8 KANSAS AND THE COUNTRY BEYOND.

although very much aided by navigation on the lakes, and on the
Ohio and other rivers, settlement was half a century creeping from
the Alleghenies to the Mississippi, as it had been an entire cen-
tury making its way from the tidewater of the Atlantic to the
western slope of the Alleghenies. In the trans-Mississippi re-
gion, where Nature assumes vaster and sterner features, and where
there are few available rivers to aid in the work, artificial means
of transportation are imperatively necessary, and must first be
supplied. The old process must be inverted. The locomotive
must precede the plough, and the town the farm. Hven Kansas,
with all its fertility except for a comparatively short distance
along its eastern border—could not be occupied in any other
way. Colorado, except a few of the best of its gold mines, is
practically valueless until reached by rail. New Mexico, with its
rich resources, pastoral, agricultural, and mineral, is yet almost
an unknown land to our people, although we have had possession
of it for twenty years. Arizona is still more isolated and un-
known, rich as it is in mineral treasures. California we reach by
sea, and by passing through the territory of a foreign nation.
And what is true of the line here indicated is equally true of that
of the road which runs up the valley of the Platte, and which
opens a way into the territory of the great Central Plateau, and
of the remote Northwest.

THE EXCURSION.

At the invitation of Joon D. Perry, Esq., President of the
Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division, a large party
of ladies and gentlemen, including many members of Congress,
set out from Philadelphia on the 31st day of May, 1867, to make
an excursion to Fort Harker, in Kansas, 225 miles west of the
Missouri river, then the terminus of that road. Handsome and
commodious saloon and sleeping-cars were provided, which were
taken entirely through and back, and everything that well-directed
generosity could do to render the excursion pleasant and agree-
able, was done. Col. Samuxzn 8S. Moon, of Philadelphia, who had
charge of the expedition, will be long and cordially remembered
by the excursionists, for the graceful courtesies extended by him
to the members of the party.

As we progressed through State after State, our numbers