EXTRACT FROM THE REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR, 1856. 21 



Pit river. The route then traverses a sterile plateau, elevated from four to five thousand feet 

 above the sea, to the head of the Des Chutes river. Serious obstacles to the construction of a 

 railroad are encountered at the canons of Pit river, and near upper Klamath lake. Wood and 

 water are sufficiently abundant. The deep canons in which the Des Chutes river and its 

 tributaries flow render it impracticable for a railroad to follow its valley to the Columbia river. 

 A practicable, although difficult, pass was examined through the Cascade range near Diamond 

 Peak, by which the road can reach the Willamette valley ; the route through which to the 

 Columbia is very favorable to the construction of a railroad. The route west of the Cascade 

 range is through the Willamette, Umpqua, Eogue Eiver, and Shasta valleys. It proved to be 

 more favorable than had been anticipated ; and had not the smallness of the party and its 

 inability to obtain an escort during the existence of Indian hostilities prevented lateral recon- 

 naissances, it appears probable that a practicable line to Fort Beading would have been found, 

 traversing for nearly the whole distance a fertile and inhabited region. 



Between the Columbia river and Fort Lane in Eogue Biver valley, the Calapooya mountains, 

 Umpqua mountains^, and the Grave Creek hills are the chief obstacles to the construction of a 

 railroad. An excellent pass through the first, and a difficult, but practicable, pass through 

 the second, were surveyed. The Grave Creek hills, it is thought, can be turned. 



Information respecting a pass from Eogue Eiver valley to the plateau east of the Cascade 

 mountains makes it probable that an easy connexion with the first route examined may be 

 made, and this will be especially important should the obstacles encountered between Fort 

 Lane and Fort Eeading be shown by further examination to be insurmountable. 



The pass examined through the Siskiyou mountains, which separate Eogue Eiver and Shasta 

 valleys, was very unfavorable to the construction of a railroad. 



From Shasta valley to Fort Eeading the route over the Scott and Trinity mountains is re- 

 ported utterly impracticable. A feasible location between these places might be obtained by 

 following the Sacramento valley. 



The route east of the Cascade range may be considered practicable. The total distance by it 

 from Benicia to Vancouver is about 800 miles, of which only 350 miles are in a fertile and 

 settled region. The construction for about 250 miles would be very difficult and costly ; for 

 the remainder of the distance the work would be light. 



The principal advantage of a route west of the Cascade Bange would consist in its traversing 

 a fertile and inhabited country. By the line surveyed the total distance from Benicia to Van- 

 couver is 680 miles, of which 500 would be easy of construction, 100 difficult and costly, and 

 80 so difficult and expensive as to be considered impracticable. 



Additional experiments have been made during the past year by the party previously 

 engaged in testing the practicability of procuring water by means of artesian wells upon the 

 Llano Estacado, and upon the table lands west of the Bio Grande. In the latter region the 

 trial has not been prosecuted sufficiently far to admit of satisfactory conclusions. The work 

 upon the Llano, which had been suspended until additional tubing could be procured, was 

 resumed, and a well has been sunk to the depth of 861 feet. At the depths of 245 and 676 

 feet seams of pure and palatable water were laid open ; the first rising in the well twenty-five 

 feet, and the second to within 110 feet of the surface. As no water rose above this point it has 

 not yet been practically demonstrated that, in this region, there are subterranean streams 

 which can be made to flow upon the surface ; but nothing has been developed to change the 



