PROGRESS OF THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD.

Southland Times, Issue 947, 8 May 1868, Page 3

PROGRESS OF THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD.

The Omaha or main line of the Union Pacific Railroad is already completed a distance of 525 miles from Omaha, and it is announced by the contractors that they will have thirty miles more completed and in operation on the Ist of January. This ■will -fcake the locomotive to Evans's Pass, which is over 8000 feet above the sea, and the highest point on the route across the Uocky mountains. Thus, the highest point of the two great ranges of mountains on the route are overcome almosb simultaneously, though they are a thousand miles apart. Prom the pacific the iron horse, traverses i-'the Summit of the Sierra Nevadas, going east, at a height of 7042 feet within the distance of 105 miles from Sacramento, in December, and in January we will cross the crest of the Rocky Mountains, coming from the Missouri, west. What a triumph for American engineering! The two great mountain chains of the continent are first traversed by the locomotive in winter, at a height of a mile and a half above the sea, and nearly within the regions of perpetual snow. This should silence the croakers who fear that the rigors of winter will seriously interfere with the usefulness of this great continental thoroughfare. The announcement that the summit of the Eocky Mountains^ will be crossed soon, and at a height of more than a thousand feet above that ot* the Sierras, will undoubtedly surprise many of our readers, "but it is accounted for by the gradual rise for a long distance. -It is a singular fact that the eastern base 'of the Rocky Mountains is nearly as high above the sea as the town of Cisco, near the "summit of the Sierra Nevada. There are three or four mountain ridges in the Rocky Mountain Eange where the railroad has to cross, that are higher than the summit beyond Cisco, and yet the ridges themselves are not very formidable when we take into account the elevation of their base. The difficulties to be overcome by the Union Pacific are for this reason much less -than is generally supposed. The gap between the Central Pacific and Union Pacific, of about one thousand miles, ought to be finished before July, 1870, for there is no fear the Union Pacific road will not reach I?ort'Bridger quite as soon as the Central Pacific. The Union has the hardest work to do, but it has the shortest distance to overcome and greater facilities :to operate with. The strife between the two companies to secure the Government subsidies will stimulate the work of construction, and insure a junction of the two roads in the vicinity of Salt Lake at the earliest practicable moment. It cannot be effected too soon. — -Californian Paper: