said capital may be increased from time to time by a vote of a majority of the directors of the corporation, to the sum of six millions of dollars: Provided, This sum be requisite to the completion and fulfilment of the objects and purposes of the corporation hereby created, and the hereinafter named persons shall be, and constitute the first board of directors, and may have and exercise all the powers, rights, privileges, and immunities, which are or may be necessary to carry into effect the purposes and objects of this act as hereinafter set forth.
Sect. 2. Said directors shall organize the board as soon as practicable after the passage of this act, by electing one of their number president, and by appointing a secretary and treasurer, which organization shall be certified by said directors, or a majority of them, and such certificate shall be recorded in the record book of said company, and said record shall be sufficient evidence of the facts therein stated, and said directors shall hold their offices until the first Tuesday of August, A. D. 1862, and until their successors shall be elected Vacancies, how and qualified as hereinafter provided. All vacancies in said board may be filled by a vote of a majority of the directors present at any regular meeting of the board, or at a special meeting called for that purpose.
Sect. 3. The said company are hereby authorized and empowered to locate, and, from time to time, to alter, change, relocate, construct, reconstruct, and fully to finish, perfect, and maintain a railroad, with one or more tracks, commencing at a point on the west bank of the Big Sioux river, where the said river shall or may be intersected on the east bank by a railroad running west from the city of Dubuque, through the northern portion of the state of Iowa, thence westerly through the counties of Cole, Clay, Yankton, Bon Homme, and Todd, via the villages of Vermilion, Yankton, and Bon Homme, to a point on the Missouri river within seven miles of the mouth of the Niobrara river, at some practicable point for the establishment of a ferry across the Missouri river, thence up the valley of the Niobrara river to any point which may be selected by said company as the most suitable place for leaving said Territory of Dakota in order to reach, by the shortest and most practicable route, the South pass of the Rocky mountains; Other powers and said company are further authorized to use and operate
