One notable feature of this road is the tunnels. There are 42 in all, aggregating over 45,000 feet in length, while there are 40 steel bridges totalling a length of 9,261 feet. In one division among the Sierras, extending for a distance of 75 miles up the Feather River Canyon, grading ran into £20,000, or $100,000, per mile. Altogether some 40,000,000 cubic yards of earth were handled to form the grade. The contractors had to spend £20,000, or $100,000, alone to cut a wagon-road in order to transport supplies to their camps along the grade. Contemporaneously with the construction of the Western Pacific railway, a third line--the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound--was being pressed across the continent for the purpose of bringing Chicago and the Atlantic seaboard into direct touch with the Pacific ports of Seattle and Tacoma on Puget Sound. [Illustration: BUILDING THE CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE AND PUGET SOUND RAILWAY THROUGH THE BITTER ROOT MOUNTAINS] This great artery sprang from very humble beginnings. In 1865 there was a short stretch of line in the State of Minnesota which, under energetic and wise expansion, threw its tentacles in all directions, until by 1908 it had grown into a huge system known as the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway, possessing 7,451 miles of track. How it came to launch out upon this long reach to the Pacific is an interesting story, typical of railway development in the North American continent. The eastern division of the parent system served an absolutely treeless country, though the land was among the finest imaginable for agriculture. The railway required plentiful supplies of timber, not only for its own needs, but also for those of the settlers scattered along its roads. Every foot of wood had to be cut in the far north-west lumber territory, and had to be hauled for hundreds of miles over a rival railway before it entered the territory served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. Considering the enormous consumption of this commodity, the money paid over every year to the rival railway in freight charges represented a respectable figure. [Illustration: CARRYING THE CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE AND PUGET SOUND RAILWAY ACROSS THE COLUMBIA RIVER Showing the huge steel bridge necessary to carry the track over the waterway.] Thereupon it was decided to tap the forests and to secure an outlet on the Pacific Coast at the same time. Although it was estimated that the 1,400 miles of track necessary for the purpose would cost about £20,000,000, or $100,000,000, it was calculated that the saving in freight charges for hauling timber would defray the greater part of the interest on this capital. Work was commenced in 1906: on April 1, 1909, the last rail was laid, and the golden spike was driven home into its sleeper, with no more ceremony than if a mere siding had been completed, instead of a new trans-continental line, conforming with all up-to-date requirements as to grade, curvature and general standard of work.