This book contains the record of a journey made by a party of gentlemen from Philadelphia to Kansas and back, during the month of November, 1866. The object of the excursion was to examine the condition of the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, to assemble in council, at Leavenworth, those who were specially interested in it, and to make such scientific and industrial researches along the route as might be of advantage to the enterprise. How this was effected has already been laid before the public in several prominent journals.

The writer has taken pains in these letters to depict, as truthfully as possibly his experience and impressions of this very interesting journey. As the condition of that grand national enterprise, the Pacific Railway, was the principal subject of discussion by the tourists, the facts thus evolved form, of course, the subject matter of the series. As for the rest, he has done his utmost to set forth how he and his friends passed their time during their trip of three thousand miles in a railroad car, and what were his real feelings at the time. His chief object in republishing these letters - written originally for Forneys Press, of Philadelphia - has been to express, in a collected and somewhat more durable form, a slight tribute of his gratitude to the gentlemen of the company to whose general kindness and personal courtesy he is indebted for having passed as pleasant a month as it was ever his fortune to enjoy.