60 WESTERN INCIDENSS.

pany shall not be entitled to any bonds.”

This branch will be com-
pleted carly next scagon.

3. The Central or Atchison Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad,
extending from Atchison, on the Missouri river, in Kansas, to an in-
tersection with the Union Pacific Railway, action Division, in the val-
ley of the Kansas River or Republican Fork. This oes by virtue
of an assignment from the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company,
receives the same aid from the Government as the Union Pacific Rail-
road for the first one hundred miles west of the Missouri River. The
grading and mechanical work upon the first section of twenty miles is
substantially completed, the iron on hand, and track-laying com-
menced. The second section of twenty miles is under contract to be
completed by the first of May next. There is now a railroad connec-
tion from the east, via the Hannibal and St. Joseph, and Platte Country

railroads, to a point on the east bank of the Missouri opposite
Atchison.

4, The Union Pacific Railroad, extending from the western boundary
of the State of Iowa, at Omaha, “to the western boundary of the
Territory of Nevada, there to connect with the line of the Central
Pacific Railroad Company of California,” a distance of about sixteen
hundred miles. The capital stock is one hundred million dollars.
The organization is entirely the creation of Congress, and being
located within the Territories, is not subject to any State or municipal
regulations. To aid inits construction the Government grants “ every
alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers, to the
amount of ten alternate sections per mile, on each side of said railroad
on the line thereof, and within the limits of twenty miles on each side
of said road, not sold, reserved, or otherwise set aside by the United
States, and to which a pre-emption or homestead claim may not have
attached at the time the line of said road is definitely fixed.” The
law further provides that “said company shall designate the general
route of said road, as near as may be, and shall file a map of the same
in the Department of the Interior, whereupon the Secretary of the
Interior shall cause the lands within twenty-five miles of said desig-
nated route or routes to be withdrawn from pre-emption, private
entry, and sale; and when any portion of said route shall be finally
located, the Secretary of the Interior shall cause the said lands herein-
before granted to be surveyed and set off as fast as may be necessary
for the purposes herein named.