CHAPTER II. OCEAN TO OCEAN.—THE CONNECTING LINK. The Great Trans‐Continental Railway—New York to Chicago—Niagara in Winter—A Lady’s Impressions—A Pullman Dining Car—Omaha—“The Great Muddy”—Episodes of Railway Travel—Rough Roads—Indian Attempts at Catching Trains—Ride on a Snow Plough—Sherman—Female Vanity in the Rocky Mountains—Soaped Rails—The Great Plains—Summer and Winter—The Prairie on Fire—A Remarkable Bridge—Coal Discoveries—The “Buttes”—The Gates of Mormondom—Echo and Weber Cañons—The Devil’s Gate—Salt Lake—Ride in a “Mud Waggon”—The City of the Saints—Mormon Industry—A Tragedy of Former Days—Mountain Meadow Massacre—The “Great Egg‐shell”—Theatre—The Silver State—“Dead Heads”—Up in the Sierra Nevada—Alpine Scenery—The Highest Newspaper Office in the World—“Snowed up”—Cape Horn—Down to the Fruitful Plains—Sunny California—Sacramento—Oakland and the Golden City—Recent Opinions of Travellers—San Francisco as a Port—Whither Away? Sufficient mention of New York has already been made in this work. The tourist or traveller bound round the world, viâ the great trans‐ continental railway and San Francisco, has at starting from the commercial metropolis of America, and as far as Omaha, a choice of routes, all the fares being identical for a “through ticket” to the Pacific. You may go among the Pennsylvanian mountains and valleys, and catch many a glimpse of the coal and coal “ile” fields; the country generally being thickly wooded. The Pennsylvania, Pittsburg, and Fort Wayne Railway passes through really grand scenery, and the construction of the road has been a work of great difficulty, involving extensive cuttings and embankments and long tunnels. The road takes a serpentine course among the mountains, and at one point, known as the “Horse‐shoe Bend,” the line curves round so much that it almost meets itself again. A train following your own appears to be going in the opposite direction. The only city of any importance on this route, before Chicago is reached, is Pittsburg, the busy, coaly, sooty, and grimy—a place reminding one of Staffordshire, and abounding in iron and cutlery works. It is situated among really charming scenery, near where the Monongahela, Alleghany, and Ohio rivers meet, and is an ugly blot among the verdant and peaceful surroundings. After leaving Pittsburg the railroad passes through a charmingly fresh and fruitful country, watered by the Ohio. “Long stretches of green meadows, shut in by hill and dale, shady nooks, cosy farm‐houses, and handsome villas, steamers, barges, boats, and timber‐rafts—almost as large as those famous Rhine rafts—on the river, make up a varied and most attractive scene.” Next you reach Indiana, a country of fairly good soil, bad swamps, fearful fever and ague, and an indolent and shiftless people. In general terms it is a