U2 WESTERN INCIDENTS.

world ; and therefore without doubt one of the ereatest
cities of the world—second on this continent to probably only
the metropolis of New York.

Adding my thanks to those of the gentlemen who have
preceded me for the very kind and munificent reception
which the Union Pacific Railroad excursion party has re-
ceived at your hands, I will here close my already, I fear,
too extended remarks.

The laws of Congress require that the first one hundred
miles of the Union Pacific Railroad, west of the Missouri
River, shall be completed on or before the 27th June,
1866 ; and that it shall be completed to the one-hundreth
meridian of longitude, a distance of one hundred and
forty-seven miles further, at the rate of one hundred miles
per year thereafter ; or, say, by the middle of December,
1867.

The Railroad Company however, had, in utter disre-
gard of all precedents in railroad construction, completed
the first one hundred miles on June 2d, 1866, and had
laid the track across the hundredth meridian on the 5th
October of the same year.

In fact, the Company had become so regardless of these
precedents, and of the slow progress contemplated by
Congress, that it had allowed Mr. Reed, the Engineer in
charge of construction, to do the grading, construct the
bridges, and lay the superstructure, all complete, wpon
two hundred and forty-five miles of road in one hundred
and eighty-two working days; averaging more than one
and one-third miles per day.

Tt was therefore deemed expedient and proper, by the
managers of this great national enterprise, that the com-
pletion of the first division, extending from the Missouri
River, at Omaha, to the one-hundredth meridian of longi-