Walla Walla Statesman

Northern Pacific Railroad.

An Illinois exchange has an article in relation to the North Pacific Railroad, the main points of which we reproduce. It says that from Duluth, Minn., at the head of Lake Superior, to Seattle, Washington Territory, on Puget Sound, is 1,774 miles. The ground will probably be broken for the Northern Pacific Railroad which is to span this distance between, inside the next eight months. This is the shortest possible link between the Pacific ocean and the Northern Lakes. The road was first chartered during the administration of President Polk, and the original projectors were southern politicians and capitalists in Kentucky, but prior to the rebellion the franchise passed into Northern hands. Gov. James Gregory Smith, of Vermont, is now the President of the Company. This road will be built by business men on business principles, and receives no loan of Government credit, nor will any bond subsidy be asked for, although it has a munificent land grant, consisting of ten alternate odd-numbered sections, or 12,800 acres per mile through Wisconsin and Minnesota, and twice that allowance through the territories. Fifty Million acres of virgin soil, stretching in a belt thirty miles wide from Lake Superior to tide-water on the Pacific slope, are embraced by this grant along the main trunk and its branches. For an hundred miles from the Eastern terminus most of this land is adapted to grain culture, while through Montana and Idaho there is mineral wealth and soil adapted to grazing. The Northern Pacific will follow the line of the forty-seventh parallel, and pass midway through Minnesota, Dakota, Montana, the northern part of Idaho and the centre of Washington Territory. Although six degrees further north, the new road will be more readily kept free from snow than the Southern line, and pass through a milder winter climate. This is easily explained by the difference in altitude. The Northern Pacific will not have along its entire length, for more than 250 miles, an elevation of more than 3,000 feet above the sea, while 1,100 miles of the present Pacific Road is more than 4,000 feet above the ocean level. The highest point on the recently constructed Pacific line is 8,262 feet above tide water: the highest point on the Northern Pacific will be less than 4,000 feet above the same. Jay Cooke & Co., will be the Fiscal Agents of the road and the contract will be formally as it is already virtually, closed, so soon as the survey of the route is completed. Two parties are to accomplish this starting from Lake Superior and Puget Sound respectively. The Fiscal Agents of the Company are represented in each expedition. The preliminary examination will be completed by the first of October, it is expected, when, if the report is favorable, work will be begun at once. The road is expected to cost $120,000,000, and cover about five years in construction. A bureau of immigration will be opened and work afforded immigrants, as well as a chance to procure farms along the line of the new Road.