WESTERN INCIDENTS. 51 tion, with stalls for twenty locomotives, and machinery for doing the repairs of three hundred miles of road; also car- shops, manufacturing and turning out two cars each day; and the whole giving employment to three hundred and fifty mechanics. One year ago, there were only three loco- motives and twenty platform cars engaged in the trans- portation of materials. ‘To-day, there are twenty-three locomotives, and two hundred and fifty freight cars employed in the same business—five first-class passenger cars, with the necessary mail and baggage cars, and two magnificent excursion and sleeping cars, prepared for their appropriate use. One year ago, passengers for Denver, Salt Lake, and San Francisco were obliged to ride the whole distance from the Missouri river in old- fashioned stage-coaches, hacks or mud-wagons. To-day, there are no stages running east of Fort Kearny; and nearly one half the distance to Denver may be travelled in ten hours, and in the most luxurious passenger cars. One year ago, every pound of freight, owned either by the Government or individuals, had to be transported west of the Missouri, by means of ox or mule teams, at the slow rate of fifteen or twenty miles per day. To-day, cars heavily laden with Government stores and private freight, destined for the western slope of the continent, are attached to the construction trains, and find their way in twenty-four hours to the end of the track, many miles west of the one hundredth meridian. One year ago, the great Union Pacific Railroad was regarded as a myth, and the men engaged in and con- trolling it, as a set of stockjobbing Wall-street speculators. To-day, it is known and felt to be a power and a reality; and Mr. Durant and his associates are believed to be in earnest, and fully capable of carrying out to successful