o Ogden
$27,850,000. But the liberality of Congress did not end here. Each road
was also given every odd-numbered section in a strip of public land
twenty miles wide along its entire length.

%491. Land Grants for Railroads and Canals.%--Grants of land in aid
of such improvements were not new. Between 1827 and 1860 Congress gave
away to canals, roads, and railroads 215,000,000 acres. This magnificent
expanse would make seven states as large as Pennsylvania, or three and a
half as large as Oregon, and is only 6000 acres less than the total area
of the thirteen original states with their present boundaries.

Although the roads were chartered in 1862, the work of construction was
slow at first, and the last rail was not laid till May 10, 1869.

%492. The Silver Mines; New States and Territories.%--What the
discovery of gold did for California and Denver, silver and the railroad
did for the country east of the Sierras. In 1859 some gold seekers in
what was then Utah discovered the rich silver mines on Mt. Davidson.
Population rushed in, Virginia City sprang into existence, the territory
of Nevada was formed in 1861, and in 1864 entered the Union as a state.
In 1861 Colorado was made a territory, and what is now North and South
Dakota and the land west of them to the Rocky Mountain divide became the
territory of Dakota. Hardly was this done when gold was found in a gulch
on the Jefferson Fork of the Missouri River. Bannock City, Virginia
City, and Helena were laid out almost immediately, and in 1864 Montana
was made a territory. In 1860 and 1862 precious metals were found in
what was then eastern Washington; Lewiston, Idaho City, and the old
Hudson Bay Company's post of Fort Boise became thriving towns, and in
1863 the territory of Idaho was formed, with limits including what is
now Montana and part of Wyoming. In 1863 Arizona was cut off from New
Mexico, and in 1868 Wyoming was made a territory.

%493. Population in 1870.%--Thus in the decade from 1860 to 1870
gold, silver, and the Pacific Railroad gave value to the American
Desert, brought two states (Nevada and Nebraska) into the Union, and
caused the organization of six new territories. More than 1,000,000
people then lived along the line of the Union Pacific. Our total
population in 1870 was 38,000,000.

SUMMARY

1. What the discovery of gold did for California in 1849, it did for the
"Great American Desert" in 1858.

2. The consequences were the founding of D