HE 
 
 2763 
 1853 
 
University of California Berkley 
 
LETTER FROM COL. BENTON / 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF MISSOURI. 
 
 CENTRAL NATIONAL HIGHWAY FROM THE MISSIS- 
 SIPPI RIVER TO THE PACIFIC. 
 
 CITIZENS: The time has come when the long disputed question 
 of a railroad to the Pacific ocean is assuming a practical form, 
 and is about to receive its solution in the authoritative examina- 
 tion of the country, and the selection of the route. An appro- 
 priation has been made by Congress for the examinations, 
 and the selection of the route is referred to the next Con- 
 gress. This is well, and will give the CENTRAL route a fair 
 chance, although the MEMPHIS, or SOUTHERN route has gained an 
 immense advantage over it in the numerous surveys which have 
 been made, and the long concentration of the public opinion 
 upon it. 
 
 The Central route has been advocated by Col. Fremont for 
 four years, and his preference for it publicly made known. 
 From the time of his first survey of the (miscalled) SOUTH PASS 
 he deemed that pass to be too far north for California: and sub- 
 ject to other objections ; and, therefore, sought along the summit 
 of the Rocky mountains, and along its base on both sides for 
 Passes further south ; and found them in several places in the 
 THREE PARKS, and at head of the Arkansas. But he did not con- 
 sider the examinations complete until he should search the head 
 of the Rio Grande del Norte, where the information of the moun- 
 tain men, and the course of the buffaloes, led him to expect to 
 find the best Pass, and in the best country, and on the straightest 
 line of communication between the central parts of the Valley 
 of the Mississippi and the Bay of San Francisco. 
 
 This was the object of his last expedition, undertaken at his own 
 expense, in the winter 1848-'49, after he had resigned his place in 
 the army of the United States :. and the event, though tardily, and 
 after a great disaster, has realized all his expectations. Upon 
 his arrival at TAGS and SANTA FE, after that disaster, every body 
 could tell him (and especially Mr. Antoine Leroux) how near he 
 had been to his object that he was on the point of going through 
 the fine Pass at the head of the valley of the Del Norte when 
 
his guide, from a deplorable mistake, and against his convictions 
 and remonstrances, turned him out of the valley, and led him 
 upon the stupendous heights and deep snows of the SIERRA SAN 
 JUAN. Though balked, and turned 'back, he had come near 
 enough to his object to know it was there, and to know that it 
 was passable in winter and in that winter which was one of 
 the deepest and earliest snows ever known. He had crossed 
 from the Upper Arkansas through the SIERRA BLANCA into the 
 broad and rich valley at the head of the Del Norte which leads 
 into the PASS, and had surmounted every obstacle that lay in his 
 way. In three days, without crossing even a swell in the ground, 
 or being able to detect the point of the divorce of the waters, he 
 would have been on the west of the Rocky mountains, on the 
 waters of the Great Colorado of the West, in a country of wood 
 and grass, and in a climate comparatively mild : in fact he would 
 have been there in less time than his guide got him to the place 
 of his disaster. The information received at Taos and Santa Fe 
 completed his knowledge both of this Pass and of the country 
 beyond it, and left him perfectly satisfied in his own mind that 
 the true route was found : and he communicated this important 
 fact to the Railroad convention in Philadelphia, in April, 1850, 
 in a letter, which was published ; and also sent to the convention 
 a sketch of the route indicated on a map. 
 
 Col. Fremont and I were both in Congress at that time, and 
 immediately went to work to*develope this route ; but we both 
 were left out of Congress that year, and the CENTRAL route lost 
 its advocates, and disappeared from the view of Congress and the 
 people ; and has remained unnoticed for three years, while the 
 Southern (Memphis) route has monopolized attention and ac- 
 quired an engrossing prominence. But the time has arrived for 
 the neglected route to appear upon the scene again, and in a 
 form to secure for it a share of the public attention. The peo- 
 ple of St. Louis Congressional district elected me to the House 
 of Representatives last summer; and I came here to work du- 
 ring the winter ; though not in the House. It has so happened 
 that Mr. Antoine Leroux, the best qualified man in the world to 
 speak on the subject, (not excepting the renowned Christopher 
 Carson,) has arrived here also ; and from him I have received 
 the information, embodied in a formal statement, which estab- 
 lishes, not merely the practicable, but the easy and excellent 
 character of the route, and which statement I herewith present : 
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. LEROUX. 
 
 At the request of Col. Benton, I, Antoine Leroux, native of St. Louis of Missouri, and 
 now an inhabitant of Taos, in New Mexico, do make the following statement in rela- 
 tion to the Pass at the head of the valley of the Del Norte, and of the country on each 
 side of that Pass; and also as to the best road from Missouri to California. And first 
 tell how I got acquainted with the country : 
 
 In the year 1820, when I was in my nineteenth year, I joined Gen. Ashley and 
 Major Henry in an expedition of hunting and trapping to the Upper Missouri and 
 Rocky Mountains; and after near two year* in that part I went to Taos, in New 
 
. 
 
 3 a 4 
 
 Mexico, and afterwards married there, and have made it my home ever since; and 
 from that place I carried on the business of a beaver trapper for about fifteen years, 
 generally on the waters of the Great Colorado of the West; and have trapped the whole 
 country, every river, creek, and branch from the Gila to the head of the Grand River 
 fork of the Upper Colorado, and out to the Great Salt Lake, and on the waters of 
 Wah-Satch Mountain, and out to the Virgen River, and have been four times to Cali- 
 fornia, and guide to a great many American, officers employed in Mexico, and know 
 the country from New Mexico to California. 
 I will now describe the Pass. 
 
 At the head of the valley of the Del Norte there is a broad Pass about eight miles 
 wide, called by the Utah Indians, Coo cha-tope, and by the Mexican Spaniards El 
 Puerto, and which signifies in both languages The Gap, or the Gate ; and has been 
 known to the Spaniards ever since they settled in New Mexico, and by the Indians al- 
 ways. Ct is made by the Sierra San Juan, which comes up from the South on the 
 west side of the Del Norte, and gives out there; and by the Sierra Blanco, which 
 comes in from the east like it was going to join the San Juan, but turns off north round 
 the head of the Arkansas and towards the Three Parks and is eight miles wide. Here be- 
 tween these two mountains is the Pass which goes out level from the valley of the Del 
 Norte, (and looking like a continuation of it,) which leads to the upper waters of the Great 
 Colorado of the West. The Del Norte does not head in this Pass, but in the San Juan 
 Mountain, a little south of the Pass, where there is also a summer Pass, but none for 
 the winter on account of the snow in it. There is a small creek in the Pass called by 
 the same name, Coo-cha-tope, which comes out from the end of the San Juan and 
 goes about eight miles east towards the Del Norte, but stops in a small lake, out of 
 which a little stream gets to the Del Norte which shows how level the country is. 
 The Pass is heavily timbered with large pine trees, and with pifion ; and there may be 
 some small oaks, but I am not certain. There is not much snow in this Pass, and 
 people go through all the winter; and when there is_much snow in the mountains on 
 the Abiquiii route, (which is the old Spanish Trail'to California,) the people of Taos 
 go round this way, and get into that trail in the forks of Grand and Green rivers. 
 There are trails through it, but after you get through there are many trails, some going 
 to the Abiquiu road, and some up or down the country. This Pass is laid down on a 
 map I saw in the War Office, made by Lieut. Parke and Mr. R. II. Kern, and is there 
 named after me, because I gave Lieut. Parke information about it. It is the only map 
 I have seen that shows that Pass, and the best one I have seen of that part of the coun- 
 try, and with a little correction would be perfect. 
 
 As for the country on each side of the Pass, I will describe it, and on the east 
 ide first. 
 
 There is a large valley to the east about 50 or 60 miles wide and near 100 miles 
 long, reaching from the Coo-cha-tope to the Taos settlements at the Little Colorado. 
 The Del Norte runs through this valley, which is the widest and best valley in all New 
 Mexico, and can hold more people than all New Nexico besides. It is all prairie except 
 on the creeks, and on the river, and on the mountain sides, which are well wooded. It 
 is a rich soil and covered with good grass, and wooded on all the streams. The Span- 
 iards called it EL VALLE DK SAX Luis, and it was formerly famous for wild hoses and 
 buffaloes; and ever since Taos was settled by the Spaniards the inhabitants drove their 
 sheep and cattle there to winter. Before the Utah Indians became so bad, the stock as 
 many as 50,000 or 60,000 head of sheep and cattle have been driven there to winter, 
 which they did well, feeding on the graes during the day, and sheltering in the woods 
 about the shepherd's camp at night. Most of the winters there is no snow along the 
 foot of the mountain on the north side of this valley, being sheltered from the north 
 and open to the sun to the south. The United States have established a military post 
 in this valley, not far from the Pass of El Sangre de Christo, and about two hundred 
 families have gone there to live, chiefly near the Fort, and raised crops there last year ; 
 and now that they have protection, the valley will soon be all settled, and will be the 
 biggest and best part of New Mexico. About three hundred families more were prepar- 
 ing to move there. The post is called Fort Massachusetts. 
 
 This valley has several passes through the Sierra Blanca into the prairie country on 
 the Upper Arkansas and Kanzas, the best of which is called El Sangre de Christo, at 
 the head of the little streams called Cuchadas, which fall into the Huerfano, a small 
 river falling into the Arkansas, not far from. Bent's Fort. It is a good Pass, and Bent 
 
and St. Wain's wagons have passed through it, and it is passable the worst of winters? 
 for Col. Beale's dragoons passed through it the same winter, and nearly the same time, 
 that Col. Fremont went through another Pass further west. The distance through 
 these passes is not more than five miles. This is the description of the country on the 
 east side of the Coo-cha-tope Pass. 
 
 On the west side of the Pass the country opens out broad and good for settlements, 
 and for roads, and is the best watered country I ever saw out to the Wah-satch Moun- 
 tains and to Lap Vegas de Santa Clara. After that the water and grass become scarce., 
 and the land poor, and it is called desert, though travellers find camping grounds every 
 night; and the great cavalcades of many thousand head of horses from California to 
 New Mexico annually passed along it. After you go through the Pass at the head of 
 ihe Del Norte, there are many trails bearing Southwest towards the great Spanish trail 
 by Abiquiu, which they join in the forks of the Grand river and Green river, (forks of 
 the great Colorado of the West,) where it is a great beaten road, easy to follow day or 
 night. The country is wooded on the streams with prairies between, and streams every 
 three or five miles, as the great Colorado here gathers its head waters from the Wah- 
 satch and Rocky Mountain ranges, which covered all over with snow in the winter, and 
 have snow upon their tops in the summer, which sends down so much water, artd cool, 
 clear and good. ' And this is the case generally out to the Wah satch Mountains and 
 Las Vegas de Santa Clara a dista'nce of near five hundred miles from the head of the 
 Del Norte. Wagons can now travel this route to California, and have done it. In the 
 year 1837, two families named Sloover and Pope, with their wagons and two Mexicans, 
 went from Taos that way. 
 
 Col. Fremont was looking for the Coo cha-tope Pass in the winter of 1848-9, and 
 was near enough to have seen it, if it had not been hid by the lapping of the moun- 
 tains, when his guide led him off into the mountains, instead of keeping up the dry 
 valley, which he wished to do, and which would have taken him through easy. It was 
 the worst winter for snow, but we could travel all the time in the valleys and passes. I 
 Was below hirti on the waters of the Arkansas at the same time, acting as guide to Col. 
 Beale, who was out after the Apache Indians with a detachment of dragoons, and we 
 heard of him at the Pueblo's. He went as high as Hard Scrabble and got corn before 
 he crossed into the valley of San Luis, and we got corn at the Greenhorn Pueblo on the 
 San Carlos creek, about 50 or 60 miles below him; and heard that he had passed along, 
 and supposed that he had gone safe through, and knew no better till he got back to 
 Taos, when I told him how near he had been to the place he was looking for. We 
 passed with the dragoons through the Pass El Sangre de Christo, (Blood of Christ,) and 
 got through easy; and that was the dead of winter, and greatest snow we ever had. 
 
 There is a way also up the Arkansas to get to the waters of the Great Colorado. It 
 is by Bent's Fort, by the Pueblo's and Hard Scrabble, (at all which places corn and 
 Tegetables are raised,) and by Withams's fishery, 'and at the head of the river, leaving 
 the THUEB PARKS to the north. Horsemen and stock can go that way. Maxwell, of 
 Taos, drove out between four and five thousand head of sheep and cattle last summer, 
 intending to take them to California, but went to the Great Salt Lake, and sold them 
 there. 
 
 A wagon can now go from Missouri to California through the Coo cha-tope Pass 
 without crossing any mountain but the Sierra Blanca, (and there have the choice of 
 three good passes,) and without crossing any swamp 01 large river, and nearly on a 
 straight line all the way, only bearing a little south. And supplies of grain and cattle 
 can be had from the Pueblo's on the Upper Arkansas, and also from the Mexicans in 
 the valley of St. Louis, and also from the Mormons at Ojn San Jose, and at their settle- 
 ment on the Nicollet river, and at Las Vegas de Santa Clara. 
 
 I have been from New Mexico to California four times, namely, the way I guided 
 Col. Cook, the way I guided Capt. Sitgreaves, and the Salinas route, and the Abiquio 
 route; and of these four the one I guided Capt. Sitgreaves is, as I informed Mr. Reward, 
 the best and shortest from from Santa Fe or Albuquerque; but from places further north, 
 and especially from Missouri, the Coo-cha-tope Pass is best and shortest; and has most 
 water, grass, wood, and good land on it; and has most snow, but not enough to prevent 
 winter travelling; so that when there is much snow in the trail by Abiquiu, people from 
 Taos go that way, as I have already said. The snow in that country is dty, and the 
 moccasins 'hat we wear do not get damp or wet. 
 
 And being asked by Col. Benton to state the best way from Missouri to California, I 
 answer: Start as the people now do, going to New Mexico, from the frontier of the 
 State at Kanzas or Independence, and for summer travelling go through the prairies up 
 
towards Bent's Fort, and up the Huerfano to the Pass El Sangre de Christo; then out 
 by the Coo cha tope Pass, following a trail to to the great Spanish trail. The winter 
 travel would be to start from the same point, but follow the Kanzas liver valley for the 
 aake of the wood, and when that gives out cross to the Arkansas, which is not far off, 
 and level between, and follow that up for wood. The prairie is the way in the summer, 
 but winter travelling must have the protection of woods and timber against snow 
 storms. And everything that I tell I can show, and would undertake to guide a party 
 aafe through with wagons now. 
 
 ANTOINE LEROUX. 
 WASHINGTON CITT, Marcti 1, 1853, 
 
 Letter from CoL FREMONT to the Railroad Convention, April, 1850. 
 
 To Mtssers. B. Gerhard, and others, Committee, &c. 
 
 GERTLEMEX: It would have given me great pleasure to have been able to accept your 
 kind invitation, and to have met the interesting Mississippi and Pacific Railroad Con- 
 vention on Monday, but the remains of a Chagres fever confine me to ray room, and 
 ieave me no other mode of showing my sense of your attention, and manifesting the 
 interest I take in the great object which assembles this convention, than to contribute, 
 go far as I can, to the mass of information which will be laid before it. In doing this, 
 I regret that the state of my health does not permit even the labor necessary to give the 
 distances and barometrical elevations along the route, which I shall offer for your con- 
 sideration, but I have caused a skeleton map, rudely sketched, and which, in exhibiting 
 the prominent features of the country and general direction of the line, will be found 
 sufficiently full and accurate to illustrate what I have to say. 
 
 Many lines of exploration through the wilderness country from our inhabited frontier, 
 to the Pacific ocean, have conclusively satisfied me that the region or belt of country, 
 lying between the 38th and 39th parallels of latitude, offer singular facilities and extra- 
 ordinary comparative advantages for the construction of the proposed road. 
 
 I propose, therefore, to occupy your attention solely with this line, for the clear un- 
 derstanding of which it will aid to keep under the eye the accompanying map, upon 
 which the unbroken red lines are intended to show that the regions which they traverse 
 have been already explored, while the broken red lines indicate what is known only 
 from reliable information. 
 
 The country to be traversed by the proposed road, exhibits but two great features 
 the prairies, reaching to about the one hundred and fifth degree of longitude, and the 
 mountains with which it is bristling from that point to the snores of the Pacific ocean. 
 Soi-'.e years of travel among thete mountains, during which I was occupied principally 
 in searching for convenient passes and good lines of communication, gradually led me 
 to comprehend their structure, and to understand that among this extended mass of 
 mountains, there is nowhere to be found a great continuous range, having an unbroken 
 crest, where passes are only to be found in the comparatively small depressions of the 
 summit line. 
 
 Throughout this great extent of country, sti etching in each way about seventeen de- 
 grees, all these apparently continuous ranges are composed of lengthened blocks of 
 mountains, separate and detached, of greater or less length, according to the magnitude 
 of the chain they compose each one possessir gits separate, noted and prominent peaks, 
 and lying parallel to each other, but not usually so to the general direction of the range, 
 but in many cases lying diagonally across it, springing suddenly up from the general 
 level of the country ; sometimes rising into bare and rocky summits of great height, they 
 leave openings through the range but little above this general level, and by which they 
 can be passed without climbing a mountain. Generally, these openings are wooded val- 
 ley?, where the mountain springs from either ide collect together, forming often the 
 main branches of some mighty stream. Aggregated together in this way, they go on 
 to form the great chains of the Rocky mountains and Sierra Nevada, as well as the 
 smaller and secondary ranges which occupy the intervening space With the gradual 
 discovery of this system, I became satisfied, not only of the entire practicability, but of 
 the easy construction of a railroad across this rugged region. As this peculiarity of the 
 country forma the basis of my information, I desire to state it clearly at the outset, in 
 
6 
 
 order that I may be more readily understood in proceeding to show that this continent 
 can be crossed from the Mississippi to the Pacific, without climbing a mountain, and on 
 the very line which evary national consideration would require to connect the great 
 Valley of the West with the Pacific ocean. 
 
 In describing the belt of country through which the road should pass, it will be found 
 convenient to divide the entire line into three parts the eastern, reaching from the mouth 
 of the Kansas to the head of the Del Norte; the middle, from the head of the Del Norte 
 to the rim of the Great Basin; and the western, from the rim of the Great Basin to the 
 ocean. Beginning near the 39th parallel of latitude, at the mouth of the Kansas, the 
 road would extend along the valley of that river some three or four hundred miles, tra- 
 versing a beautiful and wooded country of great fertility of soil, well adapted to settle- 
 ment and cultivation. From the upper waters of the Kansas, falling easily over into 
 the valley of the Arkansas, the road strikes that river about a hundred miles below the 
 foot of the mountains, continuing up it only to the mouth of the Huerfano river. From 
 this point, the p'rairie plains sweep directly up to the mountains, which dominate them 
 as high lands do the ocean. The Huerfano is one of the upper branches of the Arkan- 
 sas, and following the line of this stream, the road would here enter a country magnifi- 
 cently beautiful, timbered, having many coves or valleys of great fertility; having a mild 
 and beautiful climate; having throughout the valley country short winters, which spend 
 their force in the elevated regions of the mountains. The range of mountains in which 
 this stream finds its head springs, is distinguithed by having its summits almost con- 
 stantly enveloped in clouds of rain or snow, from which it obtains the name of Sierra 
 Mojada, or Wet mountain. This chain is remarkable among the Rocky mountain 
 ranges for the singular grandeur of its winter scenery, which has been characterized by 
 travelers, who have seen both, as unsurpassed either in the Alps or the Himalaya. 
 Their naked, rocky summits are grouped into numerous peaks, which rise from the 
 midst of black piney forests, whence many small streams go to the valley below. Follow- 
 ing by an open wagon way, the Valley of the Huerfano, the road reaches the immediate 
 foot of the mountain, at the entrance of a remarkable pass, almost everywhere sur- 
 rounded by bold, rocky mountain masses. From one foot of the mountain to the other, 
 the pass is about five miles long, a level valley from two to four hundred yards wide, 
 the mountains rising abruptly on either side. With scarcely a distinguishable rise from 
 the river plains, the road here passes directly through or between the mountains, emerg- 
 ing in the Valley of the Del Norte, here some forty or fifty miles broad, or more pro- 
 perly a continuation northward of the valley in which the Del Norte runs. {'I km is 
 the Pass El Sangrt de Chruto Blood of Christ in the Sierra Blanea White 
 Mountain described in Lfraux's statement, but the names of which were unknown 
 to Col. Freemont.) Crossing this flat country, or opening between the mountains, 
 and encountering no water-course in its way, the road would reach the entrance of a 
 pass in the Colorado mountains, familiarly known to the New Mexican and Indian 
 traders, who are accustomed to traverse it all seasons of the year, and who represent it 
 as conducting to the waters of the Colorado river through a handsome rolling grass- 
 covered country, and affording practicable wagon routes. (This is the Coo-cha tope 
 Pas? described by Mr. Leroux.} 
 
 This section of the route, so far as the entrance to this pass, covering twelve degrees 
 of longitude, I am able to speak of from actual exploration, and to say that the line de- 
 scribed is not only practicable, but affords many and singular facilities for the construc- 
 tion of a railway, and offers many advantages in the fertile and wooded country through 
 which it lies in the greater part of its course. 
 
 In the whole distance there is not an elevation worthy of the name to be surmounted, 
 and a level of about eight thousand feet is gained without almost perceptible ascent. 
 Up the Kansas and Huerfano river valleys, the country is wooded and watered; the 
 Valley of the Del None is open, but wood is abundant in the neighboring mountains, 
 and land fit for cultivation is found almost continuously along the water-courses, from 
 the mouth of the Kansas to the head of the Valley of the Del Norte 
 
 A journey, undertaken in the winter of 1848-9, (and interrupted here by entering 
 more to the southward the rugged Mountain of St. John's, one of the most impractica- 
 ble on the continent,) was intended to make a correct examination of this pass, and the 
 country beyond to the rim of the Great Basin. The failure of this expedition, leaves 
 only for this middle portion of our line such knowledge as we have been able to obtains 
 from trappers and Indian traders. The information thus obtained, had led me to at- 
 tempt its exploration, as all accounts concurred in representing it practicable for a 
 road 5 and the information thus obtained was considered to be sufficiently reliable. 
 
(The statement of Mr. Leroux fills up this gap, and describes this " middle portion;" 
 and confirms the whole view taken of the structure of the mountains, and shows the 
 500 miles from the head of the Del Norte to Las Vegas de Santa Clara, across the 
 Valley of the Upper Colorado, to be a fine country.) 
 
 According to this information, the same structure of the country to which I have 
 called your attention above, as forming a system among the mountains, holds good; 
 and I accordingly found no difficulty in believing that the road would readily avoid any 
 obstacles which might be presented in the shape of mountain ranges, and easily reach 
 the Basin. 
 
 In pronouncing upon the practicability of a road through this section, I proceed upon 
 my general knowledge of the face of the country, upon information received from hunters 
 and residents in New Mexico, and upon the established fact, that it has not only been 
 traveled, but at all seasons of the year, and is one of the travelling routes from New 
 Mexico to California. 
 
 The third section of the map is from the Wahsatch mountain to the Sierra Nevada, 
 and thence to the Bay of San Francisco. This route traverses the- Great Basin, pre- 
 senting three different lines, which you will find indicated on the map. Repeated 
 journeys have given me more or less knowledge of the country along these lines, and I 
 consider all of them practicable, although the question of preference remains to be settled. 
 The northern line is that of the Humboldt river, which, although deflecting from the 
 direct*course to the Bay, commands in its approach to the mountains several practicable 
 passes, the lowest of which is only 4,500 feet above the sea. 
 
 The southern line, which in crossing the Basin has not the same freedom from ob- 
 struction enjoyed by the open ri^lr line of the North, is still entirely practicable, and 
 possesses the advantage of crossing the Sierra Nevada at a remarkably low depression, 
 called Walker's Pass, more commonly known as the Point of the Mountains, and 
 being in fact a termination of one of the mountains which go from that chain. 
 
 This pass is near the 35th degree of latitude, and near the head of the beautiful and 
 fertile Valley of the San Joaquin; which the road thence would follow down to its junc- 
 tion with the Sacramento, or to some point on the Bay. This route deflects to the 
 south about as rauch as the other does to the north, but secures a good way, and finds 
 no obstacle from the Sierra, turning that mountain where it has sunk down nearly to 
 he level of the country. Among the recent proceedings of the California legislature, 
 resolations were introduced in favor of bringing in the rail-way at this pass. 
 
 The third line, which is the middle and direct line, and that to which I gave a decid- 
 ed preference, is less known to me than either of the others ; but I believe fully in its 
 practicability, and only see, as the principal obstacle to be overcome, the Great Sierra 
 itself, which it would strike near its centre. That obstacle is not considered insurmount- 
 able, nor in the present state of rail-way science, sufficient to turn us from the direct 
 route. A pass is known as indicated by the line upon the map, which labor would ren- 
 per practicable. Other passes are also known to the north and south; and if tunneling 
 becomes necessary, the structure of the mountains is such as to allow tunnels to be used 
 with the greatest advantage. Narrow places are presented where opposite gorges ap- 
 proach each other, and a wall of some two or three thousand feet often separates points 
 which may not be more than a quarter or half of a mile apart at its base. It will also 
 be remembered, that the Great Basin east of the Sierra Nevada has a general elevation 
 of over four thousand feet, so that the mountain would be approached on the east at 
 that elevation; and on the west the slope is wide, though descending to near the level 
 of tide water. 
 
 The foregoing Remarks embody all the general information I am now able to give 
 upon this line. The first section of it, from the Missouri frontier to the head of the 
 Del Norte, is explored, and needs no further reconnoisance. It is ready for the location 
 of the road by a practical engineer. The second and third sections require further ex- 
 plorations to determine, not upon practicability, but upon the preference due to one over 
 the others. \ v 
 
 A party of three hundred men, skilfully directed, with the assistance of tkree or four 
 practical road makers, would be sufficient to lay out the whole route, and clear and 
 open a common road in the course of the next spring and summer, so as to be passable 
 for wagons and carriages, and as rapidly traversed as any of the common roads in the 
 United States. 
 
 The obstacles which I have not mentioned are, the winter impediment of snows, and 
 the temporary one from the hostility of Indians. The latter can be surmounted by 
 military stations, sending out military patrols to clear and scour the line. The snows 
 
are less formidable than would be supposed, from the great elevation of the central part 
 of the route. 
 
 They are dry, and therefore more readily passed through, are thin in the valleys, and 
 remain on them only during a very brief winter. The winter of my last expedition 
 was one of nnprecedentedly deep and early snows, yet in the Valleys of the Kanzas and 
 Arkansas, it was thin; in the Valley of Huerfano, none; and in the Valley of Del 
 Norte, at the end of November, but a few inches deep. Even in this severe winter, on 
 the 5th of December, at the greatest elevation crossed by the eastern section of the line 
 being in the narrow pass between the Arkansas and Del Norte the snow was only 
 three feet deep; the thermomether at zero near mid-day. The weather in these high 
 mountains and deep valleys is of a character adapted to such localities, extremely cold 
 on the mountains, while temperate in the valleys. I have seen it storming for days to- 
 gether on the mountains, in a way to be destructive to all animal life exposed to it, 
 while in the valley there would be pleasant sunshine, and the animals feeding on nutri- 
 tious grass. Beyond the Rocky mountains, the cold is less, and the snows become a 
 less and more transient obstacle. 
 
 These are my views of a route for the road or roads (a common, one is first wanted) 
 from the Mississippi to the Pacific. It fulfils, in my opinion, all the conditions of a 
 route for a national throughfare : 
 
 1st. It is direct. The course is almost a straight line from end to end. St. Lquis is 
 between 38 and 39; San Francisco is about the same; the route is between these paral- 
 lels, or nearly between them the whole way. 
 
 2d. It is central to territory. It is through the terr^prial centre west of the Missis- 
 sippi, and its prolongation to the Atlantic ocean would be central to the States east of 
 that river. It is also central to business and population, and unites the greatest com- 
 mercial point in the Valley of the Mississippi, with the greatest commercial point on the 
 coast of the Pacific. 
 
 3d. It combines the advantages for making and preserving the road wood, water, 
 and soil, for inhabitation and cultivation. 
 
 4th. It is a healthy route. No diseases of any kind upon it; and the valetudinarian 
 might travel it in his own vehicle, on horse, or even on foot, for the mere restoration of 
 health and recovery of spirits. 
 
 It not only fulfils all the conditions of a national route, but it is preferable to any 
 ether. It is preferable to the South Pass from being near four degrees further south, 
 mor^e free from open plains, and free from the crossing of great rivers. Its course is 
 parallel with the rivers, there being but one (the Upper Colorado) directly crossing its 
 line. There are passes at the head of the Arkansas, in the Three Parks, and north of 
 them, but none equal to this by the Rio del Norte. 
 
 In conclusion, I have to say that I believe in the practicability of this work, and that 
 every national consideration requires it to be done, and to be done at once, and as a 
 national work, by the United States. 
 
 Your obliged fellow-citizen, 
 
 J. C. FREMONT. 
 
 These two documents the letter of Col. Fremont and the state- 
 ment of Mr. Leroux establish the facts which are necessary to 
 give the Central route a place in the public mind, and to entitle 
 it to an examination under the act of Congress ; ami in the mean- 
 time to satisfy all inquirers, that this great work is not only 
 practicable but easy, and on the exact line which every national 
 consideration would require it to be upon, and with every advan- 
 tage of facile construction and universal use. Central to the 
 Union, and embracing the business centres of the Atlantic and 
 Pacific, and the Mississippi valley States on a straight line with 
 San Francisco and St. Louis, and connecting at this latter point 
 with the concentrated steamboat navigation of the Great West, 
 and with the entire railroad system, from the Mississippi to the 
 Atlantic straight and smooth not a mountain to be climbed, a 
 
9 
 
 river or swamp to be crossed, a hill to be tunnelled wood, water, 
 and soil for continuous settlement coal known to be on many 
 points of the line the whole traversable in winter, and all south 
 of 39, 38, and 37 degrees ; such is the character of the CENTRAL 
 route, and which now claims a share of the public attention, and 
 of the Congress appropriation. I shall ask for it that justice, and 
 that it may be examined by some practical man whom I can 
 commend, and who will have a stomach to the work, and do it 
 without talk or delay. 
 
 Regarding it as certain that the road' is to be made, I now add 
 some observations upon its character and construction ; believing 
 that erroneous ideas prevail upon these points, which the public 
 good requires to be corrected. I am opposed to all schemes of 
 making a job of the work against mixing public and private 
 interests against furnishing the means of making the road to 
 jobbers, and then letting them own it, and charge the people 
 double upon condition of carrying for the Federal Government 
 free. I hold that it should be made by the United States, so far 
 as their territory extends, (which would be almost the whole dis- 
 tance on the Central route,) leaving the two ends, where it would 
 go through States, to the operation of State laws and State au- 
 thority. This would be irom the Missouri State line, at the 
 mouth of the Kanzas, to a point on the California State line, op- 
 posite the end of the Sierra Nevada at Walker's Pass a distance 
 of 21| degrees of longitude, equal to about 1200 miles, (56 miles 
 to a degree in that latitude,) with a southern deflection, as it 
 went west, of three and a half degrees. This would be the main 
 body of the work, leaving the two ends to roads to be made unoWr 
 State authority, and which are already projected, and in some 
 degree commenced both in California and Missouri. In the mean- 
 time, and as a permanent help and resource at each end of the 
 road, there is now steamboat transportation of several hundred 
 miles at each end from San Francisco half way up the San 
 Joaquin, or more; from St. Louis to the mouth of the Kanzas, 
 and up it (as soon as the new Territory is established) several 
 hundred miles further. Stages also, and all the usual land con- 
 veyances, would be at each end of the national territorial road. 
 
 My idea is, that the road should be built by the United States 
 by the creation of a stock, hypothecated upon the public lands, 
 and payable at a fixed period at the Federal Treasury ; and that 
 an adequate force should be put upon it to do the work at once. 
 We think nothing of levying an army of fifty or an hundred thou- 
 sand men for a war ; here is an object of more moment to the 
 United States, and to the WORLD, than many wars ; and I should 
 be in favor of seeing an army of laborers employed upon it at 
 once', and the work done in seven years, instead of piddling at it 
 for a lifetime. And why not? We can have the money and the 
 men ; and on a line of 1200 miles there would be room for 50,000 
 men to work without elbowing each other. It would only be 
 forty men to the mile. The pre-emption system would give the 
 
10 
 
 money and the settlers the right kind of settlers men who 
 would defend themselves from Indians, and raise provisions for 
 the supply of the road, and occupy it on both sides, and from one 
 end to the other, the first season they were allowed to do so. 
 The Indian title should be extinguished on a breadth of fifty to 
 an hundred miles, and a mile reserved for the different tracks of 
 railroads, and for a common road, and for telegraphic lines. It 
 is a work for posterity, and for three continents ; and we should 
 elevate ourselves to the grandeur of the occasion. The main street 
 in the city which Alexander the Great founded to supercede Tyre, 
 in the East India trade, was five miles long and a thousand feet wide, 
 with a colonnaded and covered footway of 100 feet on each side. 
 There were men of ample ideas in those times, and still it was 
 not the age that built the pyramids. "From the summit of those 
 pyramids, said the conqueror of the Mamelukes, forty centuries 
 look down upon us." The time will come when forty centuries 
 may look back upon this road ; and they should not be left to re- 
 pine at the improvidence which would dwindle it to the petty 
 calculations of jobbers, corporators, and speculators. 
 
 I repeat ; I deem all schemes of making this road by a mixture 
 of public and private means ; giving lands or money to compan- 
 ies to make it, and then let them own it ; conveying for the 
 United States gratis, and doubling upon the people to make it 
 up ; getting, in addition to their other profits, interest upon the 
 cost of construction, and which cost was defrayed by the United 
 States ; and all this crowned with a monopoly of the road ; 1 
 deem all such schemes to be fundamentally unwise, unjust to the 
 cjjpmunity, impolitic, and vicious. I hold that the United States 
 should build the road and the fixtures, and let out the use of it 
 for periods of seven or ten years to contractors, who will carry 
 all freight, public and private, and all passengers, individual and 
 governmental, at the same rate the lowest responsible bidder to 
 take the contract and furnish his own cars and run them ; and if 
 under bid, at the end of his time, or superceded, the successor to 
 take all his stock at valuation. 
 
 It is an illusion and a cheat, to suppose that contractors will 
 carry for the United States gratis. They will get their pay 
 somewhere, and ought ; and the fair way, and the only intelligi- 
 ble way, and the only way for each party to know what they 
 are about, is for the Uuited States to pay like an individual for 
 all that is done for it. It is the only way to save the people from 
 being oppressed and plundered. Besides, what is the Govern- 
 ment our Government but the people ? Why rob one pocket to 
 put in the other? Why rob individuals in detail, to give to the 
 community as a Government, especially when it is very certain 
 that the individuals double charged will never get back any part 
 of their money ? The United States pay their ocean steamers for 
 all they carry, and that enormously, and to the establishment of 
 oppressive monopolies ; why not pay their land steamers fairly 
 and equitably, instead of throwing the burden upon the travelling 
 
11 
 
 and the business community ? This road is to be a long one, and 
 intended for universal use, and travel and freight upon it should 
 be made as cheap as possible. Besides our own trade, and our 
 travel, the trade and travel of Europe with Asia should go upon 
 it. A free road that is to say, a road which, like the ocean or a 
 river, charges nothing for its use is the first great step towards 
 cheap transportation ; and for the Government to pay like indi- 
 viduals is the second and completing step to that cheapness. 
 
 I now add some notices on the line of country over which this 
 route would pass, with the view of showing the facility of making 
 the road, and the capabilities of the country for continuous, popu- 
 lous, and powerful settlements all along it. 
 
 1. THE KANZAS RIVER. Its mouth is in lat. 39, Ion. 94 J, eleva 
 tionof the country 700 feet above the level of the Gulf of Mexico 
 Its head is in lat. 39, Ion. 103, elevation about. 4,000 feet, and its 
 course (the Smoky Hill fork) nearly straight, and skirting the 
 latitude of 39 all the way. It has four forks, all close together, 
 and parallel to each other. It is without falls, and its valley, if 
 that can be called valley, which is nearly on a level with the 
 prairies on each side, is fertile, grassy, and wooded. The two 
 main forks, the Smoky Hill and Republican, (where the United 
 States is now establishing a fort,) is in latitude 39 degrees, 3 
 minutes, longitude 96 degrees, 24 minutes, elevation 926 feet 
 above the Gulf of Mexico. Fremont describes the two streams 
 (1st of June) as too deep to be forded, and the country as beauti- 
 fully watered with numerous streams, and handsomely timbered, 
 some of the oaks five or six feet in diameter, the soil a rich, black 
 vegetable mould. Higher up, and half way up the Smoky Hill 
 fork, he describes the country as still assimilating to northwest 
 Missouri, the river having a uniform breadth of 80 to 100 yards, 
 with many small streams falling in, wooded with oak, large elms 
 and the usual varieties of timber common to the lower part of 
 the river. The mouth of the river is in communication with the 
 rich and populous country of Missouri, with supplies of every 
 kind at hand, and transportation easy up the Kanzas river by 
 water, and over the clean level prairies now traversed by annual 
 thousands of wagons. 
 
 2. THE UPPER ARKANSAS AND ITS VALLEY. Taking Bent's Fort, 
 near the mouth of the Huerfano, as a point in the line, and its 
 latitude is about 38, longitude 103^, and elevation above 4,000 
 feet. Its head is about latitude 39, and there are several Pueblo's 
 above, where Indian corn, other grain and vegetables are grown, 
 and cattle, sheep and horses are raised, which shelter and feed 
 themselves all the winter. There is wood upon the river, both 
 above and below the fort, and it is fordable any where for some 
 hundreds of miles. It has the aspect of a settled country, and 
 Fremont speaks of travelling both above and below the fort, 
 "along a broad wagon road" Soil good for cultivation. 
 
12 
 
 3. HUERFANO OR ORPHAN RIVER. The mouth is just above Bent's 
 Fort, and therefore it has about the same geographical position. 
 It comes in from the southwest, and its head is in about latitude 
 37^, and longitude 105^, elevation not known, but not considera- 
 ble as it has no falls. It flows through an open country, traversa- 
 ble on a broad space, having the Sierra Mohada, or Wet Moun- 
 tain, on the west, and is the line of approach to the Pass El 
 Sangre de Christo, and others which lead through the Sierra 
 Blanca, (in which it heads,) into the head valley of the Del 
 Norte. Fremont found no snow in this Pass. 
 
 4. THE VALLEY OF ST. Louis. This is the head valley of the 
 Dei Norte, about between latitude 37 and 38, and between longi- 
 tude 105 and 107 elevation not known. Fremont and Lerotix 
 both describe it as rich and beautiful, valuable in itself, and the 
 more so as being about half way between St. Louis and San 
 Francisco. The United States have the Fort, (Massachusetts,) 
 in it, and it is filling up with settlers. It must have an area of 
 5 or 6,000 square miles, is nearly surrounded by grand moun- 
 tains, and must be one of the finest and most picturesque moun- 
 tain valleys in the world. Fremont found but little snow in it. 
 
 5. THE PASS COO-CHA-TOPE, OR EL.PUERTO. Its latitude is believed 
 to be near 39, longitude about 107^, elevation hardly less than 
 7,000 feet. It is a continuation of the St. Louis valley, narrowed 
 down to eight miles, level, and no obstruction but a dense forest 
 of large pines. Several trails lead through it, and many from it 
 towards the West. The first western water is the Rio Compadre, 
 a branch of the Grand river, or east fork of the Great Colorado. 
 From what Leroux tells me. the whole breadth of eight miles is 
 good for a road, and he himself never followed any particular 
 trail on going through it. It is a magnificent Pass, worthy to be 
 called EL PUERTO, (THE GATE,) and worthy to open the door from 
 the East to the great western slope of the North American con- 
 tinent, and in the right place, and accompanied by all advan- 
 tages. 
 
 From this Pass to the mouth of the Kanzas the face of the 
 country is an inclined plane, level to the eye, but rising under the 
 barometer the country broad and open, and traversable any 
 where. The coal fields of Missouri are known to extend high up. 
 Fremont says it is ready for the operative engineer to go and lay 
 down the road. 
 
 6. THE VALLEY OF THE UPPER COLORADO. This large valley lies 
 between the latitudes 37 aud 44, and between longitudes 107 and 
 113, and is crossed by the Great Spanish Trail probably about 
 latitude 38. Its elevation at the crossing of Green river, the 
 main fork, may be conjectured at between 4 and 5,000 feet, being 
 ascertained by Fremont to be 6,000 feet, where he crossed the 
 same river two or three degrees higher up. It is large enough 
 
for a great State, and has sufficient tillable land, with wood and 
 prairie intermixed, and a milder climate than in corresponding 
 latitudes east of the mountains. It is famous for its many streams 
 of good water, and is not known to present any obstruction to a 
 road. The two principal streams (Green and Grand rivers) are 
 easily passed, the latter usually fordable the former usually 
 ferried. 
 
 7. LAS VEGAS DE SANTA CLARA. This will be an important 
 stage in the route, being the terminating point of the good coun- 
 try, and the commencement of what is called the desert; and as 
 such is already settled by the Mormons, as are two other places 
 before you get to it one, Nicollet's river, the other the Ojo San 
 Jose, spring of St. Joseph. Its latitude, according to Fremont, 
 37| degrees, its longitude 115|, elevation above the sea 5,280 
 feet. It is described by Fremont as a mountain meadow, rich in 
 bunch grass, and fresh with numerous springs of clear water, all 
 refreshing and delightful to look upon ; the meadow, about a 
 mile wide and ten miles long, bordered by grassy hills and moun- 
 tains, some of them rising two thousand feet, and still white with 
 snow down to the level of the Vegas, (May 12,) while the 
 weather was hot in the desert from which he had issued. From 
 this point a pretty stream called the Santa Clara, fork of the Rio 
 Virgen, (River of the Virgin,) issues to the south, and reaches the 
 Great Colorado of the west, and has a good cultivation on the 
 lower part of it. From Las Vegas the trail bears southwest to 
 reach Los Angeles, and makes an elbow which it will be neces- 
 sary to cut off to go nearly due west to Walker's Pass. This de- 
 sert is above three degrees of longitude in breath from 115^ to 
 118^ and is generally sterile, and deficient in grass and water, 
 though daily camping grounds are found, and the great annual 
 caravans of many thousands of horses from California to New Mex- 
 ico, were accustomed to travel it. Col. Fremont was sure of 
 finding a direct way across it, and saw at a distance a range of 
 mountains lying east and west, along the southern base of which 
 he expected to find wood, water, and soil. 
 
 8. WALKER'S PASS. This is the south end of the Sierra Ne- 
 vada, in lat. 35|, and Ion. 118J, and opens into the head of the 
 beautiful valley of San Joaquin ; and certainly, short of Paradise, 
 there is nothing more sweet and beautiful than the entry into 
 that valley at this Pass. Fremont thus describes it as first seen 
 by him the 14th of April, 1845: "One might travel the world 
 over without finding a valley more fresh and verdant more floral 
 and sylvan more alive with birds and animals more bounte- 
 ously watered, than we had left in the San Joaquin. The air 
 was filled with perfume as if we were entering a highly cultiva- 
 ted country; and instead of green, our pathway and the moun- 
 tain sides were covered with fields of yellow flowers, which here 
 was the prevailing color. Gooseberries were nearly ripe. We 
 
14 
 
 were in the midst of an advanced spring. Snow was in sight on 
 the butte of the mountain which frowned down upon us on the 
 right ; but we beheld it now with feelings of pleasant security, 
 as we rode along between green trees and on flowers, with hum- 
 ming birds and other feathered friends of the traveller enlivening 
 the serene spring air. Taking into consideration the nature of 
 the Sierra Nevada, we found this Pass an excellent one for 
 horses ; and with a little labor, or perhaps a more perfect exam- 
 ination of the localities, it might be made sufficiently practicable 
 for wagons. Its elevation was not taken, our half wild caval- 
 cade making troublesome to halt before night when once started." 
 With this Pass, the last obstacle is cleared on this route to San 
 Francisco. The Sierra Nevada is passed ; the beautiful valley 
 of San Joaquin is entered ; the gold region is almost reached ; 
 steamboat navigation is near; a railroad is already projected ; 
 you are in Tulare county, in the midst of settlements ; and can 
 say, I AM IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Thus, not only the practicability, but the absolute ease of 
 building the railroad to California is demonstrably shown, and 
 through a country all the way good for continuous and populous 
 settlements, and on the very line where every national and com- 
 mercial consideration would require it to be, and where there is 
 not more snow than in the railroad tracks of New England and 
 New York and Western Pennsylvania ; and that dry and light, 
 and readily yielding to the snow plough. A deep dry snow is 
 less impediment to the cars than a thin wet one. 
 
 I have mentioned one step taken by Congress at its late session 
 towards the accomplishment of this great object the appropria- 
 tion for surveys. I have to mention another which will operate 
 in favor of the Central route- the appropriation for extinguish- 
 ing Indian titles west of Missouri, and which will free the way 
 from the incumbrances of Indians, and open the land to pre-emp- 
 tion settlers. I was in hopes to have been able to have added 
 a third step in its favor, and the most important of all that of 
 extending the protection of law and government to the whole 
 country between Missouri and the Rocky Mountains, by estab- 
 lishing the new Territory on the Kanzas and the Grand Platte, 
 and laying it open to settlement this spring; but the bill failed in 
 the Senate, (after having passed the House of Representatives by 
 more than two to one,) not for want of a majority in the Senate 
 in its favor, nor want of time, but because it was not brought 
 forward in time. The Territorial Committee reported it prompt- 
 ly to the Senate, in company with the additional Oregon Territo- 
 rial bill ; but not being called up until near the close of the ses- 
 sion, it fell before the kind of opposition which is then always 
 fatal that of a threatened debate. It will pass at the next 
 session. 
 
 I have to regret that there was no appropriation for the construc- 
 tion of a common road from Missouri to California at this sesion. 
 I do not mean to regret the loss of a proposition to give land to 
 
15 
 
 a company to make and protect such a road : on the contrary, I 
 rejoice at the loss of that proposition. If it had passed it would 
 have become the prey of jobbers* and would have ended in cheat, 
 oppression, fraud, and monopoly. The way to make the common 
 road is for the Government to do it by an appropriation of money, 
 and leave its support and protection to the working 1 people who 
 would settle upon it under the pre-emption system. This common 
 road is now a want, and a necessity, for our California, and Oregon 
 emigration. Forty or fifty thousand go annually from the fron- 
 tiers of Missouri to these Territories, travelling without a tree 
 blazed, or a signpost put up, by the Federal Government ex- 
 posed to every species of suffering and danger, and now actually 
 marking out the whole way by the graves of the dead. The 
 Federal Government pays millions for ocean steamers to England, 
 France, Germany, Panama millions for the protection of foreign 
 commerce upon every sea keeps a squadron upon the coast of 
 Africa for the protection of the negroes from kidnappers ; but 
 it does nothing for a common road upon its own territory from 
 the Mississippi to the Pacific leaves its citizens to grope their 
 way through the wilderness, guided by the graves of their pre- 
 decessors, and adding to the number by their own. I will try 
 and do something for this common road next year, and have 
 stages, and horse-mails, and telegraphic lines put upon it for use 
 at once, while building the railroad, to which it would be a great 
 help ; for they would run together. 
 
 In view of the magnitude of this work in view of our do- 
 minion over the public land from Missouri to California in 
 view of the immensity of travel and business upon it, great at 
 the start, and to increase for a longer time than the pyramids 
 have stood I propose to have the plan of this road, or rather 
 systems of roads, on a scale commensurate to its future destiny, 
 be that as great as it may. I propose to reserve a tract a mile 
 wide for all sorts of roads, rail and macadamized, and a plain old 
 English road, such as we have been accustomed to all our lives, 
 on which the farmer in his wagon, or on his horse, and driving 
 his cattle, may go without tax or fear, with none to run over him, 
 or make him jump out of the way under the penalty of being 
 crushed. We shall want tracks for many railways, necessary in 
 future time, and all unconnected and independant of each other. 
 No monopolies on such a mighty line of travel and transporta- 
 tion. Two margins of an hundred feet each should be reserved 
 for independent and rival telegraphic lines. 
 
 I have said the public lands on the line of the road w r ill build 
 it. Ten or twelve miles on each side will do it, on the pre-emp- 
 tion principle, $1 25 an acre; and the meritorious settlers upon 
 that principle will be the guard to protect it, the hands to help 
 to make it, and the cultivators to help furnish supplies to the 
 laborers. When done it should be free, that is no tolls upon it 
 a road of that length will not bear tolls, except slight to keep it 
 in repair a transit duty on foreign commerce a slight charge 
 
16 
 
 such as all nations exact from foreign commerce traversing its 
 territory would be the proper source for the repairs which 
 would become necessary ; and thus Europe would indemnify us 
 for the use of our road. 
 
 CITIZENS : It is thirty years since I first began to write and to 
 speak on this subject of American and Asiatic communications, 
 and in favor of a " North American Road to India ;" and then de- 
 clared, with the confidence which belongs to conviction founded 
 on evidence, that the road would be made, "Immediately if aided 
 by the Federal Government, eventually by the progress of events 
 and the force of public opinion even without that aid" The time 
 has come for the fulfilment of that confident prediction. Events 
 have advanced beyond my foresight. Not only Oregon, but all 
 California is ours. We hold seventeen degrees of latitude on the 
 western coast of North America, and have a State and a Terri- 
 tory there great American communities where the idea was 
 ridiculed when I first came to Congress. Public opinion is now 
 declared has become universal and is triumphant. Congress 
 is begining to move under its stimulus; politicians are putting 
 their shoulders to the wheel. But what is more than Congress 
 and the politicians, is the PEOPLE and the BUSINESS POWER of the 
 Union. Both these great springs of action are for the road, and 
 not in the west alone, but out to the Atlantic shore ; and thus a 
 sense of interest combines with national considerations in stimu- 
 lating its construction. 
 
 Behold the extended and ramified system of railways from the 
 Mississippi to the Atlantic ! What is it but an expanded fan! 
 the top on the Atlantic coast, the spokes converging to St. Louis ! 
 and the road to San Francisco the handle to that fan, in the ex- 
 tension of which every western and every Atlantic road would 
 find its own participation in the splendid commerce of Western 
 America and Eastern Asia. 
 
 THOMAS H. BENTON. 
 
 WASHINGTON, March 4, 1853. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I add to this letter some brief extracts, from former writings and speeches on this sub- 
 ject, for the purpose of giving some views of the history of the East India trade, and 
 of its influence in promoting the wealth and power, the civilization and refinement, and 
 the arts, sciences and literature of every country that ever possessed it, or through 
 whose dominions it passed. The object of the road to the Pacific is twofold, first, to 
 connect our Atlantic and Pacific dominions; and, secondly, to turn the commerce of 
 the EAST through our country, and secure to ourselves the advantages of so great an 
 acquisition. The extracts given apply to this latter object, and therefore become a 
 natural appendix to the letter, which confines itself chiefly to the construction of the 
 road, and its necessity to our internal communications. 
 
 (A.) 
 
 I. NORTH AMERICAN ROAD TO INDIA. 
 
 Extracts from essays written and published at St. Louis, in 1819, by Thomas H, 
 
 Benton. 
 
 OUXGOIT. ASIATIC COMMERCE. 
 
 I. Commerce with Asia. Spices, aromatics, precious stones, porcelains, cottons, 
 silks, and teas, are the articles of Asiatic commerce. Silver and gold are the articles 
 with which they are purchased. From the earliest ages of the world, the precious 
 metals have flowed into Asia; and this drain, which has been incessant for several thous- 
 and years, has become still more enormous in latter times. 
 
 The American navigator sails to the east, traverses 30,000 miles of sea, doubles a 
 stormy and tempestuous cape, in order to arrive in what is called the East Indies. In 
 the meantime, what was the EAST Indies to the ancients are the WEST Indies to the 
 Americans; for they lie to the west of us, and but a few days' sail from our own coast. 
 The western shore of North America and the eastern shore of Asia front each other 
 the mild and tranquil waves of the Pacific ocean alone intervene in the broadest part 
 as narrow as the Atlantic, and in the narrowest, at Behring's Straits, only thirty miles 
 apart. Instead of going to the East, Americans should therefore go to the west to ar- 
 rive in Asia; and taking that route, they would immediately be able to carry furs and 
 bread into the markets of Asia, the first of which is now pillaged from them by Eng- 
 lishmen and Russians, the latter would have to be raised from the fertile banks of the 
 Columbia river. 
 
 II. Sought after by all nations. During thirty centuries the nations of the earth 
 have flocked to Asia in search of its rich commerce. Sacred and profane history ex- 
 hibit the same picture, of merchants loaded with gold and silver, traversing the deserts 
 on camels, or the trackless sea in ships in search of the rich productions of the east. 
 From the time of the Phoenicians to the English of the present day, the countries of 
 eastern Asia have been the chief theatres of commercial enterprise; and the nation which 
 shared this commerce in the highest degree, has acquired in all ages the first rank in the 
 arts, the sciences, in national power and individual wealth. And such will probably be 
 the case to the end of the world. Nature has made but one Asia, but one country 
 abounding with the rich productions which are found in the East Indies; and while 
 mankind continue to love spices and aromatics, precious stones, porcelains, fine cottons, 
 silks and teas, the trade with Asia, must contine to be sought after as the brightest 
 jwel in the diadem of commerce. 
 
 III. Ancient channels of this commerce. These may be traced by the ruins of the 
 great cities which grew up with the possession of this trade, and perished with its loss. 
 
 Tyre, "Queen of Ci'ie," was its first emporium. The commerce of the east cen- 
 tered there before the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, upwards of six hundred year* 
 before the coming of Christ, (Rollin. ) She traded to Arabia, Persia, and India. Hr 
 2 
 
18 
 
 route was by the Mediterranean Sea to the coast of Egypt, over land to the Red Sea by 
 the Isthmus of Suez, clown the Red Sea, and thence east by coasting voyages to the 
 countries about the Gulf of Peisia and moutns of the river Indus. The possession of 
 this commerce made Tyre the richest and the proudest city in the universe; gave her the 
 command of the seas; '-'marie, her traffickers the honorables of t^e earth," (Isaiah,) 
 and enabled her merchants to dispute with kings in the splendor of their living and the 
 vastness of their expenses. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, conquered Tyre, and 
 razed it to its foundations; but he did not found a rival city, and the continuance of 
 the Indian trade immediately restored the "Queen of Cities" to all her former degrees 
 of power and pre-eminence. Alexander conquered her again, founded a rival city on 
 the coast of Egypt, and Tyre became "a place for fishermen to dry their nets," (Ezekiel.) 
 
 The Jews, in the time of David and Solomon, succeeded to the India trade. Their 
 route was the same which the Phoenicians followed from Tyre, and their country be- 
 came the theatre of wealth, and their kings the arbiters of surrounding nations. 
 
 In the reign of Darius Hystaspes, King of Persia, a new route was opened with India. 
 It lay from the borders of Persia through the Caspian Sea, up the river Oxus to the 
 mountains which divide it from the river Indus, across those mountains with the aid of 
 the Bactrian camel, and thence down the river Indus to the countries about its mouth, 
 then the chief seat of the India trade, and the limit of the ancients in their trade to the 
 east. This route covered a distance of three thousand miles: six hundred on the Cas- 
 pian Sea, nine hundred on the Oxus, two or three hundred overland crossing the moun- 
 tains, and about twelve hundred on the river Indus. 
 
 The foundation of Alexandria created a new emporium, and opened a new route for 
 the commerce of the east, chosen with so much judgment, that it continued to be fol- 
 lowed from the time of Alexander the Great; upwards of 300 years before Christ, till 
 the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in the fifteenth century. This channel was 
 along the canal of Alexandria to the Nile, up the Nile to Coptus, thence across the 
 desert with camels to the Red Sea, and thence a coasting voyage to the mouths of the 
 Indus. The Romans, in the flourishing times of the republic and of the empire, de- 
 rived their supplies of India goods through this channel. 
 
 In the same age another channel was opened with India. It lay overland, across the 
 desert, from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea to the river Euphrates, down that 
 river to the Gulf of Persia, and thence by the usual coasting voyage to the mouths of 
 the Indus. The distance between the sea and the Euphrates (two hundred miles) re- 
 quired a station between them. It was found in a grove of palm trees; a fertile spot, 
 well watered, in the midst of sands, about midway between the sea an,d the river. Its 
 inhabitants entered with ardor in the trade of conveying commodities from the river to 
 the sea. As the most valuable productions of India, brought up the Euphrates from 
 the Persian Gulf, were of such small bulk as to bear the expense of a long land carriage, 
 this trade soon became so considerable that the opulence and power of Palmyra increased 
 rapidly. (Robertson.) Its government was best suited to the genius of a commercial 
 city REPUBLICAN. (Pliny the Elder.) This spot then began to exhibit the wonders 
 of which commerce is capable. From a trading station, it became an opulent city, the 
 capital of a great empire, the seat of science and the arts, the rival of Rome. Rome 
 would bear no rival. One of the most powerful of the emperors (Aurelian) carried the 
 arms of the empire against the "City of Commerce" Palmyra was subdued; its 
 trade diverted to other channels; and the ruins of temples arrest the admiration of the 
 traveller on the spot which was once the seat of so much power and magnificence. 
 (Volney.) 
 
 After the conquest of Egypt by the Mahomedans, the people of the Roman empire 
 were shut out from the port of Alexandria. This gave rise to the opening of a new 
 channel for the ladia trade. Constantinople became its emporium. This route lay 
 through the Black Sea to the mouth of the river Phasis; up that river and by a land 
 carriage of five days to the river Cyrus, down it to the Caspian Sea; across this sea three 
 hundred miles, to the mouth of the rner Oxus; up that river nine hundred miles, to 
 ihe city of Marcanda, (once Alexandria,) now Samarcand; thence across the mountains 
 to the countries upon the river Indus, or eastward by a journey of eighty or a hundred 
 days, with the Bactrian camel, through desert countries and wandering nations which 
 considered the merchant as their prey, to the western provinces of the Chinese empire, 
 (Pliny 'he Elder.) This route, though long and perilous, made Constantinople the 
 emporium of the India trade for all Christian nations for several centuries after the con- 
 quest of Egypt by the Mahom-.danK, and made it the seat of wealth and power for many 
 age* after the downfall of the Human empire. 
 
19 
 
 IV. Modern channels. Constantinople continued to be the emporium of the India 
 trade till the fifteenth century. The Venetians and Genoese engaged in it. They es- 
 tablished trading houses in Constantinople, and rose to power and pre-eminence from 
 the profits of this tiade. Their fleets commanded the seas, at a time when fleets were 
 jet unknown to the rest of Europe, and the citizens of these republics displayed a mag- 
 nificence in their living, which surpassed the state of the greatest monarchs beyond the 
 Alps, (Robertson.) From Venice and Genoa the commerce of Asia spread into the 
 north of Europe. Burges and Antwerp became its emporia, and retain to this day 
 evident signs of the wealth and splendor to which they attained. This was the longest 
 and most perilous route over which the commerce of India has been conducted. It is 
 truly astonishing to think of it. From Burges and Antwerp to Genoa and Venice, 
 thenc* to Constantinople, across the Black Sea, across the Caspian Sea, up the river 
 Oxus to Samarcand, the limit of Alexander's march towards the northeast of Asia: and 
 at Samarcand it seemed that the journey was only beginning, as there commenced the 
 voyage overland with the Bactrian camel, through desert regions and nations of robbers, 
 to be continued from eighty to a hundred days to arrive in the western provinces of 
 China, where the most valuable productions of the east were then found. Yet so great 
 were the profits the trade, that, under all these disadvantages, the cities of Constanti- 
 nople, of Venice, of Genoa, of Burges and Antwerp, become the seats of learning and 
 refinement, of luxury and magnificence, of maritime and military power, when all other 
 parts of Europe were sunk in poverty and ignorance, darkness and barbarism. 
 
 Towards the end of the Inth century, the Cape of Good Hope was doubled. A new 
 route was then opened into India. The Portuguese, who made this discovery, became 
 the masters of the India trade, destroyed the fleets of the Turks and Venitians which 
 were launched upon the Red Sea to keep open the ancient channel through Egypt, and 
 established a commercial empire in India. Portugal then became one of the most pow- 
 erful nations by sea and land, and Lisbon the centre of European wealth and commerce. 
 
 The passage by the Cape of Good Hope (sometimes by Cape Horn) has since con- 
 tinued to be the route to India. 
 
 The Portuguese did not long retain their monopolies. The Dutch became their com- 
 petitors, and soon after their successor in the India trade. Portugal declined to its 
 original insignificance. Holland rose to wealth and power by sea and land, and Am- 
 sterdam became the principal mart of Europe. 
 
 The English followed the Dutch, and have surpassed all their predecessors in the suc- 
 cessful prosecution of the India trade. A company of their merchants have erected an 
 empire in India, maintained fleets and armies, subjugated vast empires, dethroned pow- 
 erful monarchs, disposed of kingdoms and principalities as other merchants dispose of 
 bales of metchandise; and with the the riches thence derived, England (a spot no larger 
 than one of our States) has been able to contend single handed against the combined 
 powers of Europe, to triumph over them, and to impress her policy, more or less, upon 
 every quarter of the globe. 
 
 One other route, among the modern channels of commerce, remains to be mentioned. 
 It is the line followed by the Russians from the city of Moscow to the frontiers of China. 
 By this route the Russians carry on a trade with China worth three or four millions of 
 dollars per annum, in which the productions of the respective countries are bartered 
 against each other, almost the only instance of trade by barter which any nation has 
 carried on with the people of the east, but sufficient to show that there are articlee for 
 which the Chinese will barter the rich productions of their country. This route is often 
 made entirely over land, and is then upwards of six thousand miles in length; some- 
 times by the river Wolga, the Caspian Sea, and the river Oius, and thence over land by 
 the ancient route from Constantinople, which increases the distance but relieves in some 
 degree the labor of the voyage by substituting for a part of the way water for land car- 
 riage. 
 
 Servilely following the Europeans in almost everything, the people of the United 
 States also follow them in their route to India. They quit Asia as it were, leave it be- 
 hind them, to sail thirty thousand miles, doubling a formidable cape and braving th 
 dangers of a tempestuous sea, to arrive in a country which is only a few days' sail from 
 their own continent. They do this because the people of Europe, who can do no better, 
 have done so before them. In the meantime the efforts of the English to discover a 
 northwest passage to Asia, should convince them that even the Europeans would not 
 submit to circumnavigate the globe in their voyage to India, if a western route could be 
 found through, or around, the northern parts of the American continent. Still, with 
 all the danger* added to the length of the voyage, the East India trade is the richest vejn 
 
20 
 
 of American commerce, and soonest leads to the most splendid fortunes; convincing 
 proof of what it would be if a new route was opened, exclusively American, short, safe, 
 cheap, and direct, and substituting a trade in barter for the present ruinous drain of gold 
 and silver. 
 
 V. New route proposed for the people of the United States by the Columbia and 
 Missouri rivers. Columbus was the first who conceived the idea of going west to ar- 
 rive at the East Indies. His discovery of America was owing to that idea. He was in 
 search of a western passage to the eastern coast of Asia when he was arrested by the 
 unexpected intervention of the American continent. Nor had he any idea that he had 
 found a new world. He believed himself on the coast of India, and under that belief 
 gave the name of Indians to the inhabitants; a name which they have retained ever 
 since, although the error on which it was founded has been long since exploded. 
 (Robertson. ) 
 
 La Salle, founder of the French colony in the valley of the Mississippi a man pro- 
 nounced by Mr. Adams to be second only to Columbus in th list of great discoverers 
 was the next who cherished the idea of going west to india. The French were then 
 masters of the Canadas, and were daily extending their discoveries to the interior of 
 North America. The existence of a chain of great lakes stretching westward being as- 
 certained, he believed that an inland passage to China might be discovered by means of 
 these lakes and the rivers flowing into the Pacific ocean. (Stoddart.} Full of this 
 idea, he left Montreal about the year 1680, in the hope of immortalizing himself by 
 opening to his country a new and direct route to the commerce of the East Indies. 
 Parting from his friends eight mile* above Montreal, the last word he said to them was- 
 China, and the spot retains the name (La Chine) ever since. But death arrested him 
 in the valley of the Arkansas, the fate which Columbus had so narrowly escaped, that of 
 being assassinated by his own followers, who had not courage to follow him any further. 
 
 The English, of all others the most avaricious of the India trade, also turned their 
 views to the discovery of a western passaga to Asia. A passage round the American 
 continent above Hudson's Bay, was for a lang time a favorite object with the English 
 Government, and still occupies its attention. Numerous squadrons had been fitted out, 
 and repeatedly attempted the passage, sometimes from the northwest by Behring's Straits, 
 sometimes by the northeast through Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits. The multiplied 
 efforts to discover this passage show the value whirh the English place on the discovery 
 of a direct route to Asia. But they have not confined themselves to sea voyages. 
 Taking up the idea of La Salle, they have sought an inland passage by means of rivers 
 and lakes. This project was entrusted to McKenzie. Confined to the northern parts of 
 our continent, he could only prosecute his discoveries north of the heads of the Missis- 
 sippi and Missouri rivers. He was confined to high northern latitudes, but succeeded in 
 showing the existence of a water communication, with a few portages, from Hudson's 
 Bay, north latitude 55 to the Pacific ocean in the north latitude 46. The Mississippi, 
 the Peace river, the Columbia, and some lakes, formed the means of this communica- 
 tion, and little useful as it would seem to us in a latitude so high, it was deemed a dis- 
 covery of great moment by the English. McKenzie received the honor of knighthood 
 for his enterprise; the British fur traders immediately began to export their furs to China 
 by the direct route of the Columbia, and the privilege of navigating that river for ten 
 years has been secured to them by treaty. 
 
 The Missouri above the Mandan villages was yet unknown. From the mouth of the 
 Mississippi a man of genius projected its discovery. In 179ri the Baron de Carondelet, 
 Governor General of Louisiana, planned an expedition to the sources of the Missouri, 
 and thence to the Pacific ocean. He obtained th approbation of Charles IV, King of 
 Spain. A liberal compensation was offered by the King, and the Baron announced an 
 additional reward of three thousand dollars to the persons who should first see the great 
 ocean. The expedition was undertaken by Don Jacques Glamorgan, an enterprising 
 citizen of St. Louis, who proscuted it some distance up the Missouri at great expense, 
 but without accomplishing the views of the Spanish Government. 
 
 A few years after, Louisiana changed its master. The eyes of Mr. Jefferson, taking 
 the direction of so many eminent men, were turned upon the Pacific ocean, and Under 
 his auspices the labors of Lewis and Clark have demonstrated the existence of a water 
 communication, with a few portages, through the heart and centre of the Republic from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific. The rivers Columbia, Missouri, and Ohio, form this line, 
 and open a channel to Asia, short, direct, safe, cheap, and exclusively American, which 
 invites the enterprise of Anerican citizens, and promises to them a splendid participation 
 in the commerce of the East. 
 
21 
 
 i 
 
 (B.) 
 
 EXTRACT from the speech m the Senate, February, 1849, in favor of a National 
 Central Highway from the Mississippi to the Pacific: 
 
 Nothing, Mr. PresiJent, is more essential than roads. It is an old theme, fir; hut it 
 will bear the suggestion that no civilized people can live without roads, and that it is 
 the indispensable duty of every nation which has acquired any new possessions to open 
 communication with it. We know that the Romans from whom we borrowed so 
 many of our ideas, useful or grand never considered a conquered territory added to the 
 republic or the empire until it was perforated by a road. There was no annexation in 
 their idea until there was communication. The idea was well founded, sir, and one 
 which we can practically carry out. Large and grand as our project of roads seems, 
 from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and a mile in width reserved for many tracks it is 
 almost insignificant compared to the roads of the Roman empire. Her territory was 
 not greater than ours not so compact her population not so homogeneous as ours, 
 nor at the gieaie&l us great as ours will be in the lifetime of the child now born; and yet 
 her roads far transcended in length and number anything that we now propose. Here 
 is what Gibbon says. After enumerating the four thousand cities belonging to the Ro- 
 man empire in Europe, Asia, and Africa, he goes on to say: 
 
 "All these cities were connected with each other, and with the capital, by the public 
 highways, which, issuing from the forum of Rome, traversed Iialy, prevaded the provin- 
 ces, and were terminated only by the frontiers of the empire. If we carefully trace the 
 distance from the wall of Antoninus to Rome, and from thence to Jerusalem, it will be 
 found that the great chain of communication, from the northwest to the southeast point 
 of the empire, was drawn out to the length of four thousand and eighty Roman miles. 
 The public roads were usually divided by mile-stones, and ran in a direct line from one 
 city to another, with very little respect for'the obstacles either of nature or private prop- 
 erty. Mountains were perforated, and bold arches thrown over the broadest and most 
 rapid streams. The middle part of the road was raised into a terrace which command- 
 e.d the adjacent country, consisted of several strata of sand, gravel, and cement, and was 
 paved with large stones, or in some places, near the capital, with granite. Such was 
 the solid construction of the Roman highways, whose firmness has not entirely yielded 
 to the effort of fifteen centuries. They united the subjects of the most distant provinces 
 by an easy and familiar intercourse ; but their primary object had been to facilitate the 
 marches of the legions ; nor was any country considered as subdued, till it had been ren- 
 dered, in all its parts, pervious to the arms and authority of the conquerer. The advan- 
 tage of receiving the earliest intelligence, and of conveying their orders wi'h celerity, 
 induced the Emperors to establish throughout their extensive dominions the regular in- 
 stitution of posts. Houses were everywhere erected at the distance only of five or six 
 miles; each of them was constantly provided with forty horses, and by the help of these 
 relays, it was easy to travel an hundred miles in a day along the Roman roads. The 
 use of the posts was allowed to those who claimed it by an imperial mandate ; but, 
 though originally intended for the public service, it was sometimes indulged to the busi- 
 ness or conveniency of private citizens." 
 
 Such was the extent and solidity of the Roman roads a single line of road above 
 4,000 Roman, and equal to 3,740 English miles and the 4,000 cities of the empire 
 all connected with roads of equal solidity besides. The road which we propose is only 
 half the length of one chain of theirs. I mention them for their magnificence their 
 grandeur and as presenting an example worthy of our imitation. The road I propose 
 is necessary to us, and now. We want it now. The state of our possessions on the 
 Pacific demands it. The time to begin has arrived. All the necessary information is 
 on hand. The means are ready. The title to Oregon is settled, and a government es- 
 tablished there, and population is growing up. California is acquired : people are 
 there : and a government must follow. We have a fleet on that coast troops there, 
 and going. Streams of population are concentrating there. Since the discovery of the 
 New World by Columbus there has not been such an unsettling of the foundations of 
 society. Not merely individuals and companies, but communities and nations are in 
 commotion, all hound to the setting sun to the gilded horizon of Western America. 
 For want of an American road, they seek foreign routes, far round, by sea and land, to 
 reach by an immense circuit what is a part of their own land. Until we can get a road 
 of our own, we must use and support a foreign route; but that is a temporary resource, 
 demanded by the exigency of the times, and until we can get our own ready. Never 
 
22 
 
 did so great an object present itself to the acceptance of a nation. We own the coun- 
 try from sea to sea from the Atlantic to the Pacific and upon a breadth equal to the 
 length of the Mississippi and embracing the whole temperate zone. Three thousand 
 miles across, and half that breadth, is the magnificent parallelogram of our domain. 
 We can run a national central road through and through, the whole distance, under our 
 flag and under our laws. Military reasons require us to make it: for troops and muni- 
 tions must go there. Political reasons require us to make it: it will be a chain of union 
 between the Atlantic and Pacific States. Commercial reasons demand it from us: and 
 here I touch a boundless field, dazzling and bewildering the imagination from its vastness 
 and importance. The trade of the Pacific Ocean, of the western coast of North Amer- 
 ica, and of Eastern Asia, will all take its track; and not only for ourselves, but for pos- 
 terity. That trade of India which has been shifting its channels from the time of the 
 Phoenicians to the present, is destined to shift once more, and to realize the grand idea 
 of Columbus. The American road to India will also become the European track to 
 that region. The European merchant, as well as the American, will fly across oar 
 continent on a straight line to China. The rich commerce of Asia will flow through 
 our centre. &nd where has that commerce ever flowed without carrying wealth and 
 dominion with it? Look at its ancient channels, and the cities which it raised into 
 kingdoms, and the populations which upon its treasures became resplendent in science, 
 learning, and the arts. Tyre, Sidon, Balbec, Palmyra, Alexandria, among its ancient 
 emporiums, attest the power of this commerce to enrich, to aggrandize, and to enlighten 
 nations. Constantinople, in the middle ages, and in the time of the crusades, was the 
 wonder of Western Europe; and all, because she was then a thoroughfare of Asiatic 
 commerce. Genoa and Venice, mere cities, in later time, became the match of king- 
 doms, and the envy of kings, from the mere divided streams of this trade of which they 
 became the thoroughfare. Lisbon had her great day, and Portugal her pre eminence 
 during the little while that the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope put her in commu- 
 nication with the East. Amsterdam, the city of a little territory rescued from the sea, 
 and the Seven United Provinces, not equal in extent to one of our lesser States, became 
 great in arms, in letters, in wealth, and in power; and all upon the East India trade. 
 And London, what makes her the commercial mistress of the world what makes an 
 island no larger than one of our first class States the mistress of possessions in the four 
 quarters of the globe a match for half of Europe and dominant in Asia ? What 
 makes ail this, or contributes most to make it, but this same Asiatic trade ? In no in- 
 stance has it failed to carry the nation, or the people which possessed it, to the highest 
 pinnacle of wealth and power, and with it the highest attainments of letters, arts, and 
 sciences. And so will it continue to be. An American road to India, through the 
 heart of our country, will revive upon its line all the wonders of which we have read 
 and eclipse them. The western wilderness, from the Pacific to the Mississippi, will 
 start into life under its touch. A long line of cities will grow up. Existing cities will 
 take a new start. The state of the world calls for a new road to India, and it is our 
 destiny to give it the last and greatest. Let us act up to the greatness of the occa- 
 sion, and show ourselves worthy of the extraordinary circumstances in which we are 
 placed, by securing while we can an American road to India central and national for 
 ourselves and our posterity now, and hereafter, for thousands of years to come. 
 
 (C.) 
 
 Extract from Senator Benton's speech in the Senate, 1850. 
 
 There is an idea become current of late a new-born idea that none but a man of 
 science, bred in a school, can lay off a road. That is a mistake. There is a class of 
 topographical engineers older than the schools, and more unerring than the mathematics. 
 They are the wild animals buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, bears, which travese the forest, 
 not "by compass, but by an instinct which leads them always the right way to the 
 lowest passes in the mountains, the shallowest fords in the rivers, the richest pastures 
 in the forest, the best salt springs, and the shortest practicable lines between remote 
 points. They travel thousands of miles, have their annual migrations backwards and 
 forwards, and never miss the best and shortest route. They are the first engineers to lay 
 
23 
 
 out a road in a new country ; the Indians follow them, and hence a buffalo road be- 
 comes a war path. The first white hunters follow the same trails in pursuing their 
 game ; and after that the buffalo road becomes the wagon road of the white man, and 
 finally the macadamized or railroad of the scientific man. It all resolves itself into the 
 same thing into the same buffalo road; and thence the buffalo becomes the first and 
 safest engineer. Thus it has been here, in the countries which we inhabit, and the 
 history which is so familiar. 
 
 I have demonstrated the nationality of this work its practicability and the means 
 in our hands for making it ; I do not expatiate upon its importance. When finished it will 
 be the American road to Asia, and will turn the Asiatic commerce of Europe through 
 the heart of our America. It will make us the mistress of that trade rich at home 
 and powerful abroad and reviving a line of oriental and almost fabulous cities to 
 stretch across our continent Tyres, Sidons, Palmyras, Balbecs. Do we need any 
 stimulus for the undertaking 1 Any other nation, upon half a pretext, would go to 
 war for the right of making it, and tax unborn generations for its completion. We 
 have it without war, without tax, without treaty with any Power ; and when we make 
 it all nations must travel it with our permission and behave themselves to receive 
 permiision. Besides riches and power, it will give us a hold upon the good behavior 
 of nations by the possession which it will give us of a short, safe, and cheap road to 
 India. 
 
 The work is great, but nothing compared to our means, and to the magnitude of the 
 object, or to what was done by the Incas of Peru before the New World was discovered. 
 Their two roads from Quito to Cuzco (to say nothing of many shorter ones) were each 
 nearly as long, both over more difficult ground, equal in amount of labor required, and 
 more commodious than the proposed system of roads from the Mississippi to the Pacific 
 ocean. One of our classic historians (Prescott) thus describee them: 
 
 " There were many of the roads traversing different parts of the kingdom ; but the 
 most considerable were the two which extended from Quito to Cuzco, and again di- 
 verging from the capital, continued in a southern direction towards Chili. One of 
 these roads passed over the grand plateau, and the other along the lowlands on the 
 borders of the ocean. The former was much the most difficult achievement, from the 
 character of the country. It was conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow; gal- 
 leries were cut for leagues through the living rock ; rivers were crossed by rneana of 
 bridges that swung suspended in the air ; precipices were scaled by stair ways hewn 
 out of the native bed ; ravines of hideous depth were filled up with solid masonry ; in 
 short, all the dificuhies that beset a wild and mountainous region, and which might 
 appal the most courageous engineers of modern times, were encountered and successfully 
 overcome. The length of the road, of which scattered fragments only remain, is 
 variously estimated, from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles ; and some pillars, in 
 the manner of European milestones, were erected at stated intervals of somewhat more 
 than a league, alt aJong the route. Its breadth scarcely exceeded twenty feet. It was 
 built of heavy flags of freestone, and, in some parts at least, covered with bituminous 
 cement, which time has made harder than the stone itself. In some places where the 
 ravines had been filled up with masonry, the mountain torrents, wearing it for ages, 
 haite gradually eaten a way through the base, and left the superincumbent mass such 
 is cohesion of the material still spanning the valley like an arch. Over some of the 
 boldest streams it was necessary to construct supension bridges, as they are termed 
 made of the tough fibres of the maguey, or of the osier of the country, which has an 
 extraordinary degree of tenacity and strength. These osiers were woven into cables 
 of the thickness of a man's body. The huge ropes, then stretched across the water, 
 were conducted through rings or holes cut in immense buttresses of stone raised on the 
 opposite banks of the river, and there secured to heavy pieces of timber. Several of these 
 enormous cables, bound together, formed a bridge, which, covered with planks, well 
 secured and defended by a railing of the same osier materials on the sides, afforded a 
 safe passage for the traveller." 
 
 " The other road of the Incas lay trough the level country between the Andes and 
 the ocean. It was constructed in a different manner, as demanded by the naiure of the 
 ground, which was for the most part low, and much of it sandy. The causeway was 
 raised on a high embankment of earth, and defended on either side by a porapet, or 
 wall of clay - t and trees and odoriferous ehrubs planted along the margin, rgaling the 
 sense of the traveler with their perfumes, and refreshing him by their shades, so grate- 
 ful under the burning sky of the tropics. All along these highways, caravanserai's 
 were erected at the distance of ten or twelve miles for the accomodatton of travelers, 
 
24 
 
 militarily constructed for security, and supplied with water brought in aqueducts when 
 tiot found at the place. Couriers, in relieves, and running swiftly, carried, dispatches 
 the whole extent of these long routes at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles n day ; 
 and, besides dispatches, often carried fish from the distant ocean, and fruits and game 
 from the hot regions on the coast, to be served up fresh at the Inca's table in the im- 
 perial capitals." 
 
 The Baron Humbolt " the Nestor of Scientific Travellers, 19 thus speaks of the re- 
 mains of the same roads from his own personal observation : 
 
 " As we were leading our heavily laden mules with great difficulty through the 
 marshy ground on the elevated plain del Pullal, our eyes meanwhile were continually 
 dwelling on the grand remains of the Inca's road, which, with a breadth of twenty-one 
 English feet, was there remaining by our side. It had a deep understructure, and was 
 paved with well cut blocks of blackish trap-porphry. Nothing that I had seen of the 
 remains of Roman roads in Italy, in South of France, and in Spain, was more impos- 
 ing than those works of the ancient Peruvians, which are situated, according to my 
 barometric measurment, 13,258 English feet above the level of the sea or more than a 
 thousand leet higher than the summit of the Peak of Tenerifle. There are two great 
 artificial paved roads, or system of roads, covered with flat stones, or sometimes even 
 with cemented grapel ; one passes through the wide and arid plain, between the Pacific 
 ocean and the chain of the Andes, and the other over the ridges of the Cordilleras. 
 Milestones, or stones marking the distances, are often placed at equal intervals. The 
 road was conducted across rivers and deep ravines by three kinds of bridges stone, 
 woi'd, and rope bridges ; and there were also aqeducts for bringing water to the resting 
 places (caravansaries) and to the fortresses. Both systems of roads were directed to 
 the central point, Cuzco, the seat of government of the great empire, in 12 31' south 
 latitude, and which is placed, according to Pentland's map of Bolivia, 13,378 English 
 feet above the level of the sea. The two important capitals of the empire, Cuzco and 
 Quito, thus connected by two different systems of roads, are 1000 English geographical 
 miles apart, in a straight line (S. S. E. N. N. W.) without reckoning the many 
 windings of the way; and, including the windings, the distance is estimated by Gar- 
 cilasso de la Vega and other conquistadores at 500 leagues." 
 
 Such were the roads constructed on our own continent before the discovery of the 
 New World, and by a people whom we consider uncivilized, and who certainly had 
 but few of the helps of civilization no knowledge of iron no mechanical powers 
 no beast of burden but a sort of a sheep the lama too light for the draught, and too 
 weak for the burden only carrying an hundred pounds ten miles in a day ; and yet a 
 people who constructed two such roads, each near about as long as from Missouri to the 
 Pacific one at a mountainous elevation only about a thousand feet lower than the 
 summit of Mont Blanc, and the other in the arid sands of the lowlands, under a tropical 
 heat, and both in a direction to cross successive mountains or rivers, and both executed 
 in a style of accomodation that we do not pretend to rival : military protection, safe 
 lodging, water, shade, baths, the perfume of odoriferous shrubs ! and mails, messages, 
 and small burdens transported upon them at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a 
 day, without horses and without steam, by men running on foot alone. After seeing 
 such a system of roads on our own continent, devised and established by such a people, 
 what is there to prevent us, the vanguard of the Anglo-Saxon race, and the descendants 
 of the elite of Europe, to open the system of roads which my bill proposes a common 
 road, on which the mail stage is to run one hundred miles in the twenty-four hours, 
 and a letter horse mail two hundred miles in the same time a railway on which the 
 cars are to fly, like the express trains in England, forty-two miles to the hour an 
 electric line, along which, and across the continent, people are to communicate as they 
 would hold converse across a room ?