way-freight; and with some notice of this, an artery for various
mines and quarries, we finish our duty toward Wilmington as a railway
nucleus.

[Illustration: CUTTING THROUGH CUBA HILL RIDGE.]

The Wilmington and Western Railroad has not yet got over the
excitement of being constructed. The creative spirit, it may be said,
was Mr. Joshua T. Heald, an enterprising Wilmingtonian, already a
director of the Wilmington and Reading line. It was he who drummed up
the stock-subscriptions among his fellow townsmen. On July 8, 1871,
he struck the first pick into the line as president, and in October,
1872, the road was opened for travel as far as Landenberg in
Pennsylvania. The Wilmington and Western Road crosses Christine River
in the suburbs, then follows the valley of Redclay Creek, past all its
mills and local improvements, sends visitors to Brandywine Springs,
and passes the birthplace of the inventor Oliver Evans, while its
contemplated extension will pass it close to the birthplace of Robert
Fulton, in the Peachbottom slate region of Pennsylvania. No bad omen
for a steam-road, to have had its ground first broken at the cradle of
one steam inventor and to lead to the cradle of another!

Regarding a map, to the west of Wilmington we see that there is a
continuous tier of counties, from one extremity of Pennsylvania to
the other, which has no great railway running east and west. A few of
these counties are penetrated by feeders to the Pennsylvania Railroad
or by other lateral roads, but they are not opened by any general
comprehensive system; yet this section of Pennsylvania is one of
the richest in mineral wealth. It has limestone, slate, iron ore,
bituminous coal and other deposits. From one extremity to the other it