35TH CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 1st Session.

PRACTICABILITY OF RAILROADS THROUGH THE SOUTH PASS.

LETTER

FROM

THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR,

Transmitting a report from F. W. Lander, esq., relative to the practicability of a railroad through the South Pass.

FEBRUARY 26, 1858.-Referred to the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
February 24, 1858.

SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith a report from F. W. Lander, esq., civil engineer, upon "the practicability of a railroad through the South Pass," and the best method of constructing the same, in response to a resolution passed by the House of Representatives January 26, 1858.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

Hon. JAMES L. ORR,

J. THOMPSON, Secretary.

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, January 26, 1858.

On motion of Mr. BLAIR,

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Interior be requested to furnish this House with any information that may be communicated to him by F. W. Lander, esq., engineer of the wagon road, as to the practicability of railroads through the South Pass, and the best method of constructing a road, and any other information in regard to the same obtained during his late expedition.

Attest:

J. C. ALLEN, Clerk.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
February 1, 1858.

SIR: Enclosed please find a copy of a resolution of the House of Representatives, passed January 26, 1858.

As you were not instructed to furnish the department with a report upon the practicability of a railroad through the South Pass, &c., I am unable to comply with the resolution unless you have some information upon this subject which you are willing voluntarily to furnish at the earliest practicable period.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

F. W. LANDER, Esq.,

J. THOMPSON, Secretary.

Superintendent Fort Kearney, S. P., &c., Road.

WASHINGTON, February 13, 1858.

SIR: I have the honor to reply to your letter of the 1st instant, and to transmit a report "on the practicability of a railroad through the South Pass, the best method of constructing a road, and such other information in regard to the same, obtained during my late exploration, as I am able to furnish at the earliest practicable period.' Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Hon. J. THOMPSON,

Secretary of the Interior.

REPORT.

F. W. LANDER.

The term "a railroad" is susceptible of many definitions. mercial railroad, an agricultural railroad, or a means of transportation by rail, cheap, effective and to be immediately made applicable to the claims of mail and military service across the continent, might each be considered in a more desultory treatment of the subject than is now required. A commercial railroad, or one adapted to moving the immense freights of Pacific commerce at rates of speed or cost, which would enable the line to successfully compete with the carrying trade of the ocean, is a road of a class not now in use; a permanent work, which cannot be built without the aid of a preliminary or light railway to transport materials and supplies of construction. It is beyond the reach of the present report.

An agricultural railroad may be defined as a road of the classes now in operation throughout the western States; a road of masonry and bridging, graded, ballasted, furnished and equipped to the claims of a large way and through transportation. Such a road is well adapted to the development of those routes across the continent which extend over undulating and broken surfaces, and require the labor of reduction

to practicable gradients by the excavation of cuts and the erection of embankments, before the locomotive can be made of use; routes over which the superstructure must necessarily progress so slowly as only to keep pace with the progress of settlements. Structures of reasonably permanent character, under these contingencies, being the surer economy from the outset. In my own view of the question, a road up to the Republican fork of Kansas river, through a very fertile and well timbered region, but passing over an undulating surface, would be described as an agricultural railroad, and would eventually reach. the South Pass. Numerous other roads of similar character could find direction toward the Upper Platte valley, and the same important point from the whole eastern border further north. But an experience of over fifteen years of the building, workage, wear, depreciation and renewal of railways, has rendered it evident to me that no estimate of the cost of a permanent road over a route of nearly two thousand miles of broken surfaces can be deemed reliable, and that the desideratum of overland communication by rail and steam power must take place by those irregular but progressive steps by which the practical talent of this nation has so repeatedly solved the various experiments and necessities of progress.

The route to the South Pass by the main Platte valley permits the adoption of modes of construction which will cover the liability last referred to, for it can be developed by railways without material reduction of the natural surface of the earth.

In my report of 1854, I proposed the extension of a surface railroad from Missouri river through the South Pass, by a superstructure capable of sustaining the tread of a class of locomotives suited to surmounting steep gradients. Near the Missouri river this road to consist of a T. rail of sixty pounds per yard, applied to a ditched and drained road-bed, but as it progressed towards the mountains to assume a different style of construction, regarding the contingencies of transportation and building. My examinations of that year were confined to the north side of the river Platte, where long distances of the route are untimbered. The discoveries of the present season led me to suggest that the mode of construction then proposed shall be modified. There is timber enough on the south side of the Platte to build a road to the mountains, and when the foot hills are reached all difficulties. of this nature are overcome. It is about five hundred and thirty miles from Missouri river to the Black hills, and over this distance the route is a perfect flat plain of gravel sub-strata.

The published report of the War Department leads the reader to infer that from the entrance of the Black hills to the South Pass a railroad must make passage of one of the routes of the natural wagon roads used by emigrants. The barometric profile of Colonel Frémont, taken over the old emigrant road, was made the basis of a detailed. estimate, and by the system of equated distances of maximum loads applied to this profile the line was much lengthened, and the favorable nature of the route entirely lost. The same report offered the deduction that the only practicable method then known of reaching the plains of the Great Basin from the South Pass was to descend Green river, and thence rise again from a much lower plain than that