PROGRESS OF THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 242, 11 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 five hundred and twenty miles from Omaha, and it is announced by the contractors that they will have thirty miles more completed and in operation on the first of January ; this will take the locomotive to Evan's Pass, which is over eight thousand feet above the sea, and the highest point on]the route across the Rocky Mountains. Thus, the highest point of the two great ranges of mountains on the route are overcome almost simultaneously, though they area thousand miles apart. From the Pacific the iron horse traverses the summit of the Sierra Nevadas, going east, at a height of seven thousand and forty-two feet, within the distance of one hundred and five miles from Sacramento, in December; and in January we will cross the crest of the Rocky Mountains coming from 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 region 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 Rocky Mountains will be crossed soon, and at a height of more than a thousand feet above that of the Sierras, will undoubtedly surprise many of our readers; but it is accounted for by the gradual ri e for a long distance. It is a singular fact that the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, near the new city of Cheyenne, 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 range, where the rail-road 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 road 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 that the Union Pacific road will not reach Fort 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.— California paper.