jestically up the steep and long acclivity in four minutes. The length of this plane is sixteen hundred and eight feet, and its height one hundred and fifty feet. The cars were now attached to horses, and drawn through a magnificent tunnel nine hundred feet long, having two tracks through it, and being cut through the solid rock.

"The valley of the Conemaugh is now passed, on a viaduct of most beautiful construction. It is of one arch, a perfect semicircle, with a diameter of eighty feet. It is built of cut stone; and its entire height from the foundation, is seventy-eight feet. The fourteen miles of the second level are passed in an hour, and the train arrives at the foot of the second inclined plane, which is seventeen hundred and sixty feet long, and one hundred and thirty-two feet high. The third level is nearly two miles long. The third inclined plane is fourteen hundred and eighty feet long, and one hundred and thirty feet high. The fourth level is two miles long. The fourth plane is two thousand one hundred and ninety-six feet long, and one hundred and eighty-eight feet high. The fifth level is three miles long. The fifth plane is two thousand six hundred and twenty-nine feet long, and two hundred feet high. This brings us to the top of the mountain. We are now two thousand three hun'dred and ninety-seven feet above the ocean. At this elevation, in the midst of summer, you breath an air like that of spring, clear, cool, and refreshing. The length of the road on the top of the mountain is nearly two miles. There are five planes and five levels also,

on the other side of the mountain, by which you descend."

Such was the mode of travel, on this delightful route, before the Pennsylvania Railroad was finished. It must be confessed, that, if the rate of progress was slow, the journey was attended by many pleasures. But the great increase of travel, the rapid settlement of the Western States, and the enormous freight business that gradually sprang up between the east and the west, demanded a far more rapid means of communication, and this the Pennsylvania Central Railroad Company proceeded to furnish.

The work was a stupendous one, and could not have been accomplished in the magnificent manner in which the road now exists, without talents and abilities of the very first order on the part of the chief officers of the Company. Of these, the Company is more indebted to J. Edgar Thomson and Thomas A. Scott, the present President and Vice-President of the road, than to any others. Mr. Thomson was for many years Chief Engineer and General Superintendent of the road; and the untiring energy and judicious enterprise of Mr. Scott, always directed to the right object, have secured for the Company the most brilliant results.

CHAPTER IX.

PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD, CONTINUEd.

THAT part of the road between Harrisburg and Lewistown, a distance of sixty-one miles, was completed and opened on the 1st of September, 1848; and good progress had been made, up to that time, upon the section between the mouth of the Little Juniata and the base of the Alleghany Mountains. At this time the railroad over the Alleghany Mountains, by means of the inclined planes described above, was called the Alleghany Portage Road, and was not owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. The Eastern Division of the Pennsylvania Road had, however, been completed to the Tyrone Forge, from whence it was continued along the route designated by the preliminary surveys, to the summit, where the town of Altoona is now situated. From that point, it was proposed that the main line should commence the ascent of the eastern slope of the Alleghany Mountains. In the mean time a branch six miles long connected the road with the Alleghany Portage, making a continuous road two hundred and seventy-nine miles long, from Philadelphia to the point now known as Johnstown, seventy-eight miles east of Pittsburg.

In the Second Annual Report which he made to the Company, on the 15th of November, 1849, J. Edgar

Thomson, Esq., then the Chief Engineer and General Superintendent of the road, stated that during the preceding summer, an actual location of the main line of the road had been "made from Altoona to the summit of the mountain. The ascent is accomplished in twelve miles and a quarter, by a maximum gradient of eighty-four feet six inches on straight lines. From the Laurel Swamp Summit, the road descends along the valley of the Conemaugh to Johnstown, at a maximum inclination of fifty feet per mile. The most important obstacle to be overcome is a tunnel seven hundred feet long.

"In the descent of the western slope of the mountain, the direction of our line is generally in the immediate vicinity of the Portage Railroad; crossing it five times by bridges, and once upon a level. When our whole line on the western side is finished, the two roads can be advantageously joined, at the summit of the Portage, by a steep ascending gradient from the vicinity of Laurel Swamp Summit, less than two miles long, by which means all the western planes will be avoided."

The condition of the whole route, as it existed on the 1st of January 1852, is very clearly set forth in the report of the General Superintendent, as follows:

"GENTLEMEN: The commencement of the last fiscal year found the Pennsylvania Railroad in operation as far as the western termination of the Eastern Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, with a connection with the Alleghany Portage Railroad, near Hollidaysburg; since that time portions of the Western division have been brought into operation, and transportation be

tween Philadelphia and Pittsburg is now conducted over several separate links, forming a broken, and, to some extent, unsatisfactory chain of communication between the two extreme termini of the line.

"The first, or eastern portion of the route, is formed by that part of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad which lies east of Dillerville; the length of which is seventy-one miles. This improvement is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and is controlled and managed by the Board of Canal Commissioners, and officers appointed by them. The State furnishes motive power, but participates in no other way, in the conduct of transportation upon the road, which is open to the free use of individual transporters.

"The Lancaster and Harrisburg Railroad, from its intersection with the Columbia Railroad, at Dillerville, is thirty-six miles in length, and is operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, under a contract with the company owning the road. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company furnish all the motive power, and the cars used in their own business, but do not attend to the repairs of track or bridges.

"The Eastern Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad extends from Harrisburg to Altoona, a distance of one hundred and thirty-two miles, from which a branch of six miles connects it temporarily with the Alleghany Portage Railroad, at a point about one and a quarter miles west of Hollidaysburg.

"The Portage Railroad is owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and forms part of the main line of railroad and canal connecting the cities of Phil