Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/92

 chartered in 1878, and the Mexican National in 1880. The first charter under the modern movement dates from October, 1867; and since then the Mexican Government has issued charters for over 20,000 miles of road, with subsidies probably to the amount of $200,000,000. Many of these, with their subsidies, have lapsed, of course. The Government is now held for about 15,000 miles of road, and subsidies of $90,000,000.

The enterprises on a great scale are all American, and the chief ones among them may be estimated roughly as follows:

Mexican Central (Boston Company)............................... 2,000

Mexican National (Palmer-Sullivan)............................... 2,000

Sonora (Boston Company)............................................. 500

Mexican Southern (General Grant, President)............... 1,000

Oriental (De Gress and Jay Gould)............................... 1,200

Topolobambo (Senator Windom, President)................... 1,200

International (Frisbie and Huntington)........................... 1,400

Pacific Coast (Frisbie)................................................ 3,000

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Total....................................................................... 12,300

To these may be added the Sinaloa and Durango, from the city of Culiacan to the port of Altata, in Sinaloa; the Tehuantepec railway, and Captain Eads's ship railway across the same isthmus, to take the place of a ship canal. The privilege to build an American railway across Tehuantepec, it may be remembered, was secured (at the same time with the lower belt of Arizona) by the Gadsden treaty of 1853, supplementary to that of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The road was supposed to be needed for the consolidation of relations with our then newly acquired territory of California. The Pacific railroad filled its place, however, and the project, taken up and dropped from time to time, has since had but a lingering existence.

Captain Eads proposes to transport bodily ships of