APPENDIX B. 



REPORT UPON THE ROUTE EROM SAN DIEGO TO PORT YUMA, VIA 

 SAN DIEGO RIVER, WARNER'S PASS, AND SAN FELIPE CANON. 



BY CHAKLES H. POOLE, 



CHIEF ENOINEEE. 



San Dikqo, California, October 10, 1855. 



Dear Sir: I have the honor herewith to suhmit to you, in compliance with the request com- 

 municated to me at the time of your departure from California, the following report of the 

 results obtained of a survey by me of the proposed route for a railway across the State of Cali- 

 fornia, and between the port of San Diego and the mouth of the river Gila. This survey, as 

 you are aware, was undertaken by the company organized at this place under the laws of the 

 State of California for the purposes of insuring a careful and minute examination of passes in 

 the Coast mountains believed to be practicable and adapted to the passage of a railroad . 



The exploration was deemed more necessary and important, from the fact that the limited 

 time allowed to Lieuteaant Williamson for his examinations last year did not permit so close a 

 survey of the country between the coast and the Colorado river as the very peculiar and difficult 

 nature of the country seemed to require. It was believed essential that the acknowledged 

 advantages of a terminus of the Pacific coast within 200 miles of the mouth of the Gila, at a 

 port and harbor of unrivalled excellence, should not lightly be passed over in these preliminary 

 examinations, nor suffered to be neglected for want of adequate information as to its practica- 

 bility of access. 



TOPOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTRY. 



It will be proper to give a brief statement of the main features of the district proposed to be 

 traversed by the railroad, in order to insure a correct understanding of the objects, details, and 

 results of the survey. 



The Pacific coast, from San Diego to San Pedro, a distance of 100 miles, has a general direc- 

 tion northwest, unbroken by any cove or inlet, presenting a continuous series of bhiffs and 

 narrow valleys, formed by the spurs and foot-hills of the mountains of the interior, which, as 

 they approach the sea, gradually subside into rolling and sometimes abrupt ridges divided by 

 water-courses tending to the ocean. About fifty miles from the sea, the Coast or Cordilleras 

 range of mountains extend nearly parallel with the coast from their junction with, or rather 

 their disjunction from, the Sierra Nevada, entirely across the district and through Lower Cali- 

 fornia to Cape St. Lucas. The divide or watershed of these mountains is not a direct line of 



