As soon as the season permitted, Judah was sent back into the mountains, and in October, 1861, the directors had before them the substance of his second report, this time based on an instrumental survey. Judah now thought that a railroad from Sacramento to the state line would cost $12,380,000, or $88,428 per mile. He did not push his surveys beyond the point at which he reached the Truckee River, but from his general knowledge of the country he estimated that the 451 miles between Lassen’s Meadows and Salt Lake could be built for $45,000 per mile, and that the whole road of 733 miles could be constructed for $41,415,000, or an average of $56,500 per mile.[22] In every way this second report was a more careful piece of work than the one which had preceded it. The new route differed from that recommended in November, 1860, mainly in that it ran from Sacramento through Lincoln and Centralia instead of through Folsom, and also in the greater detail of its location. The principal characteristics of the line were two: (1) that it followed a nearly continuous ridge from Lincoln to the summit of the mountains, and (2) that east of the summit the road wound down the side of the mountain to Lake Truckee, following the Truckee River from the lake in the direction of Humbolt Sink, and entirely avoiding the second summit of the Sierras and the crossing of the Washoe Mountains. This is substantially the line of the Central Pacific today. The maximum grade which Judah allowed himself was 105 feet to the mile. Judah did not at this time re-examine alternative routes via Georgetown and via Henness Pass, which he had considered and rejected the previous fall. Nor did he refer to the line via Beckwourth’s Pass, the present route of the Western Pacific, which he later admitted to be easier in grade, if longer in distance, or to the possibility of a route directly east from Folsom via Placerville around the south end of Lake Tahoe. It is probable, however, that these two last-named routes were familiar to him in a general way, as considerable quantities of freight consigned to the Nevada mines were already moving over them. Emphasis should be laid upon Judah’s survey of October, 1861, because the continuance of the Sacramento capitalists in the enterprise depended upon its favorable outcome. After it was completed Huntington and his friends became, on the whole and except during certain intervals of weakness, inclined to see the project through even at the risk of their personal fortunes, provided reasonable government assistance could be secured. It was with this understanding that Judah went back to Washington in 1861 to procure the passage of needed legislation, and it was in this spirit that a formal beginning of construction upon the Central Pacific was made at Sacramento on January 8, 1863. CHAPTER II RESOURCES FOR CONSTRUCTION—STATE AND LOCAL AID Source of Funds