250 NEW TRACKS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
of their migratory habits as their many requirements, 
larger source of revenue to a railroad than six times 
population dependent upon agriculture, even if we disre 
altogether the transportation of ores, an item often eu 
greatest importance. 2 
After crossing the continental water-parting through a ae | 
at Benton (near Bridger’s Pass)—elevation, 7,534 feet—the ’ 
railroad leaves the Rocky Mountains and traverses the Bitter-— 
Creek country ; crosses Green River, the main tributary of | 
the Rio Colorado of the West; and reaches the foot of the 
Wahsatch Mountains. This country, 200 miles wide, 1s 
fairly represented by Mr. Stansbury, who accurately surveyed — 
it, as consisting of ‘‘ Artemisian barrens, with some pasturage 
on the streams.” The water is bitter, sulphurous, or strongly © 
saline ; the earth is for the most part bare and rugged, show- | 
ing the wear and tear of ages, and the cracks and fissures of © 
the more recent water-courses. A more forsaken region a 
never saw. 
The Wahsacht belt of mountains is sixty miles across, and 
the dividing ridge which separates the waters of Green 
River, which flow into the Californian Gulf, from the tribu- 
taries of Great Salt Lake, is crossed within the first twenty 
miles, without any heavy grades, at an elevation of 7,567 
feet. Nature has herself cut a path through the remaining 
forty miles of mountain by means of two fine gorges, Echo 
and Weber caiions. Without the intervention of these extra- 
ordinary natural passes, the Wahsatch Mountains would have 
formed an insurmountable barrier to a railroad. The railroad 
thus reaches the shore of Great Salt Lake, thirty miles north 
of the Mormon city. It does not pass through this tow, 
but turns northward around the lake, and then, bending 
= ty — the Salt Lake Basin and enters that of the 
