38 
RAILROAD REPORT—ROUTE FROM BENICIA TO FORT READING. 
The length of the surveyed line was 470 miles. About 300 miles of it would he easy of 
construction, about 100 very costly and difficult, and about 80 impracticable at any reasonable 
expense. The routes by which the impracticable portions of the line could probably be 
avoided, will be fully explained in the detailed report. The chief obstacles would be encoun¬ 
tered in passing from the Sacramento valley to Shasta valley, and in crossing the Siskiyou 
mountains, the Umpqua mountains, the Grave Creek Hills in Rogue River valley, and Long’s 
Hills in Umpqua valley. 
Should further examination show this route to be feasible, it would, for many reasons, be 
greatly preferable to that surveyed east of the Cascade Range. It traverses a region generally 
but little elevated above the sea, where the danger of obstruction from snow would be very much 
less than upon the high plateau east of the range. It passes through the richest and most 
populous portion of Oregon, while a large part of the other traverses a sterile, uninhabited 
waste. Besides the great amount of way travel always created by a railroad in a settled country, 
much freight would probably pass over this line, which would not be transported over the other. 
This is evident from the following considerations. There are in the Willamette, Umpqua, and 
Rogue River valleys areas of very productive land, which is uncultivated only because there is 
no market for the produce. No large rivers afford water communication with the ocean, and the 
mountains, which cover northern California, almost entirely prevent the transportation of supplies, 
by land, to that State. Oregon is, therefore, to a great extent, isolated, and dependent upon 
itself for a market. The construction of a railroad to the Sacramento valley, by this route west 
of the mountains, would enable the farmers in all these fertile valleys to send their produce to 
the mining regions of northern California and southern Oregon, where most of the country is 
unfitted for agricultural purposes, and where the price of provisions is now most exorbitant. 
The route east of the Cascade Range, on the contrary, would neither be accessible to freight 
from southern Oregon, nor traverse the mining region, where the most profitable market for the 
produce of the Willamette valley would be found. 
The remainder of this chapter contains detailed descriptions of the different routes explored. 
PROPOSED RAILROAD ROUTE FROM BENICIA TO FORT READING, SURVEYED BY LIEUT. WILLIAMSON. 
Before Lieutenant Williamson’s sickness, he had prepared the following report upon the 
route up the Sacramento valley. As he never revised it, I have made a few necessary verbal 
corrections, but have not, in the slightest degree, changed its import. It is to be considered 
entirely his report. 
“The Sacramento valley is a vast plain, about two hundred miles long, and averaging fifty miles 
in breadth. Through the middle of it flows the Sacramento river, receiving numerous tributaries 
from the Sierra Nevada, but very few from the Coast Range. The valley is destitute of trees, 
except upon the river banks, and is covered with a luxuriant growth of wild oats. The soil, 
during the summer, is very dry, but in winter is so moist as to render travelling very difficult. 
There is not the slightest topographical obstruction to the construction of any kind of a road, 
in any part of the valley. 
“In the examination of the valley, therefore, with reference to the construction of a railroad, 
the most important question seems to be the relative advantages presented by the east and west 
sides of the valley. I had previously been up and down the valley, on each side, and was well 
acquainted with its character. 
“Only a very small quantity of water is drained from the eastern slope of the Coast Range ; 
and most of that is absorbed by the soil at its base. Hence the almost total absence of tribu- 
