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HISTORY OF RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION 177 adequate facilities of transportation to it. These advanced in definiteness and contemplated a railway as soon as the locomo- tive had been demonstrated as practicable. Thus during near- ly a third of a century while the valley of the Columbia was our only territorial possession on the Pacific the development and maturing of these projects was in progress. Though there was no laying of rails "a fund of suggestion" was maturing through which the day was hastened for actual construction and which was brought into requisition in formulating the provisions of the charters of the roads that later were built. The evolution of the different types of these projects will be the subject of the next chapter.