Earnings December, 1855 .. .. .. .. .. .

  

« nnczgov.

_5AMERlCAN RAILROAD JOURNAL.

I The earning of he Eri railroad. for the month‘
of December, 1856, we’re..... .... "$542,017 38
581,800 48

._——--.-.——.-4.

Decrease....    ....it39,783 10
The earnings of the Galena and Chicago Union

Railroad Company for December were as follows :

December, 1856....  .. .... ....$121,'?01 37
Do! 1-855IUIl IIUI ‘III IIUIOOI  

—__.—_——-jun

HDecrease....    ....$28,654 46
1

American Railroad Journal.

in}.

Saturday» January 1?. 1.857.

Florida Internal Improvement Fund.

We have the first Report of the Board of

Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund of
this State. .

The fund in the hands of the Trustees consists
of proceeds of lands granted by Congress to the
State some years since; and also proceeds of what
are technically called “Swamp Lands.” The
above lands were conveyed by law to the Board
of Trustees for the promotion of internal improve-
ments in the State. The whole amount of lands
that will fall to the State by the several acts of
Congress, and which will come under the control
of the Board of Trustees, will exceed 16,000,000
of acres. Of the above amount, 11,359,958 have
been selected, and 9,581,609 confirmed to the
State. The work of selection is rapidly progress-
ing and will be completed at an early day.

The total amount of sales thus far

been       ...‘lt245,326 35
Of this amount $160,912 75 invested

in the following securities:

Loan to the St, ofFlorida . $30,000 00
North Carolina bonds.... 19,000 00
Florida Railroad bonds .. 45,000 00
Tallahassee R. R. bonds. . 53,600‘ 00 1

Gadsden county bond . . .. 1,150 00 ‘
Calhoun county bond . . .. 650 00
 b0!1dS..'... n-on mucus  

Cash on hand.....   10,300 70

—..-—.-...—--—-~—

1eo,912 75

Bonds of purchases of real estate . . . 87,756 93

Due from General Government for
reclamations....   ....  175,000 60

Making a total of....   $423,669 68
--to meet the interest on bonds guaranteed by
the Internal Improvement, Fund.

The companies entitled to the provisions of the
act creating the Internal Improvement Fund are
--the Pensacola and Georgia; the Florida; the
Atlantic and Gulf Central, and the Tallahassee
Companies. At the date of the Report, November
1, 1856, the Board of Internal Improvements had
guaranteed the interest on bonds to the amount
of $375,000, viz: T V
Bonds of the Tallahassee railroad. ... ..:itl95,000

Do. Florida railroad.... .;.. .. 180,000

.——.-—-.2

Total amount guaranteed .. .. .. .. $375,000

The Tallahassee road is completed, and doing
a prosperous business, which enables that com-
pany to pay the interest on the bondsissued by
them. Their guarantee will not, therefore, create
any charge upon the Improvement Fund.

The ultimate amount of this fund will of course
depend upon the value of the lands belonging to
it. There seems to be no reason why they should
not produce one dollar per acre. The sales thus
far have averaged about itJ.«,50 per acre. A large

portion of the most saleable lands of the State
have been withdrawn from sale, to allow the dif-
ferent Railroads of the State to make their se-
lections. All purchases at the present time must
be made off the line of the proposed Roads. As
soon as the lands now withdrawn are oifered to
the public, sales to a very large amount, and at
high prices will immediately follow.

The total amount of bonds, the interest on
which may be eventually guaranteed, may reach
five or six millions of dollars. But several years
must elapse before this can be the case. No doubt
need be entertained that the available assets
which will come into the hands of the Board of
Trustees will not exceed the total amount of prin-
cipal on which interest may be guaranteed. For
the payment of such principal, a sinking fund is
provided, sufficient to pay the bonds as they may
fall due. ,

But while ample provision is thus made for the
interest on the guaranteed bonds, there does not
appear to be any reason to suppose all the compa-
nies entitled to the guarantee will not be able to
meet an interest on the sum of $310,000 per mile;
especially as all the roads whose bonds may be
guaranteed, possess large land grants equal in
value, probably, to their entire cost. The Fund
will probably remain intact, to be eventually ap-
plied to purposes other than the promotion of In-
ternal Improvements. At the same time, the en-
tire security which it throws around the guaran-
teed bonds, will tend greatly to facilitate the con-
struction of the system which the State has marked
out for herself.

All the roads which constitute this system are
making the most satisfactory progress. As we
have seen, the Tallahasce Railroad has been com-
pleted. The line traversing the State from East

» to West, made up of Pensacola and Florida, and

the Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroads, is also
making good progress ; a portion of this line being
nearly ready for the rails, of which two thousand
have been purchased for immediate delivery.

On the Florida Road, 50_miles have already been
graded, with the work going on upon nearly the
entire line. The rails for the whole line, 140
miles, have been purchased, and nearly one half
have been delivered. A portion of them have
been laid, and the locomotive will soon run over
50' miles of road. The work of construction on
this road is going rapidly forward, and there now
seems to .-be every probability that the entire line
will be in operation during this year.

Shermuzms Valley and Broad Top Railroad.

We have received a report of a survey of the
route of the above Railroad by L. D. Lampman,
Chief Engineer, of which we give the following
synopsis. ‘

Whenthe charter tor this road was first obtained,
theintention was to build a road from the Susque-
hanna river to the Broad Top Coal Field, passing
up Tuscarora valley, and near to Burnt Cabins.
The line was accordingly surveyed and located;
thedistance being 901/L miles. Subsequently the
company conceived the idea of continuing the road
westward, and making such connections with other
improvements as would open to them the trade of
the West. The company having obtained supple-
mentary privileges, ordered surveys to be made,
from the point where the location ended, to some

point on the Pittsburg and Connellsville Railroad.
This work ‘was satisfactorily performed. The
point at which the surveyed line intersects the
Connellswille road is about nine miles below the
head waters of Wills Creek, or say 12 miles north-
west of Cumberland. The length of the extension
is about 50% miles, making the total line from,
the Susquehanna to the Pittsburg and Councils-
ville road, about 141 miles.

The line leaves the Pennsylvania Central and

Northern Central Railroads, 6,1,5 miles west of
Harrisburg, and half a mile west of the west end
of the Pennsylvania railroad bridge, over the Sus-
quehanna, passes through several thriving villages
on the route-—Laudisburg, Loysville, Blair, Ger-
mantown, Concord, Waterloo, Nossville, Burnt
Cabins, Fort Littleton, New Granada, Bloody Run,
and Bedfo1'd—from each of which there will be a.
large local business, both in freight and passen-
gers. The belt of country traversed by this road
is about 50 miles wide, lying between the Cum-
berland Valley and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
on the South, and the Pennsylvania Central, on
the North, which is nearly isolated from all mar-
kets. A large proportion of the soil is what is
known to Geologists as No. 6 Limestone, which is
the best farming land in the State, from which the
road will derive a large local trafiic in wheat, flour,
and other grain, as soon as completed. The lumber-
ing business is also an important item. There are
thousands of acres of pine, oak and chestnut, now
comparatively valueless for want of the means of
conveyance to market. Limestone, coal and iron
ore, are found in abundance, with inexhaustible
water power, affording great advantages for the
manufacture of iron.
' The Broad Top Coal Field, along the south end
of which this line runs for several miles, has an
extent of 80 square miles. The estimated super-
ficial area of coal is 51,200 miles, which is esti-
mated to contain 1,000,000,000 tons of coal; so
that if a million of tons a year should be sent to
market, it would take a thousand years to exhaust
the coal field. As this road is much shorter than
any other, it can monopolize the carrying trade
equal to its capacity. At Bloody Run the road
passes over some very extensive iron ore banks on
the side of Tussy Mountain, from which large
quantities of ore have been extracted,

The distance from I-Iarrisburg to the coal fields,
by the Pennsyvania Central and Broad Top Rail-
roads, is 127 miles. By Shermans Valley and
Broad Top road it is reduced to 98--showing a
saving of 29 miles.

The connections between the eastern and west-
ern cities by this route is all that can be desired.
On the east by the Northern Central railroad to
Baltimore; and directly with Philadelphia by the
Pennsylvania Central, Harrisburg and Lancaster
and State roads; and with New York by the
Pennsylvania Central to Harrisburgh, the Lebanon
Valley, the proposed Reading and Lehigh, and
New Jersey Central roads; or by the Northern
Central to Dauphin, Dauphin and Susquehanna to

lentown road to Allentown, and the New Jersey
Railroad to New York. There is no doubt but
that either the Allentown, or Reading and Lehigh
roads, will soon be constructed——perhaps both, as
they are the only links wanting to connect New
York with Central Pennsylvania. The Shermans

Port Clinton, the proposed Port Clinton and Al-,