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appreciated by the inhabitants of the central and northern parts of the Mississippi valley. For we believe that the opening of this route will, of all others yet suggested, be the most certain means of drawing the trade of California, and indeed of all the countries bording on the Pacific north of the equator, to New Orleans and other cities on the Mississippi. This is the trade, the "commerce of the east," which has enriched every country that has possessed it, since the days of the patriarchs: construct the Tehuantepec railway and deepen the channel of the Mississippi at its mouth, and we shall intercept this commerce on its way to our eastern cities, and transport it on the cheapest of all inland routes into the interior.

In connection with these great works, we cannot omit to mention our long cherished project of a railway from the Missouri river to the sources of the Red river of the North, as an important, and we may say, a necessary branch of the Western and Southern system of commerce and internal improvement.

We have taken this broad view of the commerce of the Mississippi valley for the purpose of impressing upon the minds of its inhabitants, throughout its whole extent, the importance of acting in concert. We observe, that the New Orleans committee direct their address especially to the states of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky and Missouri. We hold, that it is especially important, that the citizens of the extreme North and South, should meet in council, and we trust, that our New Orleans friends will yet extend their especial invitation to Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, to attend the convention, to be held in their city in January next.

These three civil divisions constitute a large portion of the area of the Mississippi valley, and nothing could be more desirable in connection with this subject, than, that their citizens should have an opportunity of interchanging views with those of the Southern States-especially in respect to such subjects, as are proper to be brought before Congress.

The policy of appropriating the public domain, under certain conditions, in aid of public improvements, was fully recognised at the last session of Congress, in the grant made to the Mobile and Ohio railroad and the central railroad of Illinois. Neither the wisdom nor justice of this policy will be denied, we imagine, by any Western man, nor have we heard of much objection to it in

any part of the Union, but nevertheless it will require union and concert on the part of the West and South, to ensure success to an application made from any quarter. There should be an earnest effort to keep this subject seperate from all party questions, and especially to exclude it from the presidential canvass. Otherwise, a farce, similar to that enacted at the last Session, in respect to the river and harbor bill, will be again played off before the country.

Everything relating to the public economy of the Western States, is now undergoing the process of formation. The elements of wealth-indeed, of all that could be desired, to make this the most prosperous and happy region of the whole earth-abound here in the greatest profusion, but owing to the vast extent of Territory, watered by the Mississippi, and to our vast geographical and commercial relations with other portions of the continent, it requires an extraordinary degree of wisdom and enterprise, to combine these elements so as to make them available and subservient to that high degree of human happiness, which they were designed to promote.

This is a period when the great minds of the West should engage in giving form and direction to public policy. It is in their power to control, in a great degree, the destiny of the millions who shall inhabit this extensive region for many generations—perhaps throughout all time. As philanthropists they could not desire a broader field for the exercise of their talents; and as men of genius thirsting for fame, they could find no surer road to the attainment of honorable renown.

ARTICLE II.

Ohio and Mississippi Railroad.

Report of the Preliminary Surveys of the Western Division of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, chartered by the State of Illinois.

OFFICE OF OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI RAILROAD CO.,

Cincinnati, Sept. 1. 1851.

To the President and Directors of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad Company, as chartered by the State of Illinois :

GENTLEMEN: In submitting my first report under your resolution of 27th of March last, I beg to lay before you, as precedent thereto, the annexed table, marked A, of the distance between the western termini of other trunk roads leading to the east and elsewhere, which will be in connection with and tributary to it; and also a skeleton map, prepared for the purpose of exhibiting, in one view, most of the connections embraced in the table. The figures which are the result of actual measurement, as far as can be ascertained, exhibit the gratifying fact that St. Louis is in connection with the Atlantic seaboard over this line, by a shorter disstance than by any other yet projected, or that the face of the country will admit of, and settles the point which modern experience developes as so vital in the construction of trunk lines of railroad; that ours is the nearest to an air line between these great points that can be achieved, and puts future constructions out of the question with a view to shortening the distance.

I beg to commend to your attention, also, table marked B, before submitting the results of my instrumental labors. It is prepared, with some care, from data obtained on the line, and from sources not perhaps available to others, and exhibits the probable income of the road during the first year after its completion.

I also submit herewith a plat on which are accurately traced, from the field notes, the three several lines surveyed, and which presents the points touched by each, the crossings of the streams and the divergence from an air line.

The fact that five lines of railroad cross the Ohio and Missisippi, and that one runs into it at Lawrenceburgh, making equal to eleven internal or branch roads, all likely to be in operation as soon as yours shall have been completed, is a circumstance so extraordinary in the history of like constructions, that I beg to call your attention to, and congratulate you on, the rare assurance which it gives of the success and prosperity of your enterprise.

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The distance to New York via Terre Haute, Indianopolis, Belfontaine and Galena is 1061 miles.

Probable distance from St. Louis via Ohio and Mississippi Railroad to the following places:

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To Charleston, S.C., via Louisville andLexington 859
To Charleston S. C., via Cincinnati.........
To Nashville via Louisville........

905

454 sup. 412

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To Chicago via Illinois Central Railroad..sup. 305

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To Pittsburgh.
To Buffalo......

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TABLE B.

By the time the line is completed within the counties of Lawrence, Richland, Clay, Marion and St. Clair, in Illinois, and half of Knox county, in Indiana, and half of St. Louis county, Missouri, say at the end of two years, the population will have greatly increased. At the present time, by the census, they contain 83,000, which, at $2 20 pcr head, will net the Company.

$182,600

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$2,007 80

Total daily receipts from passengers..........

To which sum add one half amount for freight of
that received from passengers, which makes a
total daily receipt for freight and passengers of
$3011 70, and three hundred and thirteen
days makes per year.....
Add United States Mail.

$912,662 10 * 21,600 00

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Making a dividend of between 18 and 19 per cent. on the cost estimated.

The amount of busines estimated is much less than the average of that daily done by steamboats between the same points, and is unquestionably far below the actual business which the Railroad

• We discover an error in the addition of these figures, which we have not been able to correct from the copy before us.-ED.

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