224 J- A. LATCHA 



tension of our railroad system should be made from Grand 

 Junction to Salina Pass, and thence to the town of Salina; 

 thence to Marysvale; thence to near Cedar City, passing not 

 far from the great iron deposits of Southern Utah; thence 

 to a point south of Pioche; thence to near Hyko, passing 

 Coal Valley; thence south of Reveille; thence to Candelara; 

 thence to the northern shore of Lake Mono; thence westward 

 to within about ten miles of Bodie; thence to Mono Pass; thence 

 down the valley of the Tuolumne river to near the Angel 

 gold regions of Calaveras county, passing the famous Utica 

 mine; and thence to Stockton and San Francisco. 



Such a railroad would be about nine hundred miles long. 

 It would cut through immense deposits of bituminous coa) 

 east of Salina Pass, would tap the Marysvale gold and silvei 

 regions, open the greatest iron deposit on our continent, 

 and would traverse the heart of a territory extending from 

 Pioche to Bodie, known for a quarter of a century to be rich 

 in gold, every ounce of which could be reclaimed by the 

 cyanide process. That road would traverse the finest scenery 

 in America, via Mono Pass. It would swing around the moun- 

 tians encircling Mono lake, — one of the most remarkable 

 sheets of water on the globe; it would present to view the 

 craters of extinct volcanoes unequalled in North America; 

 it would pass within ten miles of Yosemite valley, which 

 could be reached by tourists with ease over good wagon roads; 

 it would traverse Hetchy-Ketchy valley, which is almost, if 

 not equally, as grand as the famous Yosemite; and from it 

 would be seen Mt. Dana and Mt. Lyell, two of the grandest 

 snow capped peaks of the American continent, each summit 

 being over 13,500 feet in altitude. 



The free gold of the Klondyke region will soon be ex- 

 hausted, as was the nugget gold of California and Austraha. 

 But the exhaustless golden riches in the quartz formation 

 of California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado can be enjoyed 

 by us for generations after the Klondyke craze shall have 

 become a terrible memory. The boasted South African gold 

 deposits cannot compare with the enormous areas containing 

 gold in our states; extending, as our deposits do, for six hun- 

 dred miles continuously north and south in California, and for 



