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T P o fi b t\ si o fi si o Tl 8» Tl w M di er bi "{ re m 10X 14X 18X 22X 26X 30X i y 12X 16X 20X a4x 28X 32X i tails du Ddifier une Tiage I ' f The copy fiSmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: Library Division Provincial Archives of British Columbia The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol —*' (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. 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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont fiim6s en commenpant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la derniire page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols — ^ signifie "A SUIVRE ", le symbols V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film^s A des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film* A partir de I'angle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche it droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m^thode. rata 3 elure. A ! 3 ax 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ngest inducement to cultivate trade with the teeming population of the great lake region, and there has been opened a wide and most fertile fiehi for religious ])ropagandism. Yet of how comparatively small a portion of the Dark Continent have we any knowleirit of discovery through sheer love of adventure and of danger, never strong in our matter-of-fact race, seems to be dead except among small sections of the jieople, influenced by excep- tional surroundings, as it can hardly be excited into spas- modic activity by the double motives of gain and religion. Yet when Ave do explore, we do it to some purpose. The Spaniards exploi-ed the continent with the sword in one hand and the cross in the other, but left only trails be- hind them ; we with pick and shovel are obliterating their trails by railroad beds. In the seventeenth centuiy we find the role of dis- coverei's being played by the French. The English have founded a string of colonies along the inliospitable sea- board of New Eiiiji'land and the hardly more attractive coast of ^Nlaryljuid, Vii-ginia, and the Carolinas, but their efforts are all directed towards making cc^mfortable home- steads in the wilderness, framing representative systems of municipal government, and securing political rigiits from the mother country. A small Dutch colony has planted itself on the Hud- son, but home was even dearer to the Dutchman than to ' 8 rival the Yankee. Spanish enterprise has been com- pletely stifled by the extortion and grasping colonial policy 302 Geographical Features of tin of the crown. But the French have occupied Jacques Cartier's discoveries, and French traders hand-in-hand with French missionaries are penetrating tlit very recesses of the noi*thern continent. Ah-eady long before the ch>se of the seventeenth contury, and when the English are com- mencing to open up by sea a trade in furs with Hudson Bay, the French have established missions and trading- posts as far west as the head of Lake Superior, and their coureurs des bow, adopting Indian ways and mariying Indian wives, are wandei'ing through the Rocky Mountains and bringing back stories of the sources of the Missouri. The different spirit actuating the different people is well expressed in their varying habit of adaptability. A Virginian Churchman or a New England Puritan popu- lating the West' with half-breeds, would be an anomaly we cannot l)y the utmost stretch of imagination even conceive of. A centuiy later, at the time of the collapse of the French power in America, we find the English colonies as lethargic as before. The Hudson and Mohawk valleys had brought the English and Dutch of New York into contact with the I'rencli, and into competition with the French fur-trade, l:»ut the traffic Avas apparently uncon- genial and not pursued with energy. English enterprise here and elsewhere seemed to be sea-bound. It was un- able to leap the AUeghanies, The delusion with regard to the Soutliwest passage had been dissipated, the Pacific coast to the extreme north explored, and a wide extent of undeveloped continent thus known to be between the two oceans ; but what it contained was gathered only vaguely from the stories of the ■coureurs des hois, and such reports of Hudson Bay agents di Roi'ky Mountain liatlroads. 308 Facques id with esses of close of re com- Hudson tradiug- id their luriying >untain8 lissouri. I is well ity. A II popu- momaly m even p of the colonies : valleys ork into v^ith the r uncon- iterprise Avas un- jajje had le north ontinent ; what it ies of the y agents as escaped from their well-closed archives. Not a single Englishman had described, if he had crossed, the conti- nent from sea to sea. It seems absolutely incredible that a community of England's hardiest and most intelligent sons should have been content to remain for two centuries hemmed in be- tween the sea and the Alleghanies, uninspired by the slightest curiosity to know what filled the great gap of three thousand miles between their home and the western sea, or to ex2:)lore, in its northern extensions, tlie moun- tain range from which the Spaniards Avere gathering gold, and freighting their galleons with silver. Carver in 176()-(i7-<)8 explored the head waters of the Mississippi, and described the country north and nortli- west of the head of Lake Superior, already long and well known to the French. He tells stories of the tribes re- ported to live to the west of the Shining Mountains, who had gold so plentiful that they made their most common utensils of it. These rumors stimulated him to try to cr'oss the continent. More than one attempt failed before the War of Independence, breaking out, frustrated his and his companion Whitworth's final plans, Mackenzie, in 1789-98, foUoNNing the wonderful water- way which, north of the British line, links the waters of Lake Su})erior witli the Pacific by the intervention of })ut few unimportant portages, traversed the continent from sea to sea, descending to the Pacific by the Peace River. The American government, to relieve itself from the opprobrium of ignorance, despatched the Lewis and Clark expeditions in 1805. These oificei's of the U. S. army ascended the Mississippi almost to its source, crossed the divide near the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad, 304 Geogr(vphical Features of the i i descended the Clark Fork of the Columbia, and reached the Pacific by the niaiu stream, returning the following year in divided parties so as to explore more territory. Yet so small a portion of the vast region did they describe, and so vague was the information to be derived from other sources, that when Astor equip[)ed his expedition by sea and land in 1812 to secure the fur trade of the Columbia, Mr. Hunt, who led the oxerland ]>arty, was in a terra incognita from the time he left the Missouri, which he unfortunately did at a point aj)j)arently not far from Yankton, till he reached the mouth of the Columbia. Even such salient geographical features as the course and character of the great rivers were unkiunvn to any mem- ber of the party, — hence the cardinal mistake of su])pos- ing the Snake lliver to be the main stream of the ('olum- bia, and of almndoning their land transport-service on a navigable stretch of that river, far al)ovc peinianently navigable waters. But while Lewis and Clark were ex]>loring the head waters of the Missouri, another govei'nment expedition imder Lieutenant Pike lirst described the whole Mississippi River, previously known only at intervals, from its rise to its junction with the Missouri. He is the same Lieut- enant — afterwards Colonel Pike — whose name is so inti- mately associated with Colorado; for besides giving it to one of Colorado's magnificent mountains, he first, in 1806, ascended the Arkansas, and cutting across the San Luis Park struck the upper waters of the Rio Grande. To him also the world owes its first knowledge of the conn- try di'ained by the Platte. It was, of course, not till after the purchase of Louisiana, at the commencement of this centuiy, that the government took steps to acquire some i Hock If M(Ki)it(im Railroads. 305 readied Diy. Yet (leHcribe, ed from Lpedition e of tlie I, was in ri, which fjii" from Jolumbia. >iir.se mid ny mem- :' sui)pos- e Colum- ,'ice oil a ijianeiitly the head ipeditiou ississi})pi its rise ne Lieut- s so iiiti- iug it to , ill 1806, Sail Luis ide. To he couii- till after t of this ire some knowledge of the margins of its vast domain. But cer- tain sections have remained so secluded that Custer's military expedition to the Black Hills of Dakota in 1874, only twelve years ago, gave us the first accui'ate informa- tion about that impoi-tant region. The old Spanisii settlements and towns on the Rio Orande and in southeastern Colorado were linked to Cali- fornia only by pueldos, such as Puehlo A'^iejo, Tiibac, Tucson, and thus a through route from eastern United States settlements to the Pacific by tlie Santa Fe trail had been always open through Spanish territory. As we have seen, the early Canadian and United States explor- ers, ill looking for roads across the continent, naturally fol- lowed the great water-Avays of the Missouri and Saskat- chewan to the only points on the Pacific, tl ' mouths of the Columbia and the Peace lliver, which were known as harbors or whither trade relations drew them. Thus the great central zone, where the Rockies attain their grandest development, and are not penetrated or even approached by an}- navigable rivers, continued to be the dark S])ot of the cw8 : (1) A route was surveyed under Governor Stevens along the 47th parallel, which nearly corresponds with that now followed by the Northern Pacific. (2) Fremont, Stansbury, and Beckwith surveyed the country between the 41st and 43d parallels, and proposed a route not widely different from that selected for the Union and Central Pacific railroads. (3) Captain Gunnison lost his life at the hands of In- dians, or Indians and Mormons, while trying to detect a Jioehy Mountain Railromh. 3or npleted, be heart th milk govern- le great uiinison. a, ill the I States, \ flocked ;he best. iC snowy 111. Cali- ;ive point 3(1 to Cal- ig parties s. Their ed hy the between 8 to ascer- for rail- Ocean," is r Stevens onds with veyed the 1 proposed ed for the ands of In- • ;o detect a practicable route through the sea of mountains amidst wliich the Denver and Rio (Irande rnih'oad now runs between Pueblo and tlie Salt Lake valley. (4) Lieutenant Whipple surveyed the countiy now opened by the Atlantic and Pacific railroad. (5) Lieutenant John Pope described that route now occupied by the Southern Pacific railroad, ^v/llf'h the Secretary of War recommended as the most desirable on the score of length, climate, and gradients. The State of Missouri was the fii-st to ch.dter ji trans- continental i'ute, under the name of the Misnuir-i and Paci^'" K. 11. Co. It was to start from St. L.ouis, and after running southwest, to follow the Jifith pui'allel through the present Indian Territory to Santa Fe. and thence across to the Pacific. The civil war frustrated this scheme, but hastened the accomplishment of another. To build a road through a region within the radius of active war was hazardous. Yet California, isolated from the rest of the States, it was seen, must be brought within rapid reach of the central power. Hence the organization of the Union and Central Pacific Cos., and the liberal assistance tendered them by government to build a road from the Mississippi to the Pacific, far north of the strife then raging. The charters were signed in July, 1862 ; the first sod of the Central Pacific was turned on the 23d of February, 1863, but work was not com- menced on the Union Pacific till the 12th of November, 1865, after the immediate cause foi urgency had j^assed. Fourteen years, or to July 1876, was the limit of time allowed by the charter for the completion oi' the joint enterprise, but the eastern and western sections met, and the last spike was driven at the station of Promontory,, on the 10th of Mf*y, 1869. ^08 Geographical Features of tlie This station is 1084 miles from Omaha, but only 850 from San Francisco. Yet taking into account the much greater engineering difficulties which beset the Central road in crossing the Sierra Nevada, than those which obstructed the Union road in the Rocky Mountains, as much credit is due to the one as to the other. Before the Central road had been even commenced at both ends, in 1864, the Northern Pacific R. R. Co. had ol)- tained a charter. Governor Stevens' survey in 185.*^ of the Northern route had proved its practicability, but this company organized by Mr. Perham sought in vain for financial assistance till Jay Cooke its f=^le, Deniing, created another Rocky Mountain raih'oad. Since then this company has made an independent outlet for itself to the Pacific at San Diego, by the Atlantic and Pacific R. R. and the Colton Branch. While these broad-gauge roads were seeking for val- leys and easy grades by which to cross the mountains, a narrow-gauge road, controlled by officers, and constructed by engineers, with very broad-gauge ideas, the Denver and Rio Grande R. R., was successfully combating diffi- culties and scaling heights whicli only lavish expendi- ture of money, handled by tlie highest engineering skill, rendered superable. The road was intended to be a link through the valley of tlie Rio Grande, between the South- ern and Central sj^stems, but the Atchison and Topeka forestalled it. The management then divided its eneiixies between fighting the Union Pacific and reaching the most inaccessible regions in Colorado. The marvellous feats which its bnildei'S have really Jiccomjilished are as won- derful as those the Union Pacific was supposed by popu- lar imagination to have performed. The year before last (1884) this road finished laying its tracks, from Denver to Salt Lake C-ity, through the very heart of the mountain region. These are the i)rincipal though by no means the only great Rocky Mountain railioad enterprises, undertaken and completed since 1S().'}. But we must pass on from this historical sketch to trace the geogra])hical features of those sections of the continent which they traverse, as exhibited in their profiles. The Rocky Mountains, including the whole system of niount.'iins and plateaus from the plains as far as the Pacific -oast, attain their greatest develo])nient in height I 310 il Geographical Featwe^ of the and width along the 4l8t parallel, which nearly coin- cides with the line of the Union and Central Pacific R. R., and there exhibit with marked prominence all their features, the principal of which are high and steep eastern and western chains, the Rocky Mountains to the east, and the Sierra Nevada to the west, enclosing an elevated plateau corrugated by diagonal minor ranges. To the west of the western rim is a coast valley, itself protected from the sea by a Coast Range. This structure, with such variations as nature loves to indulge in without departing from uniformity c)f type, is maintained along the west coast of both North and South America, as well as in the structure of other continents. ;l ' 1 THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD. Tlie profile of the Union and Central Pacific roads ex- hibits these features better than that of any other road. The plains rise by a gi'ade, so easy as not to be appreciable to the eye, from 968 feet at the Missouri to 6,038 feet at Cheyenne, or 5,070 feet in 516 miles, the country chang- ing with the decrease in rain-fall from the rich fertility of the Nebraska prairies, to grazing lands, dry and seemingly valueless, but able formerly to support the buffalo and now their tamer successors. At Cheyenne the Black Hills rise abruptly from the plain, but like all hills looked at from below, the steep- ness is illusory, for the .train scales them to Sherman, a point 8,235 feet above the sea, in thirty-three miles, and then descends into the Laramie plains, whose average ele- vation is about 6,500 feet. This is in reality the most northerly of the parks, though not generally ranked among them. The plains are well watered by rivulets Rocky Mountain Railroads. 811 irly coin- il Pacific nence all and steep ins to the losing an Di* ranges, [ley, itself structure, in without ned along ca, as well 3 roads ex- ther road, ppreciable )38 feet at itry chang- fertility of seemingly uffalo and y from the the steep- *^herman, a miles, and iverage ele- y the most lly ranked by rivulets which flow north into the North Platte, the main stream of which is separated from the plains by a ridge 7,168 feet, over which the road runs before ascending the Conti- nental Divide, here only 7,100 feet above sea-level, and. therefore more than 1,000 feet lower than the summit of the Black Hills at Sherman, and but 500 feet above the average level of the rolling plains which intervene. To the north and south, high mountain ranges break the surface of the plateau, but the profile sliows what an easy highway nature offered the railway builders across the great basin on this parallel. It was always the Indian's and trapper's trail, and was in 1852 suggested by Lieut. Gunnison as a feasible railroad route before the 9fficial survey. To the. north and northwest can be seen the Seminole Mountains, the Sweetwater Range, and in the far distance the Wood River Mountains ; to the south the Elk- head Mountains, and away to the southwest the spurs of the Uintah Range. From the summit there is a down grade to the Green River, for sixty miles of the way along the Bitter Creek, through an utterly desolate region, the cliffs on either side encroaching close on the valley. The sandstones which here accompany the coal that underlies Wyoming to east and west of the Divide, favor the sterility wlucli elevation and drought alone are enough to produce, but add to the scenic effects by weathering into picturesque bluffs. The Green River, one of the great branches of the Colorado, is the first and only large stream which flows into the Pacific, along this parallel, till the Sierra Nevada is passe-v^. ; the river and lake system of each section of the great basin — the Utah sec- " tiou and the Nevada section — being self-contained. 312 Geographical Features of the The Uintah Range, whose axis is nearly east and west, is now the conspicuous feature to the south, its sides cov- ered with forest, and at its base Beaver Creek, which was Bridger's favorite trapping groiuul for the American Fur Company as faj* back as 1820. Up the Big Muddy the rail now ascends a spur of the Uintah, crosses it at As- pen at an elevation of 7,835 feet, and descends into the valley of the Bear. This stream, like many others in the Rockies, doubles on its own course. It rises to the south of the track, flows north, outflanking the Wasatch Range, and returns south to discharge, after a course of 230 miles, into the Great Salt Lake, not over sixty miles west of its source. But the railroad buildei's tunnelled the high jag- ged range at Wasatch, ;.iid carried the track through the wonderful rock sceneiy of Echo and Weber Canons, down the steep western slope of the Wasatch to the Salt Lake valley at Ogden. Five roads radiate from Ogden : tlie Union Pacific tow- ards the east; the Central Pacific towards the west; the Denver and Rio Grande towards the southeast ; the T^tah Central runs due south down the valley ; and the Utah Northern as a nari'ow-gauge road due north through the eastern section of Idaho into Montana, wliere it con- nects at Garrison, at the western foot of the Rocky Moun- tains, witli the Nortliern Pacific. But we must travel forward westward over the CENTRAL PACIFIC. From Ogden westward the Central Pacific, after cross- ing from the Utah into the Nevada depression of tlie Great Basin, descends by easy grades to the (^astern foot of the Sierra Nevada, through a region even more desolate Rocky Mountain Railroads. 315 and west, sides cov- '^hich was rican Fur uddy the it at As- into the ?is ill the the soutli !h Range, !30 miles, est of its higli jag- (High the •ns, down lalt Lake cific tow- le west; !ast; the and tlie tlirouffh e it con- :y Moun- it travel ;er cross- 1 of the ;ern foot desolate than that traversed by the Union, between naked moun- tain ranges, over long stretches of rolling sage-brush plains, hardly redeemed from utter sterility by a rib- bon of verdure on the banks of the Humboldt Riveiv The railroad follows the valley of this river from Moore Station for a distance of 350 miles till it enters the Hum- boldt Lake, and flowing thence, loses itself in the sink of the Carson. The profile shows this westerly basin, occu- pied by the Humboldt and other lakes, to have almost the same level as that of the Great Salt Lake. Into it flow the Humboldt from the east and the Carson and Truckee rivers from the west, all perennial streams carrying large bodies of water ; but the thirsty sands and the rapid evaporation from the lakes, which these rivers form,, drink up all they contribute. Carson Lake, which, like the Great Salt Lake of Utah, is the residuary recipient of the wht)le river and lake system of this portion of the Nevada desert, has no outlet. The valley of the Truckee was selected by the railroad engineers as the most feasible ro'ute out of the basin. The track, therefore, after trav- ersing from Lovelocks to Wadsworth, about 63 miles, a desert region white with alkali, and full of solfataric activity, bubbling with hot springs, saturated with soda and 1 .. .X, and productive of brimstone, enters the valley of the Truckee, and following its narrow channel, too bar- ren generally to produce much, even with irrigation, reaches the town of Truckee, a distance of 62 miles, gaining an elevation in that distance of 1,742 feet. At Truckee commences the pull up to the summit, a distance of only 14 miles, in which 1,108 feet of elevation are gained. The £,cenery of Donner Lake, which the train skirts after l?av- ing Truckee, the piles of mountains rising more than 314 Geographical Features of the 5,000 feet above the tunnel by which the road cuts through the crest of the Sierra, and on the western side the glimpse of the birth and growth of the streams which dash down through the forests to feed the Sacramento, give this section of the road pre-eminence in beauty ; but what between tunnels and 50 miles of snow-sheds, the traveller is kept in a state of constant irritation, as angry as when in New England he expects to get the full view of a beautiful river and enters a covered bridge. Down the western slope of the Sierra the train speeds from the summit at 7,017 feet to Colfax, a descent of 4,595 feet in 51 miles, through the pines into the oak glades and down to the plains. The relief of passing at a bound from the most desolate spot on the continent, the Humboldt Desert, into one of the most fertile of the world's valleys, that of the Sacramento, is intense. The Coast Range does not appear on the profile, because the railroad terminates on the Upper Bay formed by the Junction of the Sacra- mento and the San Joaquin rivei*s, and this great harbor is carved out of and sheltered by the Coast Range, on whose hills San Francisco itself is built. THE DENVER AND RIO GRANDE RAILROAD. The Denver and Rio Grande, as already stated, sur- passes all competitors in the feats of engineering its builders have compassed. Each of its branches was, at the time of construction, the most remarkable deed of daring yet attempted, and each successive effort has sur- passed its predecessors in boldness of conception and execution. Our map would be covered to conf'^sion were we to at- tempt to show each of the Denver and Rio Grande lines. Rocky Mountain Railroads. 315 The first mountain branch was that over the Sangre de Cristo Range by the Veta Pass, thence across the San Luis Park and down the valley of the Rio Grande to near Sante Fe. From this, two feeders diverge to the San Juan and to other as inaccessible mining localities, heretofore deemed difficult of approach by ordinary vehicles. But what interests us most is the Pueblo and Salt Lake section, which forms one half of another trans-moun- tain route. In its career it cuts the Rockies at their highest and wildest, to the west of Pueblo, taking advantage of the Arkansas to reacli the water-shed of the cont^.nent at Marshall Pass. The Royal Gorge, in the Grand Canon of the Arkan- sas, is the portal which admits the traveller from the l)lain8 into the recesses of the mountains where the river receives its life. Abov^e the canon, the valley widens, and is productive of gi-asses and of such vegetables as the great altitude permits of coming to maturit}'. At Salida the branch to Leadville continues up the Arkansas, but the main road ascends the Saui^uache rano;e to the Continen- tal Divide. This is crossed by Marshall Pass at an'eleva- tion of 10,820 feet by gradesreaching220feet to the mile. From this great elevation the eye wanders far and near over forest-clad mountains with rounded outline, less startling, perhaps, but more pleasing than the bare sides and jagged profiles of the Eastern and the Sangre de Cristo Ranges, for colors and curves are principal elements of beauty. If they do not elicit wonder, they excite pleas- ure. Nature ^vllell clad in neutral tints is bereft of half her charms. Looking ti-om this vantage ground it would 316 Geographical Features of the seem irai^ossible that tlie railroad could find a path through the network of ranges, the j^eaks of which tower to north and south and east and west to elevations of 12,000 and 14,000 feet — not one peak, but many. Yet though th road follows river-courses tliey are not al- ways river valleys, but deep, steep gorges, over whose stony sides the engineers had to be suspended in locating the road, and the miners in dislodging the rocks to gain a footing for the road-bed. The Tomichi lliver, the main confluent of the Green, is reached almost at once after the Divide is passed, and where this branch unites with its northern sister to fonu the Gunnison, is rising the city of (xunnison, the future metropolis of the region, at an altitude of 7,080 feet. Be- low Gunnison the river cuts through mountain and plateau, creating the Black Canon of the Gunniss to this highway of nature across the Gi-and Mesa till it unites with the Grand River at Grand Junction. For 200 miles farther westward the road ascends a series of barren steppes before surmounting the Wasatch and entering the Great Salt Lake Valley. Rocky Mountain Jiail/oads. 317 THE SoriTIIKIlN PACFFir RAIIJKKVf). The Soutlierii Pacific is the only United States road wliose termini are on tlie two oceans — the eastern at l^ew Orleans, the western at San Francisco. It iiins through the swamps and across the l)ayous t)f Lfuiisiana, over tlie low coast hands of Tex.'us to Houston, and thence traverses from east t<> west its fertile cotton lands to l>eyond the old S])anish town of San Antonio, where the land grows less fertile. At 170 miles from San Antonio the road enters the Cafion of the Kio Grande, Through this it is built on benches overhanging the river, and within a stone's throw of the Mexican shore, till it reaches the un- dulating limestone j)lateau through which the river has cleft this nari'ow trough. The train emerges from the canon at Langtry, w hich is always guarded by a company of U. S. cavalry, as it is the only ford across the Kio Grande for a distance of 150 miles. On the plateau the scenery differs from that of the plains to the north only in the vegetation which clothes it. AVe are on the " IJinws est(UwJ(>.%^' the " vStaked Plains " of other days. Though no river runs for hundreds of miles through this dreary waste, springs occur, and vvater in many places is puni]>ed to the surface to !^n[)ply the cattle and sheep which roam over this scorched wilderness. These, thouoh necessarilv few in numbei- to the mile, are an immense nmltitude in the aggregate. Not a hill breaks the horizon foi" more than a hundred miles, but the road ascends gradually to Sanderson, where short isolated ranges com- mence to rise out of the ])lateau, and the mountain sceneiy assumes the aspect which it henceforth bears along the line of road, all through New Mexico and Arizona, till the Colorado is ])assed and the Yuma Desert is entered. 318 Geographical Features of the The Rocky Mountains, as we have seen, attain their grandest development in Colorado. In northern New Mexico they still maintain their character as an unbroken Cordillera. But further south it becomes impossible to identify the features which we have seen the continent to possess along the 4l8t parallel. In western Texas, cen- tral New Mexico, and in northern and central Arizona there is a complicated system of short ranges so inter- locked as to leave but narrow valleys between ; while in the southern portion of these temtories similar ranges, with a general northeast and southwest axis, spring from the lofty plateau, whose average elevation is about 4,000 feet, in isolated mountain masses, with great stretclies of intervening plain. The Texas Pacific Railroad has crossed the same plains to the north of the Southern Pacific, and entered the same mountain scenery in its straight coui-se from Fort Worth to Sierra Blanca, where, at 91 miles from El Paso on the Rio Grande, it unites with the Southern Pacific. Westward the single railroad winds among these miniature ranges without, as the pi-ofile shows, any great variation in grade, and yet by a i-oute so tortuous that long stretches are built to reach points a few miles apart. Bare, treeless mountains before and be- hind, and on either side, close in every view, while yet the train is gradually crossing a plain of sandy or baked red- dish soil, sprinkled with tufts of grass and dotted with soap-weed or yucca, bushes of grease-wood, and groves of mesquite, and in places groups of huge cacti and smaller membere of the same grotes(|ue family. Only two rivers, the San Pedro at Benson, and the Santa Cruz at Tucson — the latter generally dry, — are crossed between the Rio Grande and the Coloi-ado, a distance of 550 miles. liovky Mountain liaih'oada. 319 The Rocky Mountains have been completely shattered, and their scattered fi'agnients seem to strew the plains. They reunite in the Sierra Madre of Chiluiahua, immedi- ately south of the line, recover from their disorder, close in their ranks, and present an unbroken frf)nt southward to the Isthnuis ; but in New Mexico and Arizona they have been comjiletely obliterated as a Cordillera. The Kio Colorado is crossed at sixty miles above its mouth, ^vhere it flows between low sandy banks ; for the grand canon has terminated hundreds of miles above, be- fore the river has turned from its east and west to its north and south course. Before reaching the river the countiy traversed has become, if possible, more for- lorn, and desolation reigns supreme. After the bridge is crossed the Yuma 1 )esert is entered. In ti'aversing it the train runs for hour after hour over plains of sand, thirty miles of which are below sea-level. At all seasons a niirdge is seen as tempting as any which deludes the African ti'aveller. At places the sandy surface is flat, at others it rises into hillocks like the dunes of Holland, stretches of snow-white alkali vary the color, and what veiretation there is ])artakes of the sandv tint. The San Bernardino Mountains rise steeply ahead, their slopes as bare and rocky as the mountain rano-es between which we have been passing now for over 1,000 miles. They represent the Sierra Nevada mountains which, along this zone of the continent, dwindle, like the Rockies, into insiirnificance. Further south they continue to assert themselves, but still more feebly, in the peninsula of Lower California, l)efore being lost in the Pacific. As we ascend the eastern slope of the San Bernardino range the desert merges into arable land, but the sum- 320 Oeoifraphical Feaim'eR of the mit of the Gory-ouiji Pass is ho speedily readied that the train seems to leap as it' by magic from dreary sterility into the orange groves of Colton and Los Angeles, and tlie rich verdure of the San Fei'nando Valley. \h'\v the Coast Kange to the west is well defined ; ))ut the coast valley in which this oasis is enshrined, rapidly contracts to the nortli, and the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range coalesce into a network of cross ranjjes throuu:h which the selection of a [)ractical)le railroad I'oute was no easy task. That selected j)a8ses from the head of the valley easterly through the Soledad Pass into the Mojave Desert, the northerly extension of the Yuma Desert, over which we travelled, and then returns through a maze of moun- tains over the Tehacha[)e Pass northwesterly into the great longitudinal coast valley. In crossing the pass the grades are reduced by making the I'oad describe the fig- ure oc round two adjacent isolated hills forming the well known loop. This is the last engineering feature of note, f(U' the road does not again leave the broad fertile plain of the San Joacpiiu Valley, closed to the east l)y the high snow-cap- ped wall of the Sierra Nevada, and to the west by the low wall of the Coast Kange. THE ATCHISON AND TOI'J^KA IJAILKonl). The Atchison and Topeka stai'ted as a prairie road, but through its ramifications it has become the most extensive of all the mountain railroad systems. It has stretched in two directions into Mexico, but with these branches we have not to do. The mountain section connnences at Trinidad, Colorado, Avhere the road has risen upon the plains from 765 feet H(trkt/ Mniliitoin U((i1v«l tWt at Trinidml, in a distaiioe of <)3H miles. We liave seen that on the line of the Union Pacitie, about IHO miles to tlie nortli, from Omalia to (Hieyenne, in a distance of 'Ai\ miles an elevation of (),0;{8 feet was attaine:nite which underlies them. Here the out- cropping beds liave become ignited, and by the heat generated have altered tlie color and character of tlie adjacent shales and sandstone, rendering them more liable to erosion by water and wind, the cond)ined influence of which has carved the \vhole country into most fantastic forms. The great ejistern buttresses of the Rocky Moun- tains now loom into view, but the j'oad remains on the prairies, skirting the PoAvder Range till it strikes tlie Yellowstone River at Glcndive. To its vallev it clinics for 340 miles, or as fur as Livingstone, where tliis most important of the nortliern afiiuents*of the Missouri turns southward to dra^v its waters from the heai't of the Rockies and enhance the beauties of the Yellowstone Park. This valley, where followed by the railroad, is narrow, not aver- aging three miles in width, and enclosed by bluffs sparsely 324 Geographical Features of the clad with pine, which, though low, are still high enough to shut out all but glimpses of the Big Horn and Yellow- stone lianges to the south, which have deflected the river from a straight course between its source and discharge. But each of the rivers which flow into it from the south, fed by the great spurs of the main range, the Powder River, the Tongue, the Rosebud, and the Big Horn, remind us of the last desperate struggle of the dominant nation of the north, the Sioux, against the march of the white man between 1872 and 1877, hastened by the progress of this very railway — a struggle rendered memoral)le by the dar- iuijr deeds and untimelv end of Custer. In this valley also is a memento of Clark, who, on his return journey in 1 806, carved his name on a prominent rock and called ii Pom- pey's Pillar — a name retained for the neighboring railway station. From St. Paul to Livingstone the grade has been easy and the elevation low. But the road after leavinii; the Yellowstone commences to climb the Hozeman Range, a spur of the Rocky Mountains. It cats off the aunmit hy a tunnel, at an elevation of 5,5(3;") feet, and emerges in a wild gorge which it follows along the stream of the (ial- latin to the base of the range. Here it ente a the birth- place of the Missouri, an amphitheatre of great hills where the Gallatin, the Madison, and the Jefferson unite their waters to form this mighty transcontinental river, which thus springs into existence as a stream of considernble size. We follow iti^ l)anks for thirty miles, but the Rocky Mountains here bar its further progress westward, and it is prevented from reaching by a straight course its destination in the eastern sea by the confused mass of the Little Belt Mountains, round which it sweeps, through Itochy Momitcvin Railroads. 3^5 Clark's Gate of the Rockies, due north, over the falls of the Missouri, and thence as a navigable river eastward. But the road piu'sues its way westward, crossing the Con- tinental Divide through the Mullaii Tunnel, at an eleva- tion of only 5,648 feet. We are now in the golden land, and almost every valley has been turned over and over in search of the precious dust. The beautiful town of Helena, near tlie foot of the Div^ide, stands in a wilderness of boulders, heaps and trendies, and the surface of the valleys near Butte, Ban- nock, and Virginia City, and many another spot, looks like the Bad Lanj)ing on the w^est the main I'ange, \s hicli descends from the noi'th. The en- gineers of the road took advantage of the point where the mass of the range, being thus divided, was reduced in height and a i>assage was made easy. Tortuously the road ascends the eastern slo[)e of the Continental Divide from Helena at 3,5180 feet to the tunnel, affording a mag- nificent glimpse of the mountains to the south, which en- close the National Bark; but tlie western descent is less 3^6 Geographical Features of the rapid into the valley which carries towards the Columbia the waters of the Deer Lodge Creek, alias Hellgate River (the former the name in the farming section of its course, the latter in the mining). TLe mountains close in, — the Bitter Root Mountains on the left — the main range on the right — till the valley is contracted into a gorge, rendered more sombre by the heavy growth of pines which clothe the rocks ; for now that we have crossed the mountains, both plain and hill are forest-clad. Northwest the road runs along the banks of the sti*eams, now swollen into the Clark's Fork of the Columbia, unable to escape west- ward over the high Bitter Root Range, — bitter indeed to the thousands of penniless prospectors, who three years ago flocked even from the warm southern territories and Mexico to seek f oi* but gather no gold in its snow-clad Cteur d'Alene mines. But where Clark's Fork expands into the beautiful lake of Pend d'Oreille the road finds egress from the mountains and enters the northern extension of the great plateau, which we have traversed in Arizona, and again when crossing the Great Basin on the Union and Central roads. Only here, as the Rocky Mountains point northwest and the Sierra Nevada and their extension, the Cascade Mountains, have a slightly northeasterly trend, the great valley has been crushed in, almost to extinction. It is at this pouit only 100 miles across, and at less than 100 miles farther to the north it ceases to be well defined. There the Rocky Mountains and the CascayiiiLr t!u' coast xallcy, aiid tlie Coast Kaiii^c HUi'viviiiir ill the island of ^'ulK'()llV(n' and tlic (^)ii('('ii Cliarlottc liToiip. 'I'lic intcniKMliatc ran<;'es, tlic Selkirk and the (jold, are |)rol)al)ly Iioniolo^ous with tlie W'asatcli and niiniholdt, l)iit tlie crushing top'ther of the whoK' moun- tain system lias ol)litei'ated the ^Teat valleys; and tli<' cliaiiLi;e in i-liniate, resultiiin' in tli(» creation of numerous lari:,(' and im[)etuoi'-; rivers, has introduced coiTodini; modi- fyinii" influences not so appreciahly felt in the contiu:ui'ati<»n of the southern mountain and valley system. From the [)ase of tlie Kctckies at Clieyenne, on the Union Pacific, to the foot of the Sierra Nevada at (Vdfax is 88;") miles. ( )n tlie Northern Pacific route, about 500 miles north of the Central Pacific, between coi-respondinu' ))oiiit8 the moun- tain system is T ^) miles wide, whereas from the l)ase of the liockies here to what we may assume to be the base of the SIci'ra chain is only 830 miles. The scenery of the mountains in this ])arallel is modi- fied not oiilv bv these fj-eoo-raphical variations but by the heavy clothinff of forest trees. The luml)ei' trafhc will be a source of larije revenue to the railroad, and one which will urow ra[)idly in value, for lumber is already becom- ing scarce on the Pacific. The devastation of the forests of C^alifornia and Oregon is being carried on with even more ruthless Avaste than that with which ours ai'e being swept away. It is not in the nature of a Californian to plant for posterity a sapling to replace the tree he cuts down. The thick covering of soil and timber will seri- ously interfei'e with and retard prospecting for mineral, but as the arbiti-aiv line between the Ignited States and \ 'i;;Ai»;;>» 33<3 Geog ra'phical Features of the the Britisli provinces does not probably limit the deposits of valuable minerals, they will be gi'adually discovered, and more gradually exhausted than our own. The mag- nificent scenery is also, not Avithout warrant, counted upon as one source of revenue to the railroad. CONCLUSIONS. Tliis rapid sketch may be appropriately sup[)leme)ited by a table of distances: * rXION & CF.XTRAI RAILROAD. San Francisco to Omaha Omaha to New York San Francisco to New York - New York to Liverpool San Francisco to Liverpool - Yokohama to San Francisco - Yokohama to Liverpool 1,865 miles. 1,412 " 3,277 miles. 3,oi'>5 " 6,342 miles. 4,731 " 11,073 miles. ill u 3,277 miles being by rail and 7,796 miles by wati-r. SOUIHKRN I'ACII'IC RAILROAD. San Francisco to New Orleans New Orleans to New York, by sea San Francisco to New York - New Orleans to Ij'verpool San Francisco to Liverpool - Yokohama to San Francisco - Yokohama to Liverpool 2,176 miles. 2.519 " 4,995 miles. 4,767 " 7.243 miles. _4,73> " I T,974 miles. 2,476 miles being by rail and 9,498 miles'by water. \ y»ih^'J* Rocky Mountain JiaUroads. 337 miles. ATCHISON, TOPEKA, & SANTA FE. San Francisco to Kansas City, /ia Deming - - 2,347 Kansas City to New York 1,251 San Francisco to New York ATLANTIC & PACIFIC, AND ATCHISON, TOPEKA, & San Francisco to Kansas City - . . . Kansas City to New York ----- San Francisco to New '/ork 3, 35° miles. 3,598 miles SANTA FE. 2,099 miles ',251 ti NOk'iHEKN PACIFIC RAII.ROAU. Portland to St. Paul St. Paul to New York - Portland to New York - New York to Liverpool Portland to Liverpool - 1,911 1,120 3,03 ' 3,065 miles. miles. 6,096 miles. 2,868 miles. 2,.S20 " 5,688 miles, 4,336 " CANADIAN PACIFIC KAILROAD. Port Moody to Montreal Montreal to T>ivorpool ----.. Port Moody to Liverpool - - - Yokohama to Po'-t Moodv Yokohama to Liverjiooi - - . . . 10,024 miles. You will jHMveive tliat the compari.suii of distances from sea, to sea is in favor of tlie Southern Paeitie, but the coiiiparisou of pi-otiles sliu-jitjy favor.s the Canadian Pacific. This i-oad also stands second on the list as regards distances. These advantages lie, theref<»re, between the most northerly and ihe mo.st southerly of the six compet- itors. Climate is, however, an inipoi-taut factor when we m%mmmW: 1 ! I 1 338 Geo(irapliic(d Features of the are Judging of the commercial value of each route, and we must i-emember that the degree of cold and the snow- fall are influenced by altitude even more tlian by latitu(U'. Hence the Canadian and the Central in this resi)ect stand almost on a par. The road most favoi'ably situated as regards climate is the Southern ; but the semi-tropical rains of Southern California and Texas are at times as o1)stiuctive to traftic as the snows of the north. No I'oad, therefore, can claim sucli g('ogra[)hical superiority over its rivals as to give it su])reme advantage, and tiicrefore relieve it from the necessity of maintaining a conciliatory attitude towards its com[)etit()i"s and its customers. A few words as to the ])roducts — In men and material — which the building of this vast system of I'oads, with their aggregate of ovei* 2.'),()0(i miles of ti'ack, has created. They have to all intents and ])urposes doubled the available area of this country and Canada, and done it in the short period of twenty years. The sud(l(Mi op<'niiig- up of the great West has, therefore, of necessity had nu)- nientous consequence u})on the charactei', not oidy of those who have ]»eo})led it, but by reaction upon all classes, even those fai'thest removiNJ in occui)ation or locality. Certahdy one of tlu> most im|»ortant influences has been the pernicious etfect which the handling of such enormous smns as have been expended on tliese railroads has had on the political and hnancial nioi'ality of our great centres of government and ti'ade: and the (diief wealth of tlie West having been in the preci.Mis metals, a spirit of gambling has been generated ])oih in tlio?*- who work the mines and those wli»» speculate in their actual or possilde production. As the money so lapidly spent on the railroads, and that gathered as rapidly from tht- \ Rochy Mountain liailroads. 389 ti gold and silver mines, together amounts to over three and a half billions of dollars, the effect on society has been notable, and unfortunately not healthy. It was the discovery of gold in California, and the rush thither to reaj) a golden harvest without sowing any seed, which stimulated the peo[)ling of the west coast ; and it was the Mormon exodus fi-oni Illinois, the very same year, and the conversion 1)y these religious fanatics of a tract of countrv in the very heart of the liTeat desert into an oasis of beauty and fei'tility, which proved that the mountains would yield othei- ])i'oducts than the precious metals. Miners and Moi'mons were, therefore, the elementary matei'ial out of which AVestern life was originally comj)osed. Gokl was the influence that first drcAV the mobile ^vave of restless humanity to each section of the mountains in succession, to California in the west, to Colorado in the east, Montana in the north, Arizona in the south. But in searching for gold, silver was discovered, a metal moi'e i'iinortant to local indnstry than gold, owing to the j^n-;!yu.v intricacy of the metallurgical treatment reipiired io .vhi it from its ores. Until 1880, precious-metal min- \u'^ alone was assisted by the railroad, but in that year Ari/oiia and i\I(»ntana, being bronght within the radius of Hie world's markets, cop])er appears as a still more im- poi-tant tril)ute t(» the freight-traffic of the West. At present gold, silver, (•o|)i)ei', and coal, are its sta])le min- eral products. The out))ut of the last is natui'ally lestricr- ed in ([uantity by the necessarily limited local demand. The t^^ree former have, however, l>een mined on a scale which the world has not hitherto witnc^ssed, and with that reck- less disregard to ticonomy which has charactei'ized all ! '4 M'J i wBam wmmmm Li-A 340 Geographical Features of the western enterprises. In a wonderfully sliort space of time, even when life was insecure, and the Indian was al- most the undisputed master of the plains and mountains, an army of prosjiectors scattered themselves over the whole region, searching in tlie most inaccessible sj)ots for the precious metals. A region one thousand miles wide by two thousand Ion., 'ich in minerals, and utterly virgin ground, was scoured. practically bare of soil and unconcealed by forest, ani ■ Jierefore exploration was easy and discovery rapid ; l)ut hardly more rapid than the avidity ^vith which the discoveries once made \vere utilized. As proof of tliis, look at the statistics of the precious metals since 1849. Between that date and 1885 the Rocky Mountains yielded alxnit $2,870,000,000 in gold and silvei'. The Goiustock lode alone produced from 1860 to 1880 8306,000,000 in gold and silver. It is worthy of note that on the construction and equi]>- ment of the twenty odd thousand miles of railroad in the Rocky Mountain system there were silent $1, '267,000,000, or consideraldy more than one half the total production of the precious metals. Despite the relatively small value of co])i»er, its min- ing and reduction liav^e been ])ursued wiHi the same wasteful liaste. The great enterprises were undertnken when the cost of the metal was much higluM- thnii at })resent. They were planned on a magniticent scale, and when started so fi-ightened tlu^ world l>y tlieir i)ro- duction, that they drove tlie ])rice down to less than ■one half. Having been stai'ted, they will continue to be run till poverty of ore stops them, as it has sto]>ped the Comstock. I do not mean to say tliat tlu* wealth of the M Rochy Mountain Railroads. 341 i^ West is exlmiistecl, or that great metalliferous deposits will not yet be discovered. But what happened in the early days after the conquest of Mexico is being re-enacted to- day. Within a generation of the conquest nearly all the great mines of Mexico had been discovered, and the cream was rapidly skimmed olf them. Yet some of them have been worked almost without interruption, and that profit- ably, till our day. So, Avhile there is little likelihood tliat prospecting will be as profitable in the future as it has been in the past, it is as cei'tain that throuii:h the Ijene- ficial stress of poverty, with which nature sooner or later corrects our extravagance, mining and metallurgy Avill become more and more of a business and less of a gam- bling game, to the great gain of both the East and the West. But the o])ening of the West has created other fields of industr\-. Tiie farmino- land is limited, tliouo-h everv where extensive enough to supply the needs of the scanty popu- lation ever likely to be dependent on it ; but tlie grazing lands are, compjiratively speaking, illimitable. These are being ra])idly occupied by cattle only a little less wild than i\w buffaloes, and by herders as reckless and restless as the miners. There has, therefore, through the infiu- ence of their isolated out-door life, passed far from the re- sti'aints of society, been i'a[)idly developed a race of herds- men, prospectors, miners, ranchei's, acting under very differ- ent impulses from those which kept the New England and Virginia colonists content with their narrow home l)et\veen the Atlantic and the Alleghanies. These men of the West are the real eon rears des i6'/6H)f oui'day, and nil the acts of Congress would be as powerless to restrain their active inde])endence, as were the rV/Av et ordofnufnces of the 342 Boclij Mountain Railroads. French governors to check the roving habits of Liicir Ijredecessoi's. Were there a new country to ('xph)r<', these would be the men to do it. Let tliere be a great gold discovery in central Africa or Ne\ (xuinea, and a conthigent will start from the Rockies by the earliest train to catch the first steamer, with no baggage but a p«ir of blankets, and they will reach their goal, be it Avhere it may. But I must close. After this survey of what has been done in railroad building west of the Missouri since 18()2, I think that whether or not you admit the proposition with which I starte