across Iowa. Hence, for two years, building material, workmen, and equipment had to be brought up the Missouri River by steamer or across the Iowa plains by prairie schooner. No trees suitable for ties, bridges, and culverts grew in the neighborhood. No stone was available for roadbed. Water was scarce. Indian tribes were dangerous. These difficulties were offset in part by the fact that a roadbed is easy to build on a flat, smooth plain.

In those days immense herds of buffalo roamed the plains. General Sheridan says that in 1868 he rode mile after mile for three days through a single herd. In 1869, a train was stopped for eight hours by buffaloes crossing the track. Such a quantity of game helped greatly in supplying the railway employees with fresh meat.

For years the Indians had watched restlessly the destruction of their game and the invasion of their territory by the whites. Their hostility showed itself in raids on the immigrants to Oregon and California. After 1861 prairie schooners, stage coaches, and pony express riders became more and more the objects of their enmity. On one occasion every station on the overland route for a distance of almost 200 miles was destroyed in a single night.

The Indians saw that they would have to give up their tribal life when the railroads were able to bring the white man across the plains and mountains. All their hate and fury were spent in a desperate effort to defeat or delay the project. They made the most extensive attacks the plains had ever known; they shot laborers at their work; burned bridges; destroyed track.

Many of the employees of the railroad, who had served as soldiers during the Civil War, were fully capable of defending themselves. Like the minutemen of the Revolution, they were ready to drop spade or shovel at a moment's notice and pick up a rifle. On one occasion, after the Indians had captured a freight

train and its crew, the men formed in military order under the command of General Dodge, the chief engineer, and in the face of a destructive fire from the Indians recaptured the train.

Because of difficulties like these the construction of the railroad was slow; at the end of one year the Union Pacific, the eastern company, had laid only 40 miles of track. After five years' work the Central Pacific, the California company, had completed only 136 miles.

But in 1867 the greatest road-building race on record began. Each company, eager to secure the bounty of from $64,000 to $96,000 per mile offered by Congress for construction in the mountainous sections, exerted itself to the utmost. In 1868 the Central Pacific built 363 miles of roadbed; the Union Pacific, 425 miles. At the beginning construction had been considered rapid at one mile a day. It now rose to ten miles. All world records were broken, and the next spring the road was finished.

When the roads were almost completed, a curious difficulty arose. Owing to the failure of Congress to say where the roads should meet, and because there were large sums to be secured for each mile built, the rival companies showed no inclination to make their lines converge. As a result, their grading squads began to overlap one another. This disgraceful state of affairs led Congress to interfere. By a compromise the rivals agreed to meet at Promontory Point, near Ogden, Utah. Meantime the Central Pacific had built 80 miles of grade east of the meeting point, while the Union Pacific had spent a million dollars on equally useless grading west of Ogden.

The completion of the road was made the occasion for a national celebration. On the 9th of May the Union Pacific force worked all night completing its last section. On the morning of the 10th there remained but 100 feet between the ends of the two lines. Six hundred people gathered to witness the concluding ceremony. In the little company were the leaders of the two railways, a delegation of Mormons from Salt Lake City, a squad of soldiers, a military band, and a motley crowd of Mexicans, Indians, negroes, half-breeds, Chinese coolies, and Irish laborers.

The two bands of workmen (Chinese at the west and Irish at the east) set the last ties and laid the last rails. The very last