86 



Nebraska and Iowa and Dakota become populated, this route, or the 

 one starting from Fort Lookout, will claim attention. 



At Fort Pierre the navigable portion of the Missouri is at its nearest 

 point to Laramie and the South Pass, and above it, of course, there 

 are no competing routes for supplying this section. Neither does the 

 nearest navigable point for steamboats on the Yellowstone or its tribu- 

 taries offer any route whose diminished length would compensate for 

 the increased river transportation. It is believed that any route which 

 keeps east of the Big Horn mountains is practicable for wagons between 

 the Yellowstone and Missouri, and that the direct route between Fort 

 Laramie and Fort Benton is favorable to military movements. 



In consideration of the best routes for supplying the interior, I 

 have mainly had in view the wants of present occupation of the coun- 

 try. When the habitable ])Ortions of Nebraska become occupied, as 

 they eventually will, other routes will become important from causes 

 not now operating and that cannot bo foreseen; but I believe that 

 those which are now niost important will still maintain the ascendancy 

 from the effect of natural causes and the structure of the country. 

 The same routes now most used and best adapted to the wants of 

 military occupation were long before used by the trader, the Indian, 

 and the buffalo, as best adapted to their wants; and when future re- 

 quirements shall demand increased facilities of transportation and 

 locomotion and railroads shall be built, then they, too, will be found 

 near the main routes now travelled by the trains of the emigrant and 

 the army. 



As I before stated, an irreclaimable desert of 200 to 400 miles in 

 width separates the points capable of settlement in the east from those 

 on the mountains in the west. Without doubt these mountain re- 

 gions will yet be inhabited by civilized men, and the communication 

 with the east will require railroads, independent of the want of an 

 interior overland route to the Pacific. For this purpose the valley of 

 the Platte offers a route not surpassed for natural gradients by any in 

 the world, and very little more is to be done west of the Missouri than 

 to make tlie superstructure. A- cheap road for light trains and en- 

 gines could easily be built, and when settlements are formed in the 

 mountains will become profitable; and the gold that has been discov- 

 ered there in valuable quantities may produce this result much sooner 

 than we anticipate. The Niobrara apparently presents a more short 

 and direct route to the interior than the Platte, but its natural features 

 are not so favorable. The direct route from Sioux City to Fort Lara- 

 mie by the Niobrara would be, for a railroad, about forty miles shorter 

 than by way of the Platte and Fort Kearney. 



I do not, however, consider the route by the Niobrara as impracti- 

 cable, but think that the difficulties in the way of constructing it will 

 overbalance the advantages of being a shorter route from the Missouri. 

 If the route be considered as starting at the city of Chicago, thence 

 via Kock Island, Omaha, and the Platte valley, the distance is about 

 the same as that by Dubuque, Sioux City, and the Niobrara; the one 

 large bend which the former makes at Fort Kearney being counter- 

 balanced by the number of small ones of the latter. 



