An extraordinary task lay before Whistler in Russia, and one that might have made an ordinary man hesitate. The route had to be surveyed for the contemplated road between Moscow and St. Petersburg, the road-bed had to be constructed, the tracks laid, bridges, stations and engine-houses designed and built, gauges considered and decided upon, machine shops constructed, mechanics trained, locomotives and rolling-stock planned and built, and, in fact, every detail of the immense undertaking had to be deliberated over, thought out and carried to completion under this one man’s supervision. It was an herculean task that his marvelous executive capacity was to meet and conquer. The jealousies of officials, suspicious of a foreigner and imperial favorite, the impediments thrown in his way by a corrupt officialdom, the delays of the bureaus, the greed of contractors, the importunities of inventors and the solicitations of a horde of corrupt harpies that gather round such an enterprise, had to be reckoned with; and these he did with consummate skill and tact, taxing the resources of his urbane but firm diplomacy and exhausting the vitality of his physical being. He overcame all obstacles, he earned the respect, admiration and affection of his Russian associates, he smoothed the friction of bureaus and officials, he made the fortune of his American associate, Winans, and others, he obtained the sincere regard and respect of the autocrat of the empire and was content to remain a poor man and an honest man. His monument was the finest and best-equipped railroad on the continent of Europe. The Emperor Nicholas, anxious to show his admiration and esteem for the American, urged him in vain to accept a high commission in the Russian army, but he refused everything, contenting himself with the decoration of the Order of St. Anne. But Whistler’s work was nearly done; he had worked too hard and too faithfully. Beside his railroad work he planned many important improvements in the fortifications at Cronstadt, which balked the British under Napier a few years later; he made useful and needed changes in the naval school and docks at St. Petersburg, and planned many other public works. In November, 1848, he had an attack of Asiatic cholera, which precipitated upon his already exhausted system a complication of diseases, and he lingered along until April, 1849, when he died in the Russian capital in his 49th year. Posthumous honors were paid the distinguished dead by the emperor; Whistler’s family were treated with great kindness and consideration by the government, and it was ordered that no changes of any nature would be permitted in completing the great railroad enterprise he had created.