The point of junction of the two lines is a place called Promontory, situated near the Great Salt Lake of Utah. The two companies, be sides being allotted alternate sections of land along their lines of route, were highly subsidised by the United States Govern ment. It is stated that something like tea million pounds of our money was paid away to them in bounties. Tiie Central Pacific worked from the west towards the east, while the Union Pacific worked from esst to west. Promontory was the point at which the lines happened to meet. By far the more difficult portion of the work was that which was performed by the Central Pacific. They had to ascend the sierras of California, while they worked under the pecuniary disadvantage of having to bring their materials round by sea, or across the Isthmus from the Eastern States. The greater part of the Central Pacific Railway route was made, I am informed, by Chinese labour. The quiet and orderly conduct of these much-abused Asiatics formed a striking contrast to that of the superior race working on the Union Pacific. Among these latter, indeed, there was not only lawlessness and every species of ruffianism, but even murder; while such a crime as this last was, I am told, unknown on the Chinese section. As the railroad progressed, temporary settlements or towns were run up at its temporary terminus. ‘As this was changed every thirty or forty days,’ says an American writer, ‘ these settlements were of the most perishable materials —an- vas tents, plain board shanties, and turf hovels—pulled down, and sent forward for a new career, or deserted as worthless at every grand movement of the railway company. Only a small proportion of their population had aught to do with the road, or any legiti mate occupation. Most were the hangers-on around the disbursements of such a gigantic work, catching the drippings from the feast in any and every form that it was possible to reach them. Restaurant and saloon keepers, gamblers, desperadoes of ever grade, the vilest of men and of women made up this “ hell on wheels,” as it was most aptly termed. The same graphic writer goes on to describe, in terms which one would fain hope exagge rated, thatsettlement which he himself visited, as being the then westernmost point of the Union Pacific Line. 