when we wound upward across Buckthorne branch, and, half a mile further, left the declivities of Cheat River, with its brown waters dyed by the roots of laurel and hemlock, and bordered by the bright flowers of the rhododendron. Our last glimpse of this mountain river was through a tall arch of forest, rounding off, far below, in its dark valley of uninhabited wilderness.

Beyond Cassidy's Ridge, we encountered another, and perhaps the most remarkable of these gigantic works. The road can only escape from its mountain prison by bursting the wall. Up hill and down hill, through brake and ravine, it has cleft its way from Piedmont, like a prisoner seeking release from his bars, till at last it finds a bold barrier of two hundred and twenty feet abruptly opposed to its departure! For a while (before the entire completion of the road) engineering skill led a track over this steep by an ascent of five hundred feet in a mile; but finally the giant has been subdued, and the last great wall of the Alleghanies passed by piercing the mountain. For nearly three years crowds of laborers were engaged in blasting through solid rock the four thousand one hundred feet of the Kingwood Tunnel, and a year and a half more was spent in shielding it with iron and brick, so as to make its walls more solid, if possible, than the original hills.

"For five miles from the western end of this tunnel, we descended to the broader valleys about Raccoon Creek, and gliding through another tunnel of two hundred and fifty feet, followed the water till we entered the Tygart River Valley, at Grafton, where the

Northwestern Railway diverges to Parkersburg, on the Ohio, ninety-five miles below Wheeling. The establishments of the Company at this point are erected in the most substantial way for the comfort and security of all who may visit this interesting region.

"There are few routes of travel in America-and none, probably, by rail-worthier of attention than the region between the slopes of the western gladeland to the mountain exit at Kingwood. It is all absolute mountain, absolute forest, absolute solitude. In winter it is the very soul of desolation, when the trees are iced, like huge stalactites, from top to bottom, and the ravines among the cliffs blocked with drifted snow. But in spring or summer it presents splendid bits of forest scenery. The glens are narrow, and there are few distant prospects; but there is everywhere the same ragged bloom-the same overarching hemlocks and firs-the same torrent roar, foaming over rocky beds-the same fringing of thick-leaved laurel the same oozy plashes of morass, rank with dark vegetation-the same black mountain face-the same absence of people and farms-the same sense of absolute solitude.

"But in Tygart's Valley the landscape softens and becomes more human, with the marks of agriculture and habitation, and the road seems to bound along more gayly, as if exulting in its release from the mountain. The river winds gently through rounder and lower hills and broader meadows, broken only by 'the Falls,' which, in a few steep pitches, tumble seventy feet in the distance of a mile. Not far from this point, Tygart River and the West Fork unite to

form the Monongahela, which, a quarter of a mile below the junction, is crossed by an iron viaduct of six hundred and fifty feet long-the largest iron bridge in America, and due to the engineering skill of Mr. Fink.

"In these central solitudes everything seems to be the property of the wilderness-a wilderness incapable of yielding to any mastery but that of an engineer; and it may fairly become a matter of national pride, that scientific men were found in our country bold enough to venture on grades by which any mountain may be passed. Where ground was wanted, Nature seemed to have scooped it away; where it was not wanted, Nature seemed to have stacked it up for future purposes. There are considerable difficulties between Baltimore and Cumberland; yet, in a country which rises only six hundred and thirty-nine feet above tide in one hundred and seventy-nine miles, a road may be constructed by ordinary perseverance and skill. But they who desire to understand the power of science in conquering nature by steam and iron, must climb and cross the Alleghanies between Piedmont and Kingwood. The success of this, the most difficult portion of the enterprise, is due to the engineering of Mr. Latrobe, and the financial energy of Mr. Garrett and Mr. Swann,

"As the pioneer of such internal improvements in the Union, it has been the school for subsequent railways, and deserves the gratitude of scientific men for the true principles of location and construction. The bridging and tunnelling along the whole route amount to about five and a quarter miles; the laborers and

employees form almost five regiments in number; and, when we take into consideration the depots, tanks, engines, rails, station-houses, and innumerable cars for freight and travel, as well as the two lines of telegraph wires, belonging exclusively to the Company, which keep every portion in communication and successful operation throughout the line, one no longer wonders that twenty-five millions were expended on the structure, but is only surprised that the people of a small, single State, could accomplish so colossal an enterprise."

This chapter was written in July, 1867, at which time several great improvements were in progress along the line of the road. These are now, for the most part, finished; but on those yet in progress, and in the workshops of the Company, there are employed ten thousand men. Mr. Garrett has been elected President for the tenth time, and is now in the tenth year of his office as President of the road. This is a very great, but richly deserved compliment, paid to one of the first railroad men of the age,

CHAPTER VII.

OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI RAILROAD.

THE through route between Baltimore and St. Louis is nine hundred and twenty-eight miles long. It is composed of the Baltimore and Ohio road, from Baltimore to Parkersburg, three hundred and eightythree miles; the Marietta and Cincinnati road, from Marietta to Cincinnati, two hundred and five miles; and the Ohio and Mississippi road, from Cincinnati to St. Louis, three hundred and forty miles. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company are about to build two bridges of stone and iron, over the Ohio River, one at Wheeling and one at Parkersburg; indeed the work on the former is already in a good state of forwardness. But in the meantime passengers cross the river at Parkersburg on a steamboat, and take the cars on the other side at Marietta.

The Ohio and Mississippi Railroad Company was chartered in 1848, and its chartered powers were extended in 1849 and 1851. A contract was made by the Board of Directors on the 22d of November, 1851, with Hezekiah C. Lyman, of New York, to construct and complete the road from Cincinnati to Vincennes, on the Wabash River, in Indiana, a distance of one hundred and ninety-two miles, for six and a half millions of dollars ($6,500,000). Owing