The boy travellers in the Far East : adventures of two youths ... - Library

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY. 45
panj' built west from Omaha, while the Central Pacific Compari}' bnilt
east from Sacramento. They met in the Great Salt Lake valley ; and
then there was a grand ceremony over the placing of the last rail to con-
nect the East with the West. The continent was spanned by the railwaj',
and our great seaboards were neighbors."
Westward and westward went our travellers. From the Missouri
River, the train crept gently up the slope of the Rocky Mountains, till it
halted to take breath at the summit of the Pass, more than eight thousand
feet above the level of the sea. Then, speeding on over the Laramie
Plains, down into the great basin of LTtah, winding through the green
carpet of Echo Canon, skirting the shores of Cireat Salt Lake, shooting
like a sunbeam over the wastes of the alkali desert, climbing the Sierra
Nevada, darting through the snow -sheds and tunnels, descending the
western slope to the level of the Pacific, it came to a halt at Oakland, on
the shore of San Francisco Bay. The last morning of their journey our
travellers were among the snows on the summit of the Sierras; at noon
they were breathing the warm air of the lowlands of California, and
before sundown they were looking out throngli the Golden Gate upon
SNOW-SHEDS ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY.