As all the world knows, there are three main lines proposed for a "Pacific Railroad," between the Mississippi and the Western Ocean, the Northern, Central, and Southern.

The United States territory lying in direct line between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean is now about 1,200 miles long from north to south, by 1,500 of breadth, in 49d and 32d N lat. about equal to Equatorial Africa, and 1,800 in N lat 38d. The great uncultivable belt of plain and mountain region through which the Pacific Railroad must run, has a width of 1,100 statute miles near the northern boundary; in the central line, ,1200; and through the southern, 1,000.

Tuesday,, 7th of August, 1860.

Precisely at 8 AM appeared in front of the Patee House - the Fifth Avenue Hotel of St Jo - the vehicle destined to be our home for the next three weeks. We scrutinized it curiously. 

Here we have the status of "assimilation of American Indians" as seen by Richard F. Burton circa 1860:

In 1854, when Nebraska was admitted into the Union, there were, as nearly as can be estimated, 10,000 Indians on reservation & in the Territory, the greater portion of them living in the eastern part, in permanent villages, along the Missouri and Platte Rivers, and their tributaries, while in the northwestern part there were several roving bands of the great Sioux nation, of whom those in the eastern part stood in mortal fear.