These lines of railway, connecting Omaha with Sacramento, are remarkable evidences of the energy and spirit which characterize the Anglo-Saxon race in America. The men who conceived the design of the Central Pacific Railroad, and actually carried it into effect, were not persons experienced in railway construction; but five middle-aged traders of Sacramento, two of whom where drapers, one a wholesale grocer, and the others ironmongers, believing that such a railway should be made, and finding no one ready to undertake it, united together, projected the railway, got it completed, and now manage it. These gentlemen were associated with an engineer named Judah, who was a sanguine advocate of the scheme, and made the preliminary surveys, if he did not plan the line. The line is considered one of the best appointed and best managed in the States; yet the project was at first ridiculed and pronounced impracticable by engineers of high repute, opposed by capitalists, and denounced by politicians. An eminent banker, who personally regarded the scheme with hopefulness, would not venture, however, to take any stock, lest the credit of his bank should be shaken, were he known to be connected with so wild a scheme. And, indeed, the difficulties appeared great. Except wood, all the materials required, the iron rails, the pickaxes and spades, the waggons, the locomotives, and the machinery had to be sent by sea from New York, round Cape Horn, a long and perilous voyage of nine months duration, and transhipped at San Francisco for another voyage of 120 miles before they could reach Sacramento. Add to this that workmen were so scarce in California, and wages so high, that to carry on the work it was necessary to obtain men from New York; and during its progress 10,000 Chinamen were brought across the Pacific, to work as labourers. Subscriptions came in very slowly, and before 30 miles of the line had been constructed, the price of iron rose in a very short time to nearly three times its former amount. At this critical juncture, the five merchants decided to defray, out of their own private fortunes, the cost of keeping 800 men at work on the line for a whole year. We cannot but admire the unswerving confidence in their enterprise displayed by these five country merchants, unskilled in railway making, unaided by public support, and even discouraged in their project by their own friends. The financial and legal obstacles they successfully surmounted were not the only difficulties to be overcome. They had the engineering difficulties of carrying their line over the steep Sierra, a work of four years; long tunnels had to be bored; one spring when snow 60 ft. in depth covered the track, it had to be removed by the shovel for 7 miles along the road; saw-mills had to be erected in the mountains, to prepare the sleepers and other timber work; wood and water had to be carried 40 miles across alkali plains, and locomotives and