236 EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH. 



railroad, as we think, has been owing to two causes, both of which, singly and together, 

 have been operating to produce it. One is the perfect ignorance of the people in 

 respect to the character of the country through which the railroad or railroads are to 

 be built, and, therefore, their inability to realize the true state of the case. The other 

 is the seemingly studious way in which the stubborn facts of the project and unpalat- 

 able truths have been kept in the background. I say seemingly studious, for so at 

 first glance it might appear, though I think it has arisen from a habit of mind to dwell, 

 in descriptions of country, upon that which is pleasing, and caring but little to dwell 

 upon that which, though a truth of the greatest importance in the premises, is forbid- 

 ding ; I refer to the almost utter barrenness which characterizes, as a whole, the 

 expanse of country tor hundreds, I may almost say thousands, of miles along the sev- 

 eral routes. Now, when I speak of the ignorance of the people in respect to the char- 

 acter of the country, I do not speak of it in the way of reproach. Far from it, but 

 only as a fact which they cannot help, and which is common to the most intelligent, 

 and all because, having seen nothing of the same kind in their own experience, they 

 cannot, even bv any description which others may give, conn- up, in their own con- 

 ceptions, to the utter barrenness and worthlessness, speaking ;!S a whole, which this 

 country throughout nearly its whole extent presents. 



For example, the fact may be told a hundred times that the great area of the 

 country, from about two hundred miles west of the States of Arkansas and Missouri, 

 nearly the whole way to the Pacific, is one unmitigated desert (including within this 

 also barren mountains), which a person who has seen it would scarcely take as a gift; 

 and yet, notwithstanding all this, annually you will see lulls brought forward in Con- 

 gress in which the land along the route figures as a very important element in the 

 ways and means to construct the road. Should Congress send out a committee to spy 

 out the utter poverty of the land, as it really exists, it is possible it may be brought to 

 a standpoint from which members will see the fact as it is, and the difficulties on this 

 account, and others may then loom up sufficiently to assure them that the construction 

 of this road will require something more to accomplish it than the legislation which 

 has attended the construction of roads in our densely populated and fertile States, 

 where all is normal to immediate and certain results. 



But should not one or more railroads be built across our country! Should not 

 our Pacific possessions and population be brought into closer relation by the quick 

 response of sympathy, social, commercial, and militarv, which this mode of transit 

 would engender! Should not the trade of the great "nations of China and Japan, 

 which bv treaty has lately been opened to us, be made available to us as a people 

 and a nation, by the establishment of a hard-iron railway, which, by its slight friction 

 and the steam-car, would rapidly possess tis of the rich products of those countries ? 

 Does not the quick concentration' of troops, necessary in time of danger from threat- 

 ened invasion, as well as the close bond which should ever 'subsist between the 

 remotest and all portions of our confederacy, make such a project a sine qua mm 

 of safety from our enemies from without, and of amity ami harmony within? 



To all this we most indubitably reply yes. But how shall we go to work to build 

 these roads, and what routes shall we take? Shall we have but one road, and that 



