The traveller is setting a girder 75 feet long, and weighing 20 tons, into position.] The railway has passed through many financial tribulations. On two occasions the intermediary of a receiver has been found necessary. It was hit by a panic in its very earliest days, and it failed ten years after completion, the second breakdown precipitating one of the worst financial scares in the history of the States. From the ashes, however, a new company was reconstructed, a bolder and more enterprising body of men gripped the reins, the system was pulled to pieces from end to end and rebuilt. To-day it is not only one of the finest railways in America, but one of the most popular and successful as well. Running parallel with the Northern Pacific across the continent, but some miles nearer the international boundary, is another great artery of steel which has become a great transportation force in the United States. This is the Great Northern, likewise built through the energy of one man, Mr. James J. Hill, the empire-builder of the Great American west. Mr. Hill is a born railway magnate, and when he shook the dust of his native land--Canada--from his feet, it was merely because the Dominion at that time offered him no scope for his energies and initiative. His life is one romance; a prolonged conquest with the unknown country, with the railway as his weapon, and with which he has overcome tremendous obstacles. The Great Northern was driven slowly across the country from the Great Lakes. Advance was risky, as the country traversed failed to promise an ounce of produce; but whenever the organiser saw that development in the country ahead was likely to take place, he drove the line forward. His motto was that “the railway must be a pioneer, leaving the settler to be brought in afterwards.” He lost no opportunity to gain revenue. For instance, when the mineral wealth of Montana attracted widespread attention, he made a journey to Butte. He found that it was costing the mines £3 8_s._--$17--per ton to ship their copper to Omaha. He pondered on the subject, and suddenly announced his intention to carry his railway into Butte. He did so, and the first stroke he consummated was to transport the metal to the same eastern point at £1 13_s._, or $8, per ton--about 50 per cent. below the previous rate.