Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/578

558 escaped the eye of the engineer, and a third trunk-line has been planned, known as the International. This line commences at Piedras Negras on the Rio Grande, and will pass through the state of Coahuila to the city of Zacatecas, thence to Celaya and Mexico. The concession grants the company the privilege of constructing a cross-line from a point between Tampico and Matamoros, on the gulf coast to another between Mazatlan and Zihuataneco on the Pacific. The object of each of these three companies, it will be observed, is to have an interoceanic line in connection with the main trunk. Mention must be made of the Sonora line, already completed, which connects Nogales on the northern frontier with Guaymas, passing through Magdalena and Hermosillo.

Among the projected lines in 1877 were the Pacific Coast Railroad, which covers a stretch of over 3,000 miles, the object of the projectors being to connect the whole series of ports lying on the Pacific coast between Fort Yuma and the republic of Guatemala. It is even asserted that the design is entertained of extending this railroad down the whole extent of the Pacific coast to Valparaiso. Another important project was the Topolobampo route, from Piedras Negras on the Texan frontier to the port of Topolobampo on the gulf of California. This company claims that its transcontinental route will connect Australia and Asia with the United States and the great European ports of exit by a shorter distance than any other designed line. The port of Topolobambo exists only on paper, but there is an indenture in the coast at the point which has been selected for the western terminus,