meridian, at some equidistant station, to be designated by the President. As the Kansas party was already possessed of an organization, the charter modified this advantage by incorporating the Nebraska line[B], under the name of the Union Pacific Company, and gave it a predominant place in the specifications of the act. The aid of government, however, was proffered in equal degree to the road which was to cross the mountains from Sacramento, and to both the Eastern lines; the last two being required to complete a hundred miles each within two years after they had respectively filed their assent to the terms of the act, while the Central was to build at the rate of twenty-five miles a year up the ridges of the Sierra. In hard-currency times, and with the labor and iron market easy, these terms might have been sufficient to invite the ready aid of capital. But the close of 1862 and the year succeeding were the darkest periods of the war. Gold vibrated from 140 to 180. Iron, which in 1859, sold for $35 a ton, was now selling for $130. Moreover, while money was tight, labor was also scarce. The two great agencies on which a vast public work like this must inevitably depend proved utterly inadequate to the emergency. Nevertheless, both the companies which had already an organic existence bent themselves with no inconsiderable vigor to their task. The Central Pacific accepted the responsibilities and obligations of the charter six months after its passage, and commenced the work of grading in the succeeding February. Rails, chairs, and rolling stock were forwarded by sea, involving heavy expenditures for freightage, and a ten per cent war risk on insurance. The company endured further embarrassments from the lack of capital, and the fact that in California a metallic currency formed the only circulating medium. Nor was it the least of its difficulties that the enterprise met with an ambiguous reception in many portions of the State, San Francisco especially regarding it with cold indifference. The zeal with which the road was pushed amid these embarrassments is a striking evidence of the thorough faith of its projectors. Although it soon became apparent that further legislation would be needed to relieve them from the disabilities inherent in the meagreness of the government subsidy, they nevertheless succeeded by the 6th of June, 1864, in cutting their line through to New Castle, and in laying thereon a solid and continuous track.