To a certain extent it will change the relative positions of this country, Europe and Asia....

With the completion of the Pacific Railroad, instead of receiving our goods from India, China, Japan, and the 'isles of the sea,' by way of London and Liverpool, we shall bring them direct by way of the Sandwich Islands and the railroad, and become the carriers to a great extent for Europe.

But this is but a portion of the advantage of this work.

Our western mountains are almost literally mountains of gold and silver.

In them the Arabian fable of Aladdin is realized....
Let the road be completed, and the comforts as well as the necessaries furnished by Asia, the manufactures of Europe, and the productions of the States can be brought by the iron horse almost to the miner's door; and in the production and possession of the precious metals, the blood of commerce, we shall be the richest nation on the globe.