With all the experience we have had, it is not an easy problem, even at the present time, to determine how much money we are authorized to spend upon the construction of a given railroad. To secure the utmost benefit at the least outlay, regarding both the first cost of building the road and the perpetual cost of operating it, is the railroad problem which is perhaps less understood at the present day than any other. It was an equally important problem fifty years ago, and certainly not less difficult at that time. It was the fathers of the railroad system in the United States who first perceived the importance of this problem, and who, adapting themselves to the new conditions presented in this country, undertook to solve it. Among the pioneers in this branch of engineering no one has done more to establish correct methods, nor has left behind a more enviable or more enduring fame, than Major George W. Whistler. The Whistler family is of English origin, and is found toward the end of the 15th century in Oxfordshire, at Goring and Whitchurch, on the Thames. One branch of the family settled in Sussex, at Hastings and Battle, being connected by marriage with the Websters of Battle Abbey, in which neighborhood some of the family still live. Another branch lived in Essex, from which came Dr. Daniel Whistler, President of the College of Physicians in London in the time of Charles the Second. From the Oxfordshire branch came Ralph, son of Hugh Whistler, of Goring, who went to Ireland, and there founded the Irish branch of the family, being the original tenant of a large tract of country in Ulster, under one of the guilds or public companies of the city of London. From this branch of the family came Major John Whistler, father of the distinguished engineer, and the first representative of the family in America. It is stated that in some youthful freak he ran away and enlisted in the British Army. It is certain that he came to this country during the Revolutionary War, under General Burgoyne, and remained with his command until its surrender at Saratoga, when he was taken prisoner of war. Upon his return to England he was honorably discharged, and, soon after, forming an attachment for a daughter of Sir Edward Bishop, a friend of his father, he eloped with her, and came to this country, settling at Hagerstown, in Maryland. He soon after entered the army of the United States, and served in the ranks, being severely wounded in the disastrous campaign against the Indians under Major-General St. Clair in the year 1791. He was afterward commissioned as lieutenant, rose to the rank of captain, and later had the brevet of major. At the reduction of the army in 1815, having already two sons in the service, he was not retained; but in recognition of his honorable record, he was appointed Military Storekeeper at Newport, Kentucky, from which post he was afterward transferred to Jefferson Barracks, where he lived to a good old age.