p. 85

101

The cost of transportation of lead by wagons from Mineral Point to
Milwaukee in the summer when the drivers can sleep under their
waggons and their cattle can find an abundance of feed on the
open prairie, is about fifty cents per hundred pounds - At
other seasons it varies from fifty cents to one dollar per
hundred pounds. At this lowest rate the thirty millions
of pounds if transported on a rail road would yield an
income of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per
annum, which would be sufficient to pay the
whole cost of the road in ten years. But if we
take into the account the increase of business consequent
upon this improvement; the merchandise that would be
carried from Milwaukee to the mineral country; the
agricultural and other products that would be transported
on the road, and the toll derived from passengers, we
cannot resist the belief that this project is one that
must soon attract the attention of capitalists, even if
the people of Wisconsin should not exert themselves much
to accomplish so desirable an improvement.

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