Washington Junction, thence up the Patapsco, down the Monocacy, to
the Potomac; up to Harper's Ferry, where the Potomac and the
Shenandoah chafe the rocky base of the romantic little town perched
high above; winding up the North Branch to Cumberland,--the terminus
of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and of the great national turnpike
to the West, for which Wills' Creek opened so grand a gate at the
narrows,--to Piedmont the foot and Altamont the summit, through
Savage Valley and Crabtree Gorge, across the glades, from which the
water flows east to the Chesapeake Bay and west to the Gulf of Mexico;
down Saltlick Creek, and up the slopes of Cheat River and Laurel Hill,
till rivers dwindle to creeks, creeks to rills, and rills lose
themselves on the flanks of mountains which bar the passage of
everything except the railroad; thence, through tunnels of rock and
tunnels of iron, descending Tygart's Valley to the Monongahela, and
thence through a varied but less rugged country to Moundsville,
twelve miles below Wheeling, on the Ohio River.

These are our three great roads where engineering skill has
triumphed over natural obstacles. We have another class of great
lines to which the obstacles were not so much mechanical as financial,
--the physical difficulties being quite secondary. Such are the
trunk lines from the East to the West,--through Buffalo, Erie, and
Cleveland, to Toledo and Detroit, and from Detroit to Chicago, Rock
Island, Burlington, Quincy, and St. Louis; from Pittsburg, Wheeling,
and Parkersburg, on the Ohio, to Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati,
Indianapolis, Louisville, and St. Louis; and from Cleveland, through
Columbus, to Cincinnati, and from Cincinnati to the Northwest.

In progress also may be noticed roads running west from St. Louis,
Hannibal, and Burlington, on the Mississippi, all tending towards