Details of Judah’s activities between 1854 and 1860 are difficult to obtain. We know that he visited Washington in order to procure the passage of a bill making grants of land to California for railroad purposes. In 1859 he was the delegate from Sacramento to the Pacific Railroad Convention, where he urged the importance of a thorough survey before any decision should be made regarding the route of a transcontinental railroad. When the convention adjourned he was sent to Washington at his own expense to urge the passage of a bill such as the convention favored. He returned in 1860 without having accomplished his purpose, but convinced that Congress was in favor of granting federal aid to a railroad to California from the East, and that it would act when more important matters had been disposed of.[3] Discovery of Transcontinental Route It was after Judah’s return from Washington in 1860 that he undertook the explorations for the Sacramento Valley Railroad to which reference has been made. Doubtless while engaged on this work he visited Dutch Flat, and doubtless also his enthusiasm for a transcontinental railroad became generally known. Judah was no mountaineer, but he could readily profit by the knowledge of men acquainted with the country. Such a man he found in Daniel W. Strong, a druggist at Dutch Flat, who accompanied him on his explorations. We have Strong’s statement that he himself conceived the idea that immigrant travel could be diverted through the Dutch Flat country by the construction of a railroad, and that he hired assistants, made a reconnaissance, and found a continuous divide over which he thought a road could pass. Knowing that Mr. Judah was trying to find a pass over the mountains, he wrote to him, and Judah came from Sacramento to Dutch Flat. Strong says that he showed Judah the route he had discovered, and that Judah thought well of it.[4] [Illustration: Theodore Dehone Judah] Such is Strong’s testimony given years afterwards, when the Central Pacific had proved a success, and it was a distinction to have been connected with it. It is possible that Strong overestimated his contribution to the work. Yet the essential fact is that Judah was in the mountains in August, 1860, and that he or Strong, or both of them hit upon a route which Judah pronounced practicable. One may hazard the guess that Strong pointed out a pass and Judah tested it with instruments.[5] Mrs. Judah repeats the story as she heard it: It was in the drug store of Dr. Strong at Dutch Flat that the first profile was marked out from notes taken by them (Judah and Strong). Judah could not sleep or rest after they got into town and the store, till he had stretched his paper on the counter and made his figures thereon. Then, turning to Dr. Strong, [he] said for the first time, “Doctor, I shall make my survey over this, the Donner Pass, or Dutch Flat route, above every other.”[6] Appeal for Funds