OAKWOOD CANON. 
19 
that will require considerable labor in cutting through, but it is believed that in few instances 
will blasting be rendered necessary. Sufficient timber may be found in the valley for ties, 
which is chiefly oak of good quality. Lime is easily obtained from the neighborhood, and sand 
and rock being large components of the soil, the materials for the construction may be safely 
stated to be abundant. The distance to the Indian village of Capitan Grande is 12.5 miles, 
the altitude from last station 317.21 feet, and the inclination of the river bed 25.2 feet per 
mile. It will be necessary to raise the track considerably above the natural bed of the stream, 
for obvious reasons, and a feasible average grade may be adopted, ascending at the rate of about 
51 feet per mile, arriving at a point on the side hill 323 feet above the level of the river, 
abreast of the Indian village, which is situated on its immediate border. This height and rate 
of ascent may be increased without disadvantage, as will be hereafter shown. 
OAKWOOD CANON. 
This is the name given to the gulch which heads in the valley of Santa Isabel, and whose 
waters are discharged into the San Diego river, just above the village, at Capitan Grande. 
Leaving the village and following the surveyed line, our course leads along a well timbered 
bottom with flat ridges of table land on both sides for three or four miles, then turning a little 
to the left, we find the valley becoming more narrow above the point where the pinery brook 
enters it, and is now enclosed by high regularly shaped hills covered closely with brush. In a 
couple of miles further the bed of the stream becomes so choked by the accumulation of rock 
and underbrush, that it is difficult to effect a passage through them. The slopes are generally 
clothed with turf and grass, studded with many out-cropping stones and fragments of rock, 
which may be easily displaced and rendered readily available for purposes of construction. 
Throughout the whole of this canon the mountain slopes are lofty and regular, so that a grade 
line would cut the surface in a section of easy curves. In two or three places, however, cliffs 
or ledges of rock project from their sides for short distances, and these are the points which 
involve the chief difficulties of the route. A bridge or trestle work to cross the valley at these 
points seems to afford the most feasible method of passing these obstructions, though it is not 
certain they could not be so reduced by blasting as to admit safely the passage of trains. In 
the upper portion of the gulch there is a flourishing growth of heavy oak timber and no small 
quantity of sycamore. 
From the Indian village to the head of the canon the distance, by the measured line, is 14.30 
miles, the difference of level 2,257.54 feet, and the average grade of the water-course 157.7 feet 
per mile. Commencing the grade of our road at the point where we left it on the hill above 
the Indian village, and assuming a cut of 85 feet to be necessary at the entrance of San Isabel 
valley, we have a difference of level between the two points of 1,849.54 feet, and by adding to 
the distance one-tenth for increased length in curvature, the resulting average grade will be 
117.6 feet per mile for fifteen and three-quarter miles. But the grade can be reduced in a still 
greater degree by going back to the station at Cajon, and ascending at the moderate rate of 61.4 
feet per mile to the Indian village ; thence, from the higher point at the side hill thus attained, 
the grade to San Isabel will become 107.5 feet a mile for about sixteen miles. This average 
grade will, of course, be essentially modified to suit the various accidents of the ground, a more 
gradual inclination being given, where practicable, to those parts of the line abounding in 
