56 pp.(8vo) 23x14 cm (9x5½"), disbound from larger volume, pages attached with string.

One of Judah's first reports on the progress of the transcontinental railroad and the specific report that convinced the Big Four to go ahead with the project. Theodore D. Judah, a surveyor and railroad engineer who was involved with railroads in California in the 1850's, was a prime mover of the transcontinental railroad, surveying the route across the Sierra Nevada, and attempting to find financial backers. Failing to interest moneyed San Franciscans, he was able to procure backing from four Sacramento businessmen, Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker, in financing the Central Pacific Railroad, the western half of the railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific, which would join the Union Pacific at Promontory, Utah. The four were to become giants in the financial, social, educational and philanthropic fields, stemming in large part from this little booklet, originally published in 1861. The 1862 issue calls for a map, which is rarely found, and not present here. Errata slip affixed to verso of title page.