Among the mountains some magnificent work was accomplished. As the directing engineer remarked to the writer, it was a stiff problem to descend the western flanks of the Sierras with a 1 per cent. grade. The line crosses the mountains 2000 feet lower than the Central Pacific, and one advantage is that there are no snowsheds anywhere. When one sees how rigorously the maximum grade has been guarded one marvels. The mountains are negotiated through Feather River Canyon, which is a duplicate of the Kicking Horse Pass that carries the Canadian Pacific main line down to the coast. The canyon is entered at Oroville, and for almost 100 miles the line rises steadily at 52 feet per mile, following the river until it at last gains an altitude of 4,817 feet. But hugging the river causes the line to meander very tortuously, for the waterway zigzags like the teeth of a saw. Moreover, Feather River is a fearsome waterway. In its calmest moods it rushes along swiftly, but when swollen by the melting snows and countless mountain brooks it thunders and boils like a whirlpool. To escape the fury of the waters the track had to be laid well up the mountain-side, and where a fork of the river is crossed, a massive metal bridge had to be built for the reason advanced by the engineer that “Nothing but steel could be used with safety when the river is in full flood.” Curiously enough, although Feather River Canyon had never before been selected as a passage-way through the mountains for the iron road, it was favoured by the Indian as being the easiest passage through the Sierras. Theodore Judah had noticed its advantages for the first trans-continental. But the Red Man’s trail was along the opposite bank to that preferred by the railway. At first sight it would appear as though the surveyors might have profited advantageously from the sagacity of the aborigines, but they declined to do so for a striking reason. The locaters had to pay due respect to the snowfall and the paths of avalanches. In such a gorge the former may be only a few inches on one, and as many feet on the other side, and the dangers from slides are proportionate. Such conditions prevail in this canyon. The bank selected by the engineers is exposed to the sun throughout the day, and the snowfall is very slight, whereas on the other and shaded bank it is very severe.