In crossing the continent by the route we have chosen, one passes through a country whose grand scenic charms can hardly be exaggerated, in describing which superlatives only will apply, and whose agricultural advantages, natural resources, and mineral wealth are probably unequaled in the known world. We are taken through the productive wheat-fields of Minnesota and Dakota, among the gold and silver bearing hills of Idaho and Montana, into the prolific, garden-like valleys of Washington, whose lovely hopfields rival the gorgeous display of Kent in England, and whose abundant supply of coal and iron is only second to that of Pennsylvania. The State has been, and may well be, denominated the Eden of the North Pacific. On our way we are constantly meeting immense freight trains, laden with grain, flour, cattle, and other merchandise, bound for the Atlantic coast; long strings of coal cars, winding snake-like round sharp curves, and creeping up steep grades; passenger vans crowded with animated, intelligent people, all together testifying to the great and growing traffic of the West and Northwest. We pass scores of lofty grain elevators, high piles of lumber, and miles of various kinds of merchandise prepared for, and awaiting, shipment eastward, all of which evinces a local capacity for production far beyond our computation. How marvelous is the change from the conditions existing in this region a few years since, when millions of buffaloes roamed unmolested over these plains, valleys, and hills from Texas to Manitoba! The skeletons of these herds still sprinkle the prairies, bleached by the summer sun and crumbled by the winter’s frost. Hundreds of carloads are annually shipped eastward to the factories which manufacture fertilizers. As we speed on our western journey day and night, gliding through long tunnels and deep rock cuttings, over airy trestles, immense embankments, bridges, and viaducts, representing the skillful accomplishments of modern engineering, we carry along with us the domestic conveniences of home. The train, in fact, becomes our hotel for the time being, where we bathe, eat, sleep, and enjoy the passing scenery seated in luxuriously upholstered easy-chairs, which at night are ingeniously transformed as if by magic into soft and inviting beds. The elegance and comfort of these parlor, dining, and sleeping cars is calculated to make traveling what it has in a measure become, an inviting luxury. The miraculous cap of Fortunatus would seem to have been pressed into our service. So thoroughly perfected is the transcontinental railroad system that it is quite possible to enter the cars in an Atlantic city, say at Boston or New York, and not leave the train until five or six days have expired, when the objective point on the Pacific coast is reached.