He called public meetings and solicited subscriptions to enable him to make a thorough reconnoissance, and merchants and miners, and even women, gave, according t<> their means, ten, fifty or a hundred dollars for this object. At last came tiie Presidential election of 18()0, and the rumble of war, and everybody buttoned up their pockets. The scheme was about to fail. The public had something else to think of. San Francisco, where the Democrats and Southern men wanted a southern line, turned its back on poor Judali. Matters seemed to have come to an end, when Huntingtou came forward with a new proposition.

"I will be one of seven, if Hopkins agrees, to bear the expense of a careful and thorough survey," said he; and the result was, that at a meeting held at 54 K Street, seven men entered into a compact that they would pay out of their own pockets all the needful expenses of a complete survey for a railroad across the mountains. Of these seven, Judah, the engineer, presently died, and another dropped out. The five who remained were helped by a few outside subscriptions, but so visionary was the enterprise believed to be at that time that a Sacramento banker, who desired to help it, felt himself obliged to decline aid on the express ground that the credit of his bank would suffer if he were known to have business relations with so wild a scheme. In this way the Central Pacific Railroad Company was organized, with Leland Stanford as president, C. P. Huntington as vice-])resident, and Mark Ho{)kins as treasurer ; and the latter once said, years afterwards, that about this time he often thought they " had more railroad in 54 K Street than would be good for the hardware business." They were determined not to be swamped, and agreed to pay cash for all that was done ; to keep no more men at work than they could pay every month, and to make every contract terminable at the option of the company.