great value to him, and he had become convinced that the engine of George
Stephenson was in the main the coming machine, and needed but to be
properly proportioned and of sufficient size to meet every demand.

With Major Whistler's work upon the Western Railroad his engineering
service in this country concluded, and that by an occurrence which marked
him as the foremost railroad engineer of his time. Patient, indefatigable,
cautious, remarkable for exhaustless resource, admirable judgment, and the
highest engineering skill, he had begun with the beginning of the railroad
system, and had risen to the chief control of one of the greatest works in
the world, the Western Railroad of Massachusetts. Not only had he shown the
most far-sighted wisdom in fixing the general features of this undertaking,
but no man surpassed him, if, indeed, any one equaled him, in an exact and
thorough knowledge of technical details. To combine the various elements in
such a manner as to produce the greatest commercial success, and to make
the railroad in the widest sense of the word a public improvement, never
forgetting the amount of money at his disposal, was the problem he had
undertaken to solve. He had proved himself a great master in his
profession, and had shown how well fitted he was to grapple with every
difficulty. He was equally a man of science and a man of business. And to
all this he added the most delicate sense of honor and the most spotless
integrity. He was in the prime of manhood, and was prepared to enter upon
the great work of his life.

It was not long after the introduction of the railroad that intelligent
persons saw very plainly that the new mode of transportation was not to be
confined to the working of an already established traffic, in densely
populated regions, but that it would be of equal service in awakening the
energies of undeveloped countries, in bringing the vast interior regions of
the continents into communication with the seaboard, in opening markets to