At a quarter before six the travelers reached the station, and found the train ready to depart. As he was about to enter it, Mr. Fogg called a porter, and said to him: "My friend, was there not some trouble today in San Francisco?" "It was a political meeting, sir," replied the porter. "But I thought there was a great deal of disturbance in the streets." "It was only a meeting assembled for an election." "The election of a general-in-chief, no doubt?" asked Mr. Fogg. "No, sir; of a justice of the peace." Phileas Fogg got into the train, which started off at full speed. Chapter 26 In Which Phileas Fogg and Party Travel by the Pacific Railroad "From ocean to ocean"--so say the Americans; and these four words compose the general designation of the "great trunk line" which crosses the entire width of the United States. The Pacific Railroad is, however, really divided into two distinct lines: the Central Pacific, between San Francisco and Ogden, and the Union Pacific, between Ogden and Omaha. Five main lines connect Omaha with New York. New York and San Francisco are thus united by an uninterrupted metal ribbon, which measures no less than three thousand seven hundred and eighty-six miles. Between Omaha and the Pacific the railway crosses a territory which is still infested by Indians and wild beasts, and a large tract which the Mormons, after they were driven from Illinois in 1845, began to colonize. The journey from New York to San Francisco took, formerly, under the most favorable conditions, at least six months. It is now accomplished in seven days. In 1862, in spite of the Southern Members of Congress, who wished a more southerly route, it was decided to lay the road between the forty-first and forty-second parallels. President Lincoln himself fixed the end of the line at Omaha, in Nebraska. The work was started at once and pursued with true American energy. The rapidity with which it went on did not injuriously affect its good execution. The road grew, on the prairies, a mile and a half a day. A locomotive, running on the rails laid down the evening before, brought the rails to be laid the next day, and advanced upon them as fast as they were put in position. The Pacific Railroad is joined by several branches in Iowa, Kansas, Colorado and Oregon. On leaving Omaha, it passes along the left bank of the Platte Rivet as far as the junction of its northern branch, follows its southern branch, crosses the Laramie territory and the Wahsatch Mountains, turns the Great Salt Lake, and reaches Salt Lake City, the Mormon capital, plunges into the Tuilla Valley, across the American Desert, Cedar and Humboldt Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and descends, via Sacramento, to the Pacific--its grade, even on the Rocky Mountains, never exceeding one hundred and twelve feet to the mile.