the properties so controlled were leased on a very
profitable basis to the United States Steel Corporation. The Great
Northern Railroad itself did not retain control of the ore lands
but, through a trusteeship, gave a beneficial interest in them to its
stockholders in the shape of a special dividend.

The profits under this lease promised to be very large in the course
of time, but the Steel Corporation had the option to cancel after
a five-year period, and in 1912, as the result of a United States
Government suit for the dissolution of the Steel Corporation, the
lease was canceled. Since that time the trustees of the ore lands have
executed other leases, and the Great Northern ore certificates are
bringing in a substantial return to their owners.

The three Hill lines--the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, and
the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy--have been unusually profitable.
The Great Northern and the Northern Pacific have steadily paid liberal
dividends to their stockholders on increasing amounts of capital stock;
and the Burlington, whose whole stock is owned by these two roads,
has also handed over liberal profits year by year, at the same time
accumulating an earned surplus of more than one hundred million dollars
and spending an almost equal amount of profits on the improvement and
maintenance of the property. The Burlington today controls the Colorado
Southern, which extends southward from the Burlington lines in Wyoming,
passing through Denver, Pueblo, Fort Worth, and other points southward
to the Gulf.

CHAPTER X. THE RAILROAD SYSTEM OF THE SOUTH

In the year 1856 a small single-track railroad was opened from Richmond
to Danville, Virginia. This enterprise, like many others in ante-bellum
days, was carried out largely with funds supplied by the State. As long
afterwards as 1867, three-fifths of the stock was owned by the State of
Virginia, but soon after this time the State disposed of its investment
to a railroad company operating a line in North Carolina from Goldsboro
westward to Greensboro, and projected southward to Charlotte. In modern
times, this little road, like the Richmond and Danville, has become an
integral part of the Southern Railway system, but in those days it was
controlled, curiously enough, by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.

After 1867 the new owners of the Richmond and Danville began
aggressively to extend their lines. By leasing the North Carolina
Railroad, a small prope