ncreased rapidly in those inland sections which had formerly
languished because they had no means of easy and rapid communication.

The construction of extensive railways, however, and particularly the
consolidation of small, experimental lines into large systems, dates
from the days of the discovery of gold in California. The nation did
not begin to realize the extraordinary possibilities of the vast
Western territory until its attention was thus suddenly and definitely
concentrated on the Pacific by the annual addition of over fifty million
dollars to the circulating medium. The wealth drawn so copiously from
this Western part of our continent had a stimulating effect on the
commerce, manufactures, and trade of the entire Eastern section. People
began to understand that with the acquisition of California the
nation had obtained practically half a continent, of which the future
possibilities were almost unlimited, so far as the development of
natural resources and the general production of wealth were concerned.

The public conviction that a railroad linking the West and the East was
an absolute necessity became so pronounced after the gold discoveries
of '49 that Congress passed an act in 1853 providing for a survey of
several lines from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Though the published
reports of these surveys threw a flood of light on the interior of
the continent, they led to no definite result at the time because the
rivalry of sections and groups of interests for the selection of this or
that route held up all progress.

The Act of 1862, which created the Union Pacific Railroad Company,
together with the amending Act of 1864, authorized the construction of
a main line from an initial point "on the one hundredth meridian of
longitude," in the Territory of Nebraska to the eastern boundary of
California, with branch lines to be constructed by other companies
and to radiate from this initial point to Sioux City, to Omaha, to St.
Joseph, to Leavenworth, and to Kansas City. * Provision was made for
a subsidy of $16,000 a mile for the level country east of the Rocky
Mountains; $48,000 a mile for the lines through mountain ranges; and
$32,000 a mile for the section between the ranges. The original plan
to secure the government subsidies by a first mortgage on the lines was
amended so as to allow private capital to take the first mortgage, the
Government taking a second lien for its advances. In addition to these
sub