The apparent advantages of an arrangement with a construction company as compared with those of construction by the Central Pacific itself, were those connected with specialization of the work. A company which does nothing but construction and which does that all the time, may be expected to have a force more highly trained in this particular grade of work, and a more abundant supply of tools and material than an organization which builds railroads only occasionally. The unfortunate necessity of hiring men for each new job and discharging them at the completion of the job is avoided. In the case of the Central Pacific this advantage was somewhat illusory, it is true, for the reason that the Contract and Finance Company on its first contract, whatever might have been the fact later, could scarcely have had an advantage over the railroad; and as for tools, the Contract and Finance Company had no machine tools at all at the beginning, and had to rely on the railroad not only for cars and engines to transport its men, but for equipment for large construction of any sort. The real reason for using a construction company in this case was a financial and not an operating one. Profits of Construction Much has been said about the profits of the Contract and Finance Company. Here, again, books are missing, having been packed into boxes by the industrious Mark Hopkins in 1873, and never again produced.[119] A man named John Miller, one-time secretary of the Contract and Finance Company, and defaulter to the alleged extent of $900,000 at a subsequent period, was in possession of transcripts from these books, if we may believe his statement; but even these transcripts disappeared, if indeed they ever existed.[120] We do not know, therefore, how much construction cost the Contract and Finance Company, and we cannot calculate with any accuracy the profit obtained. It does appear that the work done by the Contract and Finance Company cost the Central Pacific, in all $23,736,000 in cash and the same amount in capital stock.[121] If we add to this $100,000 in cash and $2,900,000 in bonds paid to the Union Pacific for the stretch of land from Promontory Point to a point five miles west of Ogden, and $1,072,874.79 for snowsheds and other extra work performed in 1870, we have a total of $51,544,874.79, of which $24,908,874.79 was in cash. Taken in connection with the Crocker contracts, this makes an aggregate of $33,761,992.72 in cash, $3,000,000 in bonds, and $38,437,710.22 in stock. It was the judgment of the United States Pacific Railway Commission that the total cost of building the 690 miles from Sacramento to Promontory Point, and of purchasing from the Union Pacific 47½ miles of road from Promontory Point to the end of the Central Pacific line, 5 miles west of Ogden, did not exceed $36,000,000, and this included 9 miles built by small contractors, the payment for which is not included in the figures just given.[122]