CHAPTER III. 



General Description of Region Examined, and Results Accomplished. General Salubrity 



of the Region. 



The country thus occupied, or to be occupied, may be described as follows: It lies between 

 the great lakes and Puget sound, the forty-ninth parallel and the emigrant route of the South 

 Pass. In it are four great rivers the Mississippi and the Red river of the North, flowing into the 

 Gulf of Mexico and Hudson s bay; the Missouri and Columbia rivers, flowing eastward and 

 westward from the Rocky mountains in opposite directions. 



There are three mountain ranges, running in a general direction north and south the Rocky, 

 Cceur d Alene, and Cascade mountains. The four rivers are more than powerful auxiliaries as 

 lines of communication in building the road and advancing settlements, affording in their course 

 large tracts of arable and pasture land and inexhaustible supplies of lumber and stone. They 

 have essentially modified the climate. The Mississippi and the Red river of the North, with their 

 several tributaries interlocking each other, nearly all heavily timbered, make the eastern portion 

 of the field one of inexhaustible fertility, and have great natural advantages for bringing supplies 

 and productions of all kinds to market. The Missouri river has turned the formidable chain of the 

 Black Hills and Wind River mountains, and with its southern tributaries, especially the Yellow 

 stone, presents a rich and inviting country at the base and into the valleys of the mountains. 

 The Columbia has found its way through the Cceur d Alene and Cascade chains, affording ex 

 cellent passes, arid the tributaries of the two rivers interlocking in the Rocky mountains have 

 broken it into spurs and valleys, affording several practicable passes, and with a tunnel admitting 

 the passage of a road at an elevation of about five thousand feet. 



In the region of the South Pass the Rocky mountain range extends from near Fort Laramie to 

 the valley of the Salt lake, through nearly seven degrees of longitude, or a distance of about three 

 hundred miles, at an elevation of, from 4,519 feet (Fort Laramie) to 7,400 feet (South Pass,) and 

 from 4,222 feet (Great Salt lake) to 8,400 feet (Wahsatch mountains,) above the sea; and the 

 whole system of ranges to the Pacific extends through seventeen degrees. Northward, none of 

 the subsidiary spurs that branch to the eastward cross the Missouri and Yellowstone, and the 

 main chain deflects considerably to the westward, till, in the region extending from the sources of 

 the Missouri to the headwaters of Sun river, the system of ranges extends only through nine de 

 grees of longitude, of which three to four degrees are occupied by the prairie region of the Great 

 Plain of the Columbia, and in the several passes the greatest elevation is about 6,300 feet, and 

 the length of the route where the elevation exceeds that of Fort Laramie and the Great Salt lake, 

 is fifty-six miles. Crossing the Yellowstone and Missouri, the whole country eastward to the 

 Mississippi is a prairie region. Puget sound is in the same longitude as San Francisco, and a 

 railroad through the South Pass to San Francisco or Puget sound must, without making any 

 allowance for the Great Plain of the Columbia, pass over a mountain region eight degrees in lon 

 gitude greater than by the route north of the Missouri and Yellowstone. 



Thus the distinctive character of the route is the great extension of the prairie region west 

 ward ; the easy character and the low elevation of the passes of the Rocky mountains; the prac 

 ticable character of the passes in the Cceur d Alene and Cascade mountains, and its connexion 

 with the great natural water communication across the continent of the Missouri and Columbia 

 rivers. 



