Of the Central Pacific Road we have not as yet spoken adequately, and shall now be compelled to give the history of its achievements in a wholly insufficient space. Unlike the Eastern roads, it has allowed no pause in its work from the day of the first track-laying to the present moment. Unlike these roads, also, it has had to contend with great engineering difficulties from the start, while the material for its construction required to be brought over distances to which the transportation annoyances of the other lines offer no parallel. All the rolling stock, rails, etc. doubled Cape Horn. The timber for the trestle-work of bridges was brought from Puget's Sound. For laborers it had recourse to China. To reach the crest of the Sierra, they were obliged to pierce the hillsides fifteen times, the tunnelling alone amounting in continuous line to 6,262 feet. The eight-hour labor movement was an additional embarrassment. Embankments built up with incalculable labor, and protected by every device of engineering science, settled in many cases, and were repaired only after much delay and vast expense. Nevertheless, the indomitable projectors of the enterprise have proved themselves equal to their task. The Summit Tunnel was cut through in August of this year; and by November the road will have been extended, not only to the crest of the mountains, but far down the eastern slope. Hunter's, which is the wagon depot of the Nevada miners, two hundred and seventy-four miles from San Francisco, and one hundred and fifty miles from Sacramento, is the point which the locomotive is certain to reach by the close of 1867.[D] Thus far there have been built six hundred and fifty miles of completed road. Adding the water route to San Francisco, there are about eight hundred miles of continuous steam communication. Despite also the bleakness of the Plains in winter, and the protracted rigors of the Sierra, it is demonstrated that snow can be no more an obstacle to the railroads than icebergs have proved to the Atlantic cable. Including the Eastern connections with New York as the Atlantic terminus, we have, therefore, two thousand two hundred and fifty miles of the interoceanic railroad already in actual operation.