ALARM OF CANAL-OWNERS AT THE SUCCESS OF RAILROADS--THE MAKING OF THE BALTIMORE & OHIO--THE "TOM THUMB" ENGINE--DIFFICULTIES IN CROSSING THE APPALACHIANS--EXTENSION TO PITTSBURGH--TROUBLES OF THE ERIE RAILROAD--THIS ROAD THE FIRST TO USE THE TELEGRAPH--THE PRAIRIES BEGIN TO BE CROSSED BY RAILWAYS--CHICAGO'S FIRST RAILROAD, THE GALENA & CHICAGO UNION--ILLINOIS CENTRAL--ROCK ISLAND, THE FIRST TO SPAN THE MISSISSIPPI--PROPOSALS TO RUN RAILROADS TO THE PACIFIC--THE CENTRAL PACIFIC ORGANIZED--IT AND THE UNION PACIFIC MEET--OTHER PACIFIC ROADS. All the railroad projects already related were timid projects in the beginning, with hardly a thought of ultimate greatness. Yet there were men, even in the earliest days of railroading, whose minds winged to great enterprises, whose dreams were empire-wide. Of such men was the Baltimore & Ohio born. Baltimore, like Philadelphia, had greedily watched the success of the Erie Canal upon its completion, and noted with alarm its possible effects upon its own wharves. Philadelphia, with the wealth of the great State of Pennsylvania behind, had sought to protect herself by the construction of the long links of canal and railroad to Pittsburgh, of which you have already read. But Baltimore had no great State to call to her support. She must look to herself for strength. Out of her eminent necessity for self-preservation came men of the strength and the fibre to meet the emergency. Baltimore might have retreated from the situation, as some of the New England towns had retreated from it, and become a somnolent reminiscence of a prosperous Colonial seaport. She did nothing of the sort. Instead she made herself the terminal and inspiration of a great railroad, laid the foundations of a great and lasting growth. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was born February 12, 1827. On the evening of that day, a little group of citizens of the sturdy old Southern metropolis gathered at the house of George Brown. Mr. Brown together with Philip E. Thomas, a distinguished merchant and philanthropist of Baltimore, had been making investigation into the possibilities of railroads. The fact that the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, which was already well advanced in construction, would have its eastern terminus at the Potomac River, near Washington, brought no comfort to the merchants of Baltimore. Wonder not then, that the stern old traders of that city assembled to consider "the best means of restoring to the city of Baltimore that portion of the western trade which has lately been diverted from it by the introduction of steam navigation and other causes." From that February day to this the corporate title of the Baltimore & Ohio has been unchanged, despite the career of the most extreme vicissitudes--long years of shadows that were almost complete despair, other years that were brilliant with success.