uilders. At the Deer Lodge Pass, in Montana,
where it crosses the Rocky Mountains, its altitude above the sea is
three thousand five hundred feet less than the Union Pacific Railroad at
Sherman, which is said to be the highest point at which a locomotive can
be found in the world. And on the Pacific side of the continent it is
even more fortunate. From Arizona up to the Arctic Circle the Columbia
is the only river which, has torn its way through that mighty range, the
Andes of North America, which in California is known as the Sierras, but
which in Oregon changes its name to the Cascades. Nature has thus
provided a pathway for the Northern Pacific Road through these
mountains, the scaling of which, on the other line, at an elevation of
over seven thousand feet (a most wonderful triumph of engineering), cost
the Central Pacific millions of dollars, and compelled them for seventy
miles to maintain a grade of over one hundred feet to the mile--twice
the maximum of the Northern Pacific at the most difficult points on its
entire route.

"It is fortunate, also, in its terminus on the Pacific coast. No one who
has not been there can realize the beauty of Puget's Sound and its
surroundings. One hundred miles long, but so full of inlets and straits
that its navigable shore line measures one thousand seven hundred and
sixty miles, dotted with lovely islets, with gigantic trees almost to
the water's edge, with safe anchorage everywhere, and stretching
southward, without shoals or bars, from the Straits of Fuca to the
capital and centre of Washington Territory, it will be a magnificent
_entrepot_ for the commerce of that grandest ocean of the world, the
Pacific."

One of the chief districts to be opened to trade and commerce by the
construction of this road is that known as Prince Rupert's Land, in
British America. This region of country has been recently organized
under the name of Manitoba, and embraces the rich and extensive valleys
of the Red, Assiniboine, and Saskatchewan Rivers. A population of
several thousands already inhabit this section, and a branch railway is
to be constructed along the valley of the Red River from the point of
crossing by the Northern Pacific Road, and under its immediate auspices.
The influence on this people, whose interests will then be almost wholly
identified with those of our own, cannot be doubtful. It requires no
prophecy to determine their ultimate destiny. The time is not distant
when all o