NARRATIVE OF 1853. 167 
feet grades for a limited number of miles and a short tunnel, or with a longer tunnel and easier 
grades. : 
Wishing to know the real difficulty to be apprehended from the passage of these mountains 
in the winter season by railroad trains, he paid particular attention to the measurement and 
examination of the snows on the route. From Lake Kitchelus to the summit, some five miles, 
and where occurs the deepest snow, the average measurement was about six feet, but 
frequently running as high as seven feet. 
In a storm occurring on the night of the 20th about one foot and a half of this depth was 
deposited—a very light, dry snow. The whole of the snow was very light and dry, deposited 
in successivé layers from one to two feet thick, and for the greater part of the route had lain 
undisturbed since its fall, every twig and bush bowing under their heavy burden. These 
snows present little obstruction to removal in comparison with the compact, drifted snow of the 
Atlantic States, and would cause very little detention to the passage of trains. Passing on to 
the west side of the Cascades the snow rapidly disappears; fourteen miles from the summit 
there were but eight inches of snow, and thence it gradually faded away as approach was made 
to the shores of the sound. For only a few miles was the snow six feet deep; the whole 
breadth, over twelve inches deep, was somewhat less than sixty miles in extent. Of this, forty- 
five miles were two fect deep and upwards, about twenty miles were four feet deep and 
upwards, and six miles were six feet deep. 
In descending the western slope of the Yakima Pass, Mr. Tinkham judged that the natural 
descent of the valley of the Nooknoo was sixty feet per mile, and that it soon became less than 
this. He thinks that from this point westward no serious difficulty exists, and the balance of 
the road to Seattle may be made without objectionable grades as work of an unusually expen- 
sive character. 
About seventeen miles from the summit the Nooknoo (Nooksai-nooksai) empties into the lake 
of the same name, and is about four miles long, the valley for this distance being densely 
wooded. Here the trail followed by Mr. Tinkham then left this river, (which below is called 
Cedar river, and empties into Dwamish lake,) and crossing a nearly level tract of woods for 
five miles entered upon Rangers’ Prairie, a large and rich one, just above the falls of the 
Snoqualmoo. It is estimated that there are 10,000 acres of excellent prairie land in the 
vicinity of these falls, both above and below, and the falls themselves are 280 feet high. 
Going down the river for nine miles, Mr. Tinkham left it, and by a very circuitous route, forty 
miles long, reached Seattle, January 26, seven days after leaving the eastern base of the 
dividing ridge. 
