EXTRACT FROM THE REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR, 1856. 
21 
Pit river. The route then traverses a sterile plateau, elevated from four to five thousand feet 
above the sea, to the head of the Des Chutes river. Serious obstacles to the construction of a 
railroad are encountered at the canons of Pit river, and near upper Klamath lake. Wood and 
water are sufficiently abundant. The deep canons in which the Des Chutes river and its 
tributaries flow render it impracticable for a railroad to follow its valley to the Columbia river. 
A practicable, although difficult, pass was examined through the Cascade range near Diamond 
Peak, by which the road can reach the Willamette valley; the route through which to the 
Columbia is very favorable to the construction of a railroad. The route west of the Cascade 
range is through the Willamette, Umpqua, Rogue River, and Shasta valleys. It proved to he 
more favorable than had been anticipated ; and had not the smallness of the party and its 
inability to obtain an escort during the existence of Indian hostilities prevented lateral recon¬ 
naissances, it appears probable that a practicable line to Fort Reading would have been found, 
traversing for nearly the whole distance a fertile and inhabited region. 
Between the Columbia river and Fort Lane in Rogue River valley, the Calapooya mountains, 
Umpqua mountains, and the Grave Creek hills are the chief obstacles to the construction of a 
railroad. An excellent pass through the first, and a difficult, but practicable, pass through 
the second, were surveyed. The Grave Creek hills, it is thought, can be turned. 
Information respecting a pass from Rogue River valley to the plateau east of the Cascade 
mountains makes it probable that an easy connexion with the first route examined may be 
made, and this will be especially important should the obstacles encountered between Fort 
Lane and Fort Reading be shown by further examination to be insurmountable. 
The pass examined through the Siskiyou mountains, which separate Rogue River and Shasta 
valleys, was very unfavorable to the construction of a railroad. 
From Shasta valley to Fort Reading the route over the Scott and Trinity mountains is re¬ 
ported utterly impracticable. A feasible location between these places might be obtained by 
following the Sacramento valley. 
The route east of the Cascade range may be considered practicable. The total distance by it 
from Benicia to Vancouver is about 800 miles, of which only 350 miles are in a fertile and 
settled region. The construction for about 250 miles would be very difficult and costly; for 
the remainder of the distance the work would be light. 
The principal advantage of a route west of the Cascade Range would consist in its traversing 
a fertile and inhabited country. By the line surveyed the total distance from Benicia to Van¬ 
couver is 680 miles, of which 500 would be easy of construction, 100 difficult and costly, and 
80 so difficult and expensive as to be considered impracticable. 
Additional experiments have been made during the past year by the party previously 
engaged in testing the practicability of procuring water by means of artesian wells upon the 
Llano Estacado, and upon the table lands west of the Rio Grande. In the latter region the 
trial has not been prosecuted sufficiently far to admit of satisfactory conclusions. The work 
upon the Llano, which had been suspended until additional tubing could be procured, was 
resumed, and a well has been sunk to the depth of 861 feet. At the depths of 245 and 676 
feet seams of pure and palatable water were laid open ; the first rising in the well twenty-five 
feet, and the second to within 110 feet of the surface. As no water rose above this point it has 
not yet been practically demonstrated that, in this region, there are subterranean streams 
which can be made to flow upon the surface; but nothing has been developed to change the 
