&6 ROUTE NEAR THE FORTY-FIRST AND FORTY-SECOND PARALLELS. 
Ten miles of canon on the Timpanogos river, at $150,000 per mile. $1,500,000 
From the Oquirrh mountains, Great Salt lake, to the head of the first canon on 
the Sacramento river, deducting ten miles of the length of the pass in the 
eastern ridge of the Sierra Nevada, and seventeen miles of the length of the 
pass in the western ridge of the Sierra Nevada, 547 miles, at $45,000 per 
mile. $24,615,000 
Portion of the pass of the western ridge of the Sierra Nevada, seventeen miles, 
$100,000 per mile. $2,700,000 
From the head of the first canon on the Sacramento river to the termination of 
the mountain passage of the river, seventeen miles above Fort Reading, 135.5 
miles, at $150,000 per mile. $20,325,000 
Thence to Fort Reading, on the Sacramento river, seventeen miles, and thence to 
Benicia, 180 miles ; being about 200 miles, at $50,000 per mile. $10,000,000 
Total..’. $116,095,000 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
The characteristic features of this route consist in the table-land character of the two great 
mountain systems of the continent, the Rocky mountains and the Sierra Nevada, in the 
latitude where crossed by it, in the distance from the eastern foot of the Rocky mountains to 
the Great Basin (350 miles,) being the least, and in the width of the Great Basin, whose 
topographical features (those technically called movements of ground) are so highly favorable 
to the construction of a railroad, being here the greatest, 500 miles. 
These elevated table-lands of the Rocky mountains and the Sierra Nevada bear some general 
resemblance, in their topographical features, independent of vegetation, to one of the ele¬ 
mentary or small basins ol the Great Basin ; they are bounded on the east and west by ridges, 
whose crests are at no great height above the general plateau, but several thousand feet above 
the plains from which the mountain systems rise. In the Rocky mountain plateau, this 
difference of elevation is upwards of 4,000 feet ; in the Sierra Nevada upwards of 3,000 feet 
on the east, the mountain slopes on the west descending to nearly the level of the sea. The 
Sierra Nevada assumes this table-land character again in latitude 35°. 
The South Pass cannot be considered favorable, since it requires expensive construction 
for nearly 300 miles. The route by the Cheyenne Pass may be found more favorable, but 
there is not sufficient known of it to determine this. 
The unfavorable feature of the passes in the Wahsatch mountains consists in their canons, 
where the expense of construction will be great. 
The two canons of the Sacramento, fourteen and nine miles in length, and the very 
sinuous course of the river for the space of ninety-six miles, through heavily timbered mount¬ 
ains, rising precipitously from the stream, form the principal characteristic unfavorable 
features of the route, the cost of constructing a railroad along which cannot be properly 
estimated until minute surveys are made. 
It partakes of the character of the route near the 47th parallel, in the long and severe 
winters on the plains east of the Rocky mountains and westward to the Great Basin. 
The profiles compiled in the office show the route, near the 41st parallel, by the South fork 
of the Platte, the Cheyenne and Bridger’s Pass. The estimate is made for the route by the 
South Pass. 
SUPPLEMENT TO ROUTE NEAR THE FORTY-FIRST AND FORTY-SECOND PARALLELS; PREPARED BY LIEU¬ 
TENANT G. K. WARREN, TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS. 
The great South Pass, one of the key-points of this route, has in its character nothing of 
a mountain gap, being merely a depression in the line of intersection of two gently inclined 
