76 KANSAS AND THE COUNTRY BEYOND.

because I do not know; but I have laid before the reader data from
which, with the aid of a good map, he can make calculations for him-
self.

The Platte road will be completed if it is in human power to do it,
for the legislation is complete and the appropriations are made; but
even should the difficulties be such that it can never be a Pacific road,
yet as an avenue to the vast interior region into which it runs — Ne-
braska, Southern Dakota, Southern Idaho, and Utah —it will be of
incalculable value — worth far more than it has cost. Over the other
road, however, no such contingencies are pending. There are neither
impracticable mountain passes nor uncontrollable snow-drifts. There
are no formidable obstacles, either topographical or climatic; and the
entire country through which it passes is good. It will open up a
country which, when its manifold resources shall be developed —as
they soon will be when made accessible — will add to the national
wealth immeasurably beyond what it will cost. In fact it will cost
the Government nothing, for it will be selfsustaining. It is that
already, and its revenues will unquestionably increase in a ratio
greater than its onward progress.

LETTER XIX.— Eastern Connections — Table of Distances.

ALLEGHENY Crry, August 5, 1867.

As already stated, the main line of the Union Pacific Railway, BE. D.,
begins at Kansas City, which brings it in line and connection with
the old Pacific Railroad of Missouri, which begins at St. Louis and
terminates at Kansas City, the western boundary of the State of
Missouri. So it might with truth be said that the Union Pacific Rail-
way of the Kansas begins at St. Louis. By a branch road from Law-
rence to Leavenworth, a little more than thirty miles long, belonging
to the same company, the Kansas road has a second terminus on the
Missouri, over which the enterprising people of Leavenworth hope to
turn the trade of all the roads east of the Mississippi which do not
converge upon St. Louis.

But with the rivalry between Leavenworth and Kansas City we
have nothing todo. For the present we shall take Kansas City as
our initial point.

We have already seen how St. Louis is connected with Kansas City
by the old Missouri Pacific, 283 miles in length. In a few months
Chicago will have almost as direct a connection with it, by way of
the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy road to Quincy, 265 miles;
thence to Cameron, on the Hannibal and St. Joseph road, 170 miles;