33D CONG....2D SESS.

applied to a region which has but little perceptible depression below the general level of the country. We will consider the term applicable to all the territory drained by all the Kansas forks, and all their tributaries. One general description applies to the whole-the soil rich like Egypt! and tempting as Egypt would be, if raised above the slimy flood, waved into gentle undulations, variegated with groves and meadows, sprinkled with springs, coursed by streams, and warmed by a sun which warms without burning, and blest with the alternation of seasons which give vigor to the mind and body. Egypt thus raised up, and changed, might stand for Kansas; as she is, the only point of comparison is in the soil. For this valley is high and clean, diversified with wood and prairie, watered by springs and streams, grassy and flowery; its bosom filled with stone for building, coal for fuel, and iron for the home supply of that first of metals. This is the Kansas of the northern, or Kansas river side, where Frémont says, (and he has a right to know,) a continuous corn field two hundred miles in length, might be made-so rich and level is the country. But of this part it is not necessary to say much, as the crowds of emigrants are directing themselves upon it, and vieing with each other in the glowing descriptions which they give of its beauty, salubrity, and fertility.

I turn to the south side of the Territory, of which little has been said, and much is to be told, and all profitable to be known. In the first place, this south side includes the whole body of the Arkansas river, from near the Missouri line to its head most spring in the Rocky mountains-a length of above seven hundred miles on a straight line, and near double that length in the meanders of the stream. This gives to the Territory a second large river, and in the right place, and -flowing in the right direction, and parallel to the other, as if its twin sister; and so near together as to be seldom more than a degree, and sometimes not half a degree, from each other; and no mountains or high grounds between them. This, of itself, is a great advantage to the Territory; for the Arkansas, like all rivers in the prairie country, brings fertile borders, and groves of wood, and rich grass, and makes an attractive line for settlement and travel. In the next place, it gives a succession of tributaries on each side-each giving lines of wood and water-the only thing wanted for settlement and cultivation. Some of these tributaries are of great length, and drain wide areas-as the Neosho, drawing its expanded headwaters from the center of the Territory, two hundred miles long, and becoming navigable before it reaches the Arkansas river. The Verdigris is but little less than the Neosho, and next above it, and of the same characteristics; and both adapted to cultivation, and pasturage. On the opposite side, coming in from the south, is the Salt fork of the Arkansas, the lower part of it within the limits of Kansas, with its salt plains and rock salt, impregnating the river, and rendering its waters undrinkable in the dry season. I have seen parcels of this rock salt at St. Louis, cut off with hatchets by the Indians, and of the blown salt, swept up by the squaws with turkey-wing fans when the autumnal sun had evaporated the briny waters of the saline marshes-all so useless now in the hands of the Indians, and to become so valuable in the hands of the whites. Ascending the river, there is a continued succession of affluents from each side, all exercising their fertilizing powers upon bordering lines of wood, soil and grass; and becoming better to the very base of the mountains. So that the river advantages on the north side of the Territory are rivaled by similar advantages on the south side.

I have spoken of the two sides of the Territory; now for the center-and that is soon dispatched; an expanded prairie, level to the view, rich in soil, scant (but not destitute) of water, green with grass, and enlivened in the proper season with myriads of buffaloes, spreads illimitably before the eyes of the traveler. Some springs, many small streams, numerous pools, peculiar to these plains, (reservoirs of the rains,) invaluable for stock, furnish the present supply, to be helped out by wells as soon as settled. The annual autumnal devastating fires being stopped, the indigenous forest growth will immediately come forth, accom

Pacific Railroad-Mr. Benton.

panied by the exotics which the thrifty farmer will lose no time to introduce. Coal will furnish fuel; so that the whole central plain will receive settlers from the beginning, and especially on the line of road actually traveled, and where the railroad may be expected to be. In the mean time the settler has an attraction-superior with many, and profitable as well as pleasant in itself—to draw him into this vast plain. It is the pastoral pursuit: for this is the bucolic region of our America-now the resort of wild animals, and soon to become the home of the domestic. A short sweet grass, equally nutritious in the green or dried state, (for it dries of itself on the ground,) covers the face of the earth, inviting all ruminating animals to take their food upon it, without measure and without stint: a great pastoral region, in which the ox will not know his master's crib, nor the ass the hand that feedeth him; but in which the dumb, unconscious beast, without knowing it, will feel the bounty of the hand which is the Giver of all good.

This is the description of the first Kansas-the one which will go half way to the mountains— equal in territorial extent to the first class States, exceeded in productive capacity by none-and soon to become one of the great States of the Union. I will call it East Kansas.

II. The second State would occupy the remainder of the territory to the base of the Rocky mountains; and, like the first half, will have the natural division into three parts, and with the same characteristics, but with a reversal of their localities. The Arkansas river side will be far the most valuable, both intrinsically and in its locality; but the Kansas side will still have its value and attraction. Frémont says of it: "The soil of all this country, (upper Kansas and base of the mountains,) is excellent, admirably adapted to agricultural purposes, and would support a large agricultural and pastoral population." He says it is watered by many streams, but without wood, except on their borders; that grass abounds, and among its varieties, the esparcette, a species of clover, so valuable for the pasturage of swine, cultivated for that purpose in Germany, but indigenous in all this base of the mountains.

HO. OF REPS.

A summer view of it is given by Messrs. Beal & Heap, in their central route journey to California, in 1853, thus:

"Upon reaching the summit of the buttes, a magnificent and extensive panorama opened to our view. The horizon was bounded to the north by Pike's Peak-to the west and northwest by the Sierra Mohada, (Wet mountain,) Sangre de Christo mountains, and the Spanish Peaks: to the south and east extended the prairie-lost in the hazy distance. On the gently undulating plains reaching to the foot of the Rocky mountains, could be traced, by their lines of timber, the course of the Arkansas river, and its various tributaries-among them the Huerfano, (Orphan river,) easily distinguished from the remote point (nearly due west,) where it issued from the Sierra Blanca, to its junction with the Arkansas, except at short intervals where it passed through canyons in the plain. Pike's Peak was a prominent object in the landscape, its head capped with eternal snow, soaring high above all the neighboring summits. The river (Huerfano) bottom was broad and thickly wooded with willows and cotton wood, interlaced with wild rose and grape vines, and carpeted with soft grassa sylvan paradise. The scenery, as we approached the country between the Spanish Peaks and the Sierra Mohada, was pieturesque and beautiful. Mountains towered high above us, the summits of some covered with snow, (July,) while the dense forests of dark pines which clothed their sides, contrasted well with the glittering white at the top, and the light green of the soft grass at their base. The humidity of the Sierra Mohada gives great fertility to this region; and the country bordering on the sides of the mountains, as well as the valleys in their recesses, are unequaled in loveliness and richness of vegetation. To the settler they offer every inducement; and I have no doubt in a few years this tract of country will vie with California or Australia, in the number of emigrants it will invite. It is by far the most beautiful part of New Mexico, (now a part of Kansas;) and a remarkably level country connects it with the western part of the Atlantic States. As soon as this is thrown open to settlement, a continuous line of farms will be established, by which the agricultural and mineral wealth of the country will be developed."

Mr. Charles McClanahan, a Virginia emigrant to California, and a large dealer in stock to that country, writing back to me from the valley of San Luis in August, 1853, says:

"On this route almost the entire way may be settled, as all the land from Missouri to Bent's Fort is rich, and very fertile, equal to the best lands of Missouri and Illinois; and no land can beat the Sierra Blanca for grass. Even to the very summit it stands as thick as the best meadows, and many acres would mow at least four tons to the acre. Then comes the large and beautiful valley of San Luis, said to be one of the most fertile in New Mexico. Indeed, fine land is upon the whole route, and the climate is such that the stock can live out all the winter upon the grass. On this route there is an abundance of grass and water, so much so that stock will travel and keep fat. A very large major

or Baltimore market; and a very large number of Mr. Barnwell's cattle are fine beef, and I have never seen any stock, after traveling so far, look half so well."

Frémont thus speaks of this upper part of the Arkansas, as seen by him in his various expeditions, and especially in the one of the last winter:

"The immediate valley of the Upper Arkansas, for about two hundred miles, as you approach the mountains, is continuously well adapted to settlements, as well as to roads. Numerous well-watered and fertile vall ys, broad and level, open up among the mountains, which present themselves in detached blocks, (outliers,) gradually closing in around the heads of the streams, but leaving open approaches to the central ridges. The whole of the intermountain region is abundant in grasses, wood, coal, and fertile soil. The pueblos above Bent's fort prove it to be well adapted to the grains and vegetables common to the latitude, including Indian corn, which ripens well, and to the support of healthy stock, which increase well, and take care of themselves summer and winter."

Of the climate and winter season in this elevated region, he thus speaks:

"The climate is mild and the winters short, the autumn usually having its full length of bright open weather, without snow, which in winter falls rarely and passes off quickly. In this belt of country lying along the mountains the snow falls more early and much more thinly, than in the open plains to the eastward; the storms congregate about the high mountains, and leave the valleys free. In the be ginning of December we found yet no snow on the Huerfano river, and were informed by an old resident, then engaged in establishing a farm at the mouth of this stream, that snow seldom fell there, and that cattle were left in the range all the winter through."

This was the first of December. Eight days later, and when advanced an hundred miles further, and standing in the Sand Hill pass of the Sierra Blanca, which looks both into the head valleys of the Del Norte and of the Arkansas, he still writes:

"On the 8th of December we found this whole country

free from snow, and Daguerre views, taken at this time, show the grass entirely uncovered in the Passes."

This is the winter view of this country and its climate, and certainly no mountain region could present anything more desirable for man or beast.

scribing, among other things, the valley of San Mr. Leroux, in his published letter to me, deLuis, which lies east of the Coochatope pass, which valley of San Luis is now partly in Kansas, and leads to it through the Sahwatch valley, and

says:

"There is a large valley to the east about fifty or sixty miles wide, and near one hundred miles long, reaching from the Coochatope 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 Mexico 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 Spaniards called it EL VALLE DE SAN LUIS, and it was formerly famous for wild horses 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 fifty or sixty thousand head of sheep and cattle, have been driven there to winter, which they did well, feeding on the grass 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 preparing to move there. The post is called Fort Massachusetts."

This is the western or Upper Kansas, and will make another great State; and both will quickly be ripe for admission into the Union-East Kansas in 1855, and the western in 1856. They will both be settled with unexampled rapidity. In agriculture and grazing alone they present irresistible attractions to the settler. But it is not agricultural and pastoral advantages alone, great as they are, which are to attract people to this region; other causes are to add their inducements to the same attractions, and render them invincible. At

33D CONG....2D SESS.

best watered region in the world, and is obliged to be so from the configuration and structure of the country. The valley is formed by the lofty ranges of the Rocky and Wahsatch mountains; which, wide apart at its lower end, converge as they go north, and unite above latitude forty-two -giving to the long and broad valley they inclose the form of the Greek letter delta (A), or of our V inverted. The summits of these mountains are covered with eternal snows-their sides with annual winter snows; and these latter beginning to melt early in the spring, and continuing till mid summer, fill the earth with moisture, and give rise to myriads of springs, creeks, and small rivers, which collect into the two forks of the Colorado, called by the hunters Green and Grand rivers; and, in their junction, constitute the great river itself: for the country below, being sterile and arid, contributes but little to swell the volume of the great river which traverses it. The climate in this valley is mild-the month of January being like autumn to us. We owe this knowledge to the last winter expedition of Frémont, who says: "The immediate valley of the Upper Colorado, for about one hundred miles in breadth, and from the 7th to the 21st of January, was entirely bare of snow, and the weather resembled autumn with us." Coal abounds in this valley, cropping out in thick strata in the bluffs of Grand river, (the east fork of the Great Colorado;) and a saline creek, thirty miles long, and formed by salt springs, falls into the same fork from the north: and both the coal and the salt are in the line of the contemplated road to the Pacific. This would be the fourth State-equal in extent to any, inferior in soil, superior in wood and water, softer in climate, better in due alternations of woodland and prairie; and being part of the Utah Territory, it is now under the dominion of law and government, and open to immediate settlement, which, in fact, is now going on.

V. The fifth State would consist of the remainder of the Utah Territory, beginning at the eastern base of the Wahsatch and Anterria ranges, and extending three hundred miles to the California line-upon whatever breadth might be desired. It would include (towards its eastern border) the Little Salt Lake, which is two hundred and sixty miles south of the Great Salt Lake; and which designates a country as much superior to that of the Great Salt Lake as itself is inferior to that large and marvelous body of salt water. It would be a magnificent State; its eastern limit, there the rim of the Great Basin, would embrace the broad || expanse of the Wahsatch and Anterria ranges, or rather blocks, as they are cut up into short sections-probably the richest mountain region in the world, where nature has crowded and accumulated into a hundred miles square, as into a vast magazine, a profusion of her most valuable gifts to man. Soil, water, grass, wood, timber, rock-salt, coal, stone, a due alternation of mountain and valley—the former cut into blocks, white on the top with snow, dark on the sides with forests, and their bosoms filled with ores; the valleys green with grass, fresh with cool water, opening into each other by narrow level gaps, or defiles; the climate so soft that animals live out all the winter, and February (so frosty and frozen with us) the usual month there for starting the plow: I say starting the plow; for the Mormons, since several years, have seen the beauty of this region, and have come upon it. We owe to Frémont's last winter expedition the revelation to public view of this magnificent region, more valuable than all the golden mines of California and Australia put together. He had seen these ranges in his previous expeditions, and given them a page in his journal, and a place in his map; but it was not until his last expedition that he penetrated their recesses, and saw their hidden treasures. He was fourteen days in them-from the 24th of January to the 7th of February-and thus speaks of what he saw:

"They lie between the Colorado valley and the Great Basin; and at their western base are established the Mormon settlements of Parowan and Cedar city. They are

what are called fertile mountains, abundant in water, wood, and grass, and fertile valleys, offering inducements to settlement and facilities for making a road. These mountains are a great store-house of materials-timber, iron, coalwhich would be of indispensable use in the construction and maintenance of the road, and are solid foundations to build up the future prosperity of the rapidly increasing Utah State.

Pacific Railroad-Mr. Benton.

Salt is abundant on the eastern border; mountains-as the Sierra de Sal-being named from it. In the ranges lying. behind the Mormon settlements, among the mountains through which the line passes, are accumulated a great wealth of iron and coal, and extensive forests of heavy timber. These forests are the largest I am acquainted with in the Rocky mountains, being, in some places, twenty miles in depth of continuous forest; the general growth lofty and large, frequently over three feet in diameter, and sometimes reaching five feet, the red spruce and yellow pine predominating. At the actual southern extremity of the Mormon settlements, consisting of the two inclosed towns of Parowan and Cedar city, near to which our line passed, a coal mine has been opened for about eighty yards, and iron works already established. Iron here occurs in extraordinary masses, in some parts accumulated into mountains, which comb out in crests of solid iron, thirty feet thick and a hundred yards long."

Frémont brought home specimens of this coal and iron, of which Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, has made the analysis; and which I give in his own words: "Magnetic oxyd of iron: Parowan. Seems a very pure ore of iron, and suitable for manufacturing purposes. May be estimated to contain about seventy or seventyone per centum of metallic iron, somewhat similar to the ore in the great beds of northern New York, but more solid than is usual there. Probably very well adapted to the manufacture of steel. The coal appears to be of excellent quality-semi-bituminous-somewhat in appearance like the transition coal of the Susquehanna mines in Pennsylvania."

I must ask the pardon of some of my auditors for supposing that they may not be better acquainted with the language of geology than I was myself, when I supposed that this combing out of the solid iron in crests" was mere descriptive language, suggested by the taste of the writer. I found it was not so, but the technical phraseology which the geological science required to be used, and which, being used, conveyed an exact meaning-that of a mineral showing itself above the surface, and crowning the top of the hill or mountain as a crest does the helmet, and the comb the head of the cock. In this view of its meaning the language here used by Frémont, and which seems to have been the suggestion of an excited imagination, becomes the subdued expression of science and technicality. And what a picture he presents! What profusion and variety of God's best gifts to man! Here are, in fact, the elements of a great State-enough of themselves to build up a rich and populous State; but appurtenant to it, and interlaced with it, or bordering upon it, is a great extent of valley country-that of the Little Salt Lake, of the Santa Clara Meadows, of the Nicollets river, and its tributaries; and a multitude of other coves and valleys, all stretching along the western base of the Wahsatch, and within the rim of the Great Basin; that basin as remarkable here for beauty and fertility as in most other parts for sterility and deformity. The Mormon settlements of Paragoona, Parowan, and Cedar city, are along the edge of this rich mountain region; and the well-trod Mormon road from the Great Salt Lake to southern California, relieved with bridges and marked with mile-stones, pass by these towns; all announcing to the traveler that in the depths of the unknown wilderness he had encountered the comforts of civilization. Messrs. Beale and Heap passed these settlements at mid-summer, and speak in terms of enchantment, not only of the beauty of the country, but of the improvements and cultivation. Pretty towns, built to a pattern, each a the sides formed by lines of adobe houses, all facing inwards, with flower and kitchen gardens in front, and a large common field in the rear, crowded with growing grain-and all watered, both fields and gardens, and the front and rear of every house, with clear cool streams, brought down

square,

from the mountain sides, and from under a seeming canopy of snow. Grist and saw mills at work; forges smelting the iron ore; colliers digging the coal; blacksmiths hammering the red hot iron into farming implements, or shoes for the horses -assisted by dexterous Indian boys: cattle roaming in rich natural pastures: people quarrying, and the cattle licking, the rock-salt. Emigrants obtain supplies here-beef and flour, at moderate prices: -and it was here that Frémont was refitted after his seventy days of living upon his mules which died from exhaustion. The number and beauty of these valleys and fertile mountains, seen by Beale and Heap in exuberance, their ripe rich

HO. OF REPS.

dress of mid-summer, excite their wonder, and call forth enchanting descriptions. Broad valleys, connected by narrow ones-a continued succession of these valleys going from one to another, not by climbing ridges, but through level openingsgrass, flowers, and water in each. The mountains, some circular, some cut into blocks, some with fertile flat tops, rich in vegetation, some with peaks white with snow, and all dark with forests on their sides. It is impossible to read their descriptions without being reminded of central Persia, and of that valley of Shiraz, celebrated as incomparable by the poets, but matched and surpassed in the recesses of the Wahsatch and the Anterria; and the climate delicious in summer, and soft in winter. From the 24th January to the 8th February that Frémont explored this region, he found in the valleys either no snow at all, or a thin covering only; and, in the first week of February, the Mormons told him they had usually commenced plowing, and preparing the ground for the spring seeds. And yet all this would be but a corner of a State, which may spread west and north some hundred miles to the California line, and into the Great Basin-chiefly characterized as desert, but which has its oases-vegas, as the Spaniards call them-meadows refreshed with water, green with grass, and arable land, and with a structure of country, narrow valleys between snowy mountains, which give assurance of the artesian wells which can extend the area of fertility, and multiply the points of settlement. So that this fifth State may be as extensive, as populous, and as rich as any public interest could require. Abundant instances are given by Frémont, and by Beale and Heap, to justify this enchanting description of these valleys, and vegas: too many to cite. One only will be quoted as a specimen. I take it from Fremont's description of one of the vegas of Santa Clara; for there are several of them, and they are always cited in the plural-vegas, not vega. He says:

"We considered ourselves as crossing the rim of the Great Basin; and, entering it at this point, we found here an extensive mountain meadow, rich in 'bunch grass,' and fresh with numerous springs of clear water, all refreshing and delightful to look upon. It was, in fact, that las vegas de Santa Clara, which had been so long presented to us as the terminating point of the desert, and where the annual caravan, from California to New Mexico, halted and recruited for some weeks. The meadow was about one mile wide, and ten long, bordered by grassy hills and mountains -some of the latter rising two thousand feet, and white with snow (May) down to the level of the vega. Its elevation above the sea was five thousand two hundred and eighty feet, and its latitude, by observation, 37° 28′ 28. Here we had complete relief from the heat and privations of the desert, (on the old route to Los Angeles.)"

The "bunch grass" here spoken of, takes its name from the form in which it grows, which is in bunches-different from the short grass called "buffalo," on the east side of the Rocky mountains-but about equally valuable, being nutritious both in summer and winter, and having a second growth in the fall. It prevails extensively on the Pacific slope of our continent, and is an element of national wealth in its support of stock. The climate of this region, besides what has been said, may be judged of by the material used for building, even where wood and stone are abundant

adobes or sun-baked bricks. That indicates a climate comparatively dry and mild-more Asiatic than American-reminding us of Nineveh and Babylon. Certainly no houses, built of such material, (with or without straw,) on our side of the continent, could stand the driving of our merciless rains, or resist the action of our freezing winters.

Beale and Heap went through these ranges not only at a different season of the year from Frémont, but on a different line; and their description of the pass at the divorce point of the waters between the valley of the Upper Colorado and the Great Basin, and of the valleys of the Anterria and Wahsatch, and of the Mormon settlements, will complete this view of the capabilities of the fifth State. This, then, is what they say:

"On the summit of the divide' (divortia aquarum) between the waters of the Colorado and the Great Basin, and before descending into the valley of the Rio Salado, an affluent of Sevier (Nicollet) river, I took a careful survey of the surrounding country, which offered many interesting features. The Wahsatch mountains are composed of several parallel ranges, running north and south, with fine well, watered valleys between them. They are short, and between the valleys are numerous passes. The hills are

33D CONG....2D SESS.

We

.clothed, from their summits to their base, with a thick growth of pine trees, cedars, and aspens, and the brook was swarming with trout. The divide is broad, level, and smooth, and the descent, on the western side, easy. encamped, for the night, on the Salado, in a broad and level valley. Throughout the mountains the grass reminded us of that of the Sahwatch range, although in the valley it was less luxuriant. We were now in the Great Basin, and near the Mormon settlements; and, directing our course west, we came again to the Salado, at the place where it flows past the mines of rock-salt, from which it derives its name. The course of the creek is here south west, and it joins Nicollet river about three miles below the mines. At the mines we found a Mormon trail, which, our guide told us, led to their settlements, about twenty miles distant. Following up Sevier (Nicollet) river, four miles brought us to beautiful meadows, grass luxuriant-reaching above the saddlegirths. Crossing Nicollet river, we passed over a steep hill; we descended into another valley, watered by the same stream, having missed the Mormon road which led into it. This valley lies north and south, and unsurpassed in beauty and fertility by any thing we had yet seen. It is about thirty miles in length, by four in breadth; surrounded by mountains, down whose sides trickled numberless cool and limpid brooks, fringed with willows and cotton-wood. Nicollet river flows through its centre, and it abounds, in its entire length, in rich pasturage. The mountains which inclose it were clothed, from summit to base, with oaks and pines. At the head of the valley, and through a cañon (canyon) comes in the Rio San Pasqual-the main fork of the Nicollet, and which itself flows through a valley of great beauty." "Arrived at Little Salt Lake, (two hundred and sixty miles south of the Great Salt Lake,) in the valley of which is the first Mormon town-Paragoona-of about thirty houses, built of adobes (sun-burnt bricks,) presenting a neat and comfortable appearance, but broken up, in the moment of our arrival, by the Utah war, and the inhabitants removed to Parowan. Proceeded to this town over an excellent wagon road, made, and kept in repair, and bridged in many places by the Mormons. We passed a large grist and saw mill, worked by water power. Parowan is in a pretty valley of its own name, and is a town of about one hundred houses, (adobes,) built in a square, and facing inwards. In their rear, and outside of the town, are vegetable gardens, each house having a lot running back about one hundred yards. By an excellent system of irrigation, water is brought to the front and rear of each house, and through the centre, and along the outside boundary of each garden lot. The houses are ornamented in front with small flower gardens, which are fenced off from the square, and shaded with trees. The field covers about four hundred acres, and was in a high state of cultivation--the wheat and corn being as fine as any we had seen in the States. Several smelting furnaces are at work upon the iron ore in the mountains, coal for the fuel, and all asserted to be abundant and excelJent. We had our horses shod here, two Pah-utah boys assisting the white blacksmith; and we were surprised to see the skill and dexterity with which they assisted-fully equal to that of our white boys of the same age. for smelting iron ore were already in operation in the vicinity of Paragoona and Parowan, and that metal, which was obtained in sufficient quantity to supply any demand, was also of excellent quality, and the veins of coal apparently inexhaustible. A large force of English miners was employed in working these mines, and pronounced the coal to be equal to the best English coal. We saw it in use in the forges-bituminous, and burning with a bright flame. A Pah-utah handed me some ears of wheat, the grains of which I preserved, and he stated that it grows spontaneously near the Santa Clara. It is from this stock that the New Mexicans have obtained the seed which they call Paliute wheat, and the Mormons Taos wheat, and which has been much improved by cultivation, and is considered the

best in New Mexico and Utah."

Furnaces

Mr. Chairman, I commenced this speech with undertaking to establish two propositions-first, that the country between Missouri and California, in the latitude in which we now stand, is well adapted to settlement and cultivation, and capable of forming five great States; secondly, that it is well adapted to the construction of a railway. I believe I have made good the first of these propositions, and that we may now assume that the line of great States which now extend nearly half way across this continent, and through the center of this Union-Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri-may be continued, and matched, by an equal number of States, equally great, between Missouri and California. I consider that proposition established, and say no more about it. The establishment of the second proposition results from the establishment of the first one, as all that has been shown in favor of the country for settlement and cultivation is equally in favor of it for the road. But I have some direct and positive testimony on this head which the importance of the subject, and the value of the testimony itself, requires to be produced. I speak of the last expedition of Colonel Frémont-his winter expedition of 1853 and 1854-and of the success which attended it, and of the value of the information which it afforded. He chose the dead of winter for his exploration, that he might see the worst-see the real difficulties, and determine whether they could be vanquished. He believed in the practicability of the road, and that his miscarriage in 1848-'49, was the fault of his guide, not of the country; and

Pacific Railroad-Mr. Benton.

he was determined to solve those questions by the test of actual experiment.

With these views he sat out, taking the winter for his time, the West for his course, a straight line his object, the mouth of the Kansas for his point of departure, St. Louis and San Francisco the points to be connected. The parallels of thirtyeight and thirty-nine covered his course; and between these he continued to move West until he reached the Little Salt Lake-within three hundred miles of the California line; after that upon a slight deflection to the South, between the parallels thirty-seven and thirty-eight, until he entered California. This may be called a straight line; and so fulfills a primary condition of every kind of road, and especially of a railroad, where a speed of a hundred miles an hour may be as easily attained, and as safely run, as the third of that velocity in a road of crooks and curves.

After

Snow was the next consideration, and of that he found none, on any part of the route, to impede any kind of traveling. On the Kansas, the Upper Arkansas, and the Huerfano, he found none at all; in the Sand Hill pass of the Sierra Blanca, none; in the valleys of San Luis, and the Sahwatch, none; in the Coochatope pass, four inches! and none if he had crossed the day before; and that was the 14th of December, corresponding with the time, and almost in view of the place, where he had been buried in the snows five years before-and would have been again if he had gone to the same place. This solved the question of snow in the passes of the mountains, and showed that his miscarriage had been the mistake of the guide, and not the fault of the country. that-after crossing the Rocky mountains-the climate changes. A great amelioration takes place, which he knew before, and then fully experienced. The remainder of the route, as has been shown in the view of the country, may be said to have been found free from snow-a hundred miles at a time in one place without finding any; and when found at all, both thin and transient; and all so light and dry as to clog nothing, nor damp the moccasin in a day's travel. And that this was the common winter state of the pass, and not an occasional exception, has been shown by Mr. Antoine Leroux, and others, and corresponded with his own theory of snow in the passes. Mr. Leroux, in his published letter to me, said: "There is not much snow in this pass, (the Coochatope,) and people go through it all the winter. And when there is much snow on the mountains on the Abiquiu route, (which in the old Spanish trail from Santa Fé to California,) the people of Taos go round this way, and get into that trail in the forks of Grand and Green rivers." And Messrs. Beale and Heap, in their journal say of it: "Coochatope pass, is traveled at all seasons, and some of our men had repeatedly gone through it in the middle of winter, without meeting any serious obstruction from And this was the theory of Frémont, that the passes in these mountains were nearly free from snow, and comparatively warm; while in the open plains, or on the mountain summits, deep snows would prevail, and a killing cold, which no animal life could stand. This frees the Rocky mountains from that objection. The next range of mountains, (for all the valleys have been shown to be free,) is the Anterria and Wahsatch; and there again the passes are free. Frémont says of

snows.

them:

HO. OF REPS.

Smoothness of surface, or freedom from abrupt inequalities in the ground, is the next consideration: and here the reality exceeded the expectation, and challenges incredulity. Let Frémont speak. He says:

"Standing immediately at the mouth of the Sand Hill pass one of the most practicable in the Sierra Blanca, and above those usually traveled-at one of the remotest head-springs of the Huerfano river, the eye of the traveler follows down, without obstruction or abrupt descent, along the gradual slope of the valley to the great plains which reach the Missouri. The straight river and the open valley, form, with the plains beyond, one great slope, without a hili to break the line of sight, or obstruct the course of the road. On either side of this line hills slope easily to the river, with lines of timber and yellow autumnal grass; and the water which flows smoothly between is not interrupted by a fall in its course to the ocean."

Here is a section of the route above seven hundred miles long-being more than half the distance to California-in which there is no elevation to arrest the vision-in which you might look down the wide distance, (if the eye sight was long enough) and see the frontier of Missouri from the mouth of the first pass in the first mountainbeing more than half the length of the road. This would do for a start. It would satisfy the call for a fair surface at the commencement. This first pass is called the Sand Hill, or Roubidoux, through which Frémont entered the valley of San Luis; and the way so low and level as to be seen through. And through that valley and its continuation (the Sahwatch) to the Coochatope the ground is so smooth as to present no exception to its level but the natural curvature of the earth. Meeting a man on horseback in this long level of more than a hundred and twenty miles, (counting the entire valleys of San Luis and the Sahwatch,) is like meeting a ship at sea; you see his head first, then his body, then his horse; and at last the ground. The pass itself, as well as the approaches to it, is perfect. Frémont calls it "an open easy wagon way." Beale and Heap say it was a question whether they had passed the dividing point between the eastern and western waters; which could only be answered by referring to the water itself. The pass itself, of which they made a drawing, was grand and beautiful. They say of it: "Lofty mountains, their summits covered with eternal snows, lifted their heads to the clouds; while in our immediate vicinity were softly rounded hills, clothed with grass and flowers, with rich meadows between; through which numerous rills trickled to join their waters to the Coochatope creek. " But why multiply words to induce con

viction when facts are at hand to command it. Facts enough abound to show the facility of this pass, even in a state of nature. More than forty loaded wagons went through it in the summer of 1853, twenty of them guided by Leroux for Captain Gunnison-the rest by emigrant families, without guides. But more than that; the buffaloes have traveled it always-those best of engineers, whose instinct never commits a mistake, and which in their migrations for pasture, shelter, and salt, never fail to find the lowest levels in the mountains, the shallowest fords in the rivers, the richest grass, the best salt licks, the most permanent water, and always take the shortest and best routes between all these points of attraction. These instinctive explorers traverse this pass, and gave it their name-Coochatope in the Utah language; Puerto del Cibolos in the Spanish; which being rendered into English signifies the Gate of the Buffaloes. And their bones and horns, strewing the ground, attest their former numerous presence in this locality, before the fire-arms of modern invention had come to their destruction at such a crowded point of rendezvous. This is enough to show that the Rocky mountains may be passed without crossing a hill-that loaded wagons may cross it at all seasons of the year. This applies to the Coochatope pass, but there are many others, and all good; and it is curious to detect the latin language in many of their names, put upon them in the Spanish translation of the original Indian. Thus, we see porta in puerto; (a gate) constantly recurring, as Puerto del Cibolos-Puerto del mosca; in which latter, besides the porta we detect the latin musca (fly;) anglice, the Fly Gate; from the unusual number of these insects which the Indians found in it-Puerto del Medio, (medium) Middle Gate, &c., &c.; and here I recapitulate in order to make an important point clear. 1. From the

It was the Baron Alexander Von Humboldt that first put it into a book, that the buffaloes were the best of civil engineers. He put it into his Aspects of Nature; and I afterwards put the same into a senatorial speech, without knowing what he had done-and, true to the facts, we both gave the same examples of leading roads in our America, first traced by the buffaloes, and afterwards followed by the Indian as his war-path, by the pioneer white man as his wagon road, and by the engineer as his McAdam, or railroad track. Among these examples we both mentioned the buffalo trail from the Holston Salt Springs, in Virginia, to the rich pastures of Kentucky, through the Cumberland Mountain Gap; and said that no other practicable route, between these two points, had yet been found. In fact all the country people knew that the buffaloes were right; but in this past summer of 1854, some railroad engineers undertook to find a better and shorter road between the Salt Springs and the Cumberland Gap. They tried it-got cornered-could get no further -had to perform that evolution which, in the vernacular of the west, is called "backing out"had to return to the salt works-take the old trail -and follow the buffaloes. This was a confirmation of Humboldt, and a triumph of instinct over science; and we shall claim the benefit of it if any book-taught engineer shall ever have the temerity to dispute the excellence and supremacy of the Coochatope pass.

In a word, there is no difficulty about passes: the only bother is to choose out of so many, all so good, both in themselves, and in their approaches. This is enough for the passes: with respect to the whole mountain region, and the facility of going through it, and upon different lines, we have also the evidence of facts, which dispense with speculation and assertion. That region was three times traversed, and on different routes, by Messrs. Beale and Heap in the summer of 1853. It happened thus: when they had reached the east fork of the Great Colorado of the West, and were crossing it, they lost, by the accident of an overturned canoe, their supply of munitions, both for the gun and the mouth; and were forced to send back to the nearest settlement for a further supply. That nearest settlement was Taos, in New Mexico, distant three hundred and thirty miles; and that distance to be made upon mules, finding their own food, which had already traveled, on the same condition, one thousand miles

from the frontier of Missouri; and these mules (thus already traveled long and hard, without other food than the grass afforded,) now made the double distance at the rate of forty miles a daystill finding their own food, and, on the return, bringing packs on their backs. This performance must stand for a proof that the whole mountain region between the Upper Colorado and the valley of the Upper Del Norte is well adapted to traveling; and that in a state of nature; and also well supplied with nutritious grass. The experience of Captain Gunnison was to the same effect. His twenty wagons-guided by Leroux, and without the benefit of pioneers to remove obstructions, and making circuits to avoid impediments which a fatigue party should have removed-still made the distance between the Del Norte and the Upper Colorado (three hundred miles) in twenty-two days-averaging nearly fifteen miles to the day, (and Government wagons at that, never known to be in a hurry)-being the usual rate of wagon travel on our country roads: the teams arriving at the Colorado fatter than they had left the Del Norte, and without other food than the grass on the way: and this clears us of the Rocky mountains, from which, to the Little Salt Lake, it is all

Joaquin. Frémont, referring to previous Indian information, says of it:

"When the Point was reached I found the Indian information fully verified: the mountain suddenly terminated, and broke down into lower grounds, barely above the level of the country, and making numerous openings into the valley of the San Joaquin. I entered into the first which offered, (taking no time to search, as we were entirely out of provisions and living upon horses,) which led us by an open and almost level hollow thirteen miles long to an upland, not steep enough to be called a hill, over into the valley of a small affluent to Kern river; the hollow and the valley making together a way where a wagon would not find any obstruction for forty miles."

The discovery of this pass was the "crowning mercy" of this adventurous winter expedition. It

was the cherished desideratum of the central route. It fulfilled its last condition. It gives nearly a straight line from the Little Salt Lake to the Sierra Nevada, with a good pass into the valley of the San Joaquin. It cuts off the elbow which the old Los Angeles trail makes to the southwest. It avoids the desert on that route. It leaves, far to the south, those excitable fields of roving sands which infest the new San Diego route-sands which creep, like an army of pis-ants, under a gentle breeze; which bury the traveler who lies down to sleep on them when there is a little wind, unless he rises and shakes himself often during the night; in which no number of horses can leave a track; in which the hillock of to-day is a hole in the ground to-morrow; and which, in high winds, is a driving tempest of silicious particles, very cutting to the eyes and skin, very suffocating to the throat, very dangerous to those who are not tall and swift, and from which man and beast fly for life; and all which West Point science proposes to overcome by a profuse application of Federal dollars. All this is avoided by the short and straight route west from the Little Salt Lake discovered by Frémont in his winter expedition of 1853-'54. And this completes all that is necessary to be shown in favor of the smoothness of the wayits equality of surface throughout the whole line; although it attains a great elevation, and lands you in California, in the rich and settled valley of San Joaquin, proximate to the southern end of the gold mines. Not a tunnel to be made-a mountain to be climbed a hill to be crossed-a swamp to be seenor desert, or movable sand to be encountered, in the whole distance; and all this equality of surface barometrically determined by Frémont as well as visibly seen by his eye: so that this line for a road, the longest and straightest in the world, is also over the smoothest and most equal surface. For, although a great elevation is attained, it is on a long line, and gradually and imperceptibly, the mere rise of an inclined plane.

Rivers to be passed are obstructions to roads, to be overcome by large applications of skill and means; and here again the central route is most favorable. The entire line is only crossed in its course by the streams in the valley of the Upper Colorado, and those of inconsiderable width, with solid banks, and stone for bridges. On this side of the Rocky mountains the course of the rivers is parallel to that of the road—the Kansas, the Arkansas, and the Huerfano, being all in its line. Beyond the valley of the Colorado, no river at all-only small streams.

Mr. McClanahan, and others whose statements have been given- have attested the supreme excellence of the route for the road from Missouri as far as the San Luis valley, and that upon experiment with wagons, carriages, flocks and herds. It only remains to produce the same kind of testimony in behalf of the remaining part of the way, from that valley to California: and that testimony is at hand. Mr. R. S. Wootten, of New Mexico, a large dealer in stock to California, and who drove eight thousand sheep there in the summer of 1853, thus writes in a letter which he gave responsibly to the public:

HO. OF REPS.

"During the last year I have taken a drove of sheep from this place, (Taos,) to California over the route that Colonel Frémont intended to have gone in the winter of 1848-49, at the time of his disaster. I made the trip through to California in ninety days, arriving there with my sheep in good order, having passed through some of the finest country I ever saw, and had good camps, and plenty of wood, water and grass every night during the whole trip. There is now being commenced a settlement on the Arkansas river, at the mouth of the Huerfano, at which emigrants can procure such necessaries as they may be in want of, and also at the Mormon settlements at Little Salt Lake. There is also a good ferry at the mouth of the Huerfano, and ferries will also be established during the coming summer on Grand river and Green river, (Upper Colorado.) There is also another great advantage that this route has over a more northern one, as emigrants may leave Missouri as late as the 1st of August, and there is no danger of being stopped by snow. After reaching the great Spanish trail in the valley of Green river, (Upper Colorado,) from thence to California there is never any snow; and the months of October and November are more pleasant to travel, and better for stock, than the summer months."

This is the testimony of experience of actual experiment-in all the country of the mountains: in all the region from the Rocky mountains outsupposed by some to be so sterile, so rugged, so savage, so impracticable: proved to be so fine, only make ten miles a day, and fatten upon their that sheep find camps when they please, and they travel. And the settlers-already commenced, settlements all along-and proceeding_rapidly. What was one man at the mouth of the Huerfano

in 1853, was forty in the spring of 1854-all raising crops. Other settlements skirt the road, as that of 200 families in the valley of San Luis, and the pueblos San Carlos, Cuerno Verde, and others above Bent's Fort on the extreme upper Arkansas.

This finishes the testimony which time permits to be now produced in favor of the excellence of the country-in fact, its surpassing beauty and great superiority. It is as full and complete as the law of evidence requires any testimony, in such a case, to be. Still there may be persons to impugn it, and to cry down the country. That is an old business-as old as Moses and the twelve messengers which he sent from the wilderness of Paran to spy out the promised land; and ten of which made an "evil report" of the country, and stirred up the mutiny against Moses which continued forty days; and for the punishment of which the rebellious children were detained forty years in the wilderness. This is what happened to the promised land, and it is not to be expected that the distant and unknown countries of the Great West are to fare better. They also must expect to be evilly reported upon; but truth is powerful and must prevail-even where two stand against ten, as in the question between the messengers of Moses-and still more in the case of multitudes against units, as will be the way in the case of evil reports of this far distant Westespecially as the country will stand, to vindicate itself, and the truth. That is the last, and greatest witness! the country itself-work of God-standing where he placed it, exhibiting itself as it is! and ready to cover with shame the faint-hearted wanderers who, to get an excuse to return to the flesh-pots of Egypt, are forever discovering a "lion in the path."

I deem myself justified to develope, with some more detail, but one of the road advantages possessed by this route; an advantage often mentioned, but not sufficiently enforced. It is that of coal-so valuable under every aspect, and so indispensible to railroads when in prairies. It exists in superfluous abundance all along this line. Commencing in those coal fields in the west of Missouri which geologists compute to be of twenty thousand square miles extent, it is found all along the Kansas river on the Upper Kansas-in the Rocky mountains-in the valley of the Upper Calorado→→ at the western base of the Wahsatch and Anterria ranges; thus known at present from its own exhibition of itself-cropping out from the bluffs of rivers, and the banks of ravines. How much remains to be discovered, when so much shows itself spontaneously? Really, it seems like "carrying coal to New Castle," to tell of coal on this route.

The proposed central route is intended to be a straight line, turned aside by no obstacle, and seduced from its course by no lateral interest. But it will be a road for the accommodation of the whole broad expanse of the country from the Mis