The Western Journal, of Agriculture, Manufactures, Mechanic Arts, Internal ...

MISSISSIPPI AND ATLANTIC RAILROAD.

A company has recently been organised in Illinois under a Iaw passed at the last session of the General Assembly of that State, for the construction of a railroad from Terre Haute, Indiana, to Illinoistown on the Mississippi river. At a meeting of the stockholders, held at Vandalia on the 29th of July, 1850, the following Articles of Association were adopted:

ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND ATLANTIC RAILROAD COMPANY.

In conformity with an act of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois entitled, "an act to provide for a general system of Railroad incorporation,' the undersigned have associated for the purpose of constructing, owning, and maintaining a Railroad as set forth in the following articles:

1. The name of said corporation shall be the Mississippi and Atlantic Railroad Company.

2. The same shall continue fifty years from the date of its incorporation.

3. The amount of the capital stock of said company, including the cost of constructing the road, the right of way, motive power, and other appurtenances for the completion and running of said road, as near as can be estimated by competent engineers, will be two millions of dollars, making forty thousand shares at fifty dollars each.

4. There shall be seventeen Directors to manage the concerns of the company, as follows:

Justin Harlan, James V. Hedges, William B. Archer, Lora Corey, John Cutright, James Ewart, John Waschefort, Presley Funkhouser, Robert Blackwell, Francis Gill, Henry C. Waterman, William S. Wait, Benjamin Johnson, Samuel White, William M Cain, Curtis Blakeman, and Solomon H. Mudge.

5. The Road to commence at a convenient point on the State line, to connect with the Terre Haute and Richmond Railroad, taking its course through the counties of Clarke, Cumberland, and through, or near, the North West corner of Jasper county, and through the county of Effingham, and to Vandalia in Fayette county, and from thence through the counties of Bond and Madison, and through, or near, the Northwest corner of St. Clair county, and to terminate at, or near, Illinoistown, on the Mississippi river, and as nearly opposite to the eastern termination of the contemplated Pacific Railroad as practicable-a distance of one hundred and sixty miles, or thereabouts.

€th. Nelson D. Swaney, Salmon A. Phelps, M. G. Dale, N. M. M'Curdy, and Dean Andrews are appointed Commissioners to open books for subscription to the stock of said Road. Report unanimously adopted.

At a meeting of the Directors on the 31st of July, the following gentlemen were chosen Officers of said Company:

William S. Wait, President; H. P. H. Brownell, Secretary; Ebenezer Capps, Treasurer; and W. H. Morrison, Engineer. The following resolution, which was adopted in the meeting of Stockholders, evinces a strong confidence on their part that the work cau be successfully prosecuted without aid from the General Government, and affords an instance of public spirit and liberality highly creditable to the Company.

"Fesol ed, That the interest of the State of Illinois, and of the entire West, would be essentially promoted by the construction of the Central Railroad of Illinois, and that we have noticed with much pleasure the liberal grant proposed in Congress for the encou. agement of that work; and, having reason to apprehend that the passage of an act in aid of that important work is embarrassed by the attempt to connect it with donations for other objects among which is the enterprise in which we are engaged, we desire that it may be understood that whilst anxious to receive the national aid to promote our object, we ask for no connection, with a reasonable grant for the Central Railroad, which may hazard the fate of that donation; and we hereby request of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, that so far as the interests of the Mississippi and Atlantic Railroad are concerned, those interests may not be urged upon the consideration of that body, if found to conflict with or endanger the bill granting a donation to the Central Railroad of Illinois."

We are always gratified to meet with sentiments like these. They challenge the respect of all men; and in this case are calculated to place the Mississippi and Atlantic Railroad Company on high ground in the estimation of the community. Under the direction of individuals actuated by such elevated sentiments, there could be little doubt of the success of the enterprise, even if the improvement proposed possessed no extraordinary merit. But when it is recollected that the Mississippi and Atlantic Railroad is the last link in the great chain of railroad improvement connecting all the great cities on the Atlantic with the Mississippi river at a point nearly central between its mouth and its highest navigable point, and, that every part of the fertile region between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, north of the Ohio, is interested in its construction, we are led to the conclusion that the force of circumstances will impel this work onward to its completion in a si orter time, perhaps, than any work of equal magnitude has ever been accomplished in this country. All that is required to insure the completion of this part of the great line from the Atlantic to the Mississsippi, is a just and liberal course on the

part of the Illinois Legislature, provided it shonld be found that the Company have not the right to fix the termini of the road under the present law-a point on which we give no opinion, as we have not seen the law of Illinois under which the Company have organised. To those who have put their hands to this great work we say, go forward, you are engaged in an enterprise thet must succeed-that must impart new life to the energies of your State-develope its vast resourcesand place your individual names among those who shall be esteemed benefactors of the age.

From the American Railroad Journal.

LIST OF RAILROADS IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1850.

We give in this number what we believe to be a complete. statement of the number of miles of railroad for passenger transportation in the United States. In New England and New York we have given the exact number of miles in each State, as we had means of ascertaining the distance traversed by the several roads in each. In some of the other States we have not gone into this exact division, and lines that are put down in one State and in some cases extend into others.

There is a large extent of coal road in Pennsylvania which is not embraced in the table.