Horses And Mules, And Even Sail Cars,

The Railroad Originally Was As Completely Dissociated From Steam Propulsion As Was The Ship

The United States As We Know It Today Is Largely The Result Of Mechanical Inventions, And In Particular Of Agricultural Machinery And The Railroad. One Transformed Millions Of Acres Of Uncultivated Land Into Fertile Farms, While The Other Furnished The Transportation Which Carried The Crops To Distant Markets.

People Began To Understand That With The Acquisition Of California The Nation Had Obtained Practically Half A Continent, Of Which The Future Possibilities Were Almost Unlimited, So Far As The Development Of Natural Resources And The Genera Production Of Wealth Were Concerned.

Consequently Many Large Railroad Systems Of Heavy Capitalization Bid Fair To Run Into Difficulties On The First Serious Falling Off In General Business

Yet, In 1850 Nearly All The Railroads In The United States Lay East Of The Mississippi River, And All Of Them, Even When They Were Physically Mere Extensions Of One Another, Were Separately Owned And Separately Managed.