44 
DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. 
Above, to Camp 144, the valley opens, tbe bills assume the character of a broken mesa forma¬ 
tion, and the bottom-lands vary from a few hundred feet to nearly a mile in width. Wherever 
the stream appears flowing upon the surface, its banks are clothed with luxuriant vegetation, 
consisting principally of mezquite thickets, willows, and rank grass. Between stations 4 and 
G the water sinks, and the valley is sandy and barren. There is grama grass upon some of the 
hill slopes and in the ravines. 
At Camp 144 there is running water, with grass and mezquite trees upon the banks. The 
width of the alluvial bottoms is 700 yards. Ascending the valley, we find it bounded by low 
grassy mesas from 25 to 80 feet above the stream. At station 1 the surface is dry and sandy. 
Station 2 is on a spur of the table-land which impinges upon the right bank of the stream. 
From station 2 to station 3 the trail crosses the river, ascends a prairie covered with luxuriant 
grass, and descends to the valley again at station 4. From this point to Camp 145, three miles 
and a half, the mesas recede, leaving a basin of arable soil several miles in width. A pretty 
stream flows through it, bordered with cotton-wood and tornillas, and the surface is covered 
with an exuberant growth of meadow grass. From this place the trail leads along the edge of 
a broad mesa; and at station 1, five miles from Camp 145, it enters the valley of Mojave river, 
at its intersection with the Mormon road from Great Salt Lake. The slopes are broad, and the 
valley, in many places, dry and sandy, until we reach station 5. From that point to Camp 
146, the bottom-lands enclosed by hills become narrow. The stream bears a larger flow of 
water, and the banks are fertile. 
Above Camp 146 the valley is from one to two miles in width, containing good soil and large 
groves of cotton-wood trees. The river is a continuously flowing stream, containing water 
sufficient to irrigate the wide bottom-lands below. At station 5 the trail turns from the valley 
to cut off a large bend of the river towards the northwest; and opposite station 6 is a break in 
the mesa, indicating the entrance of a ravine, or an arroyo, from the east. This is the point 
where it is proposed to leave the Mojave river, and proceed, by the route examined by Lieutenant 
Williamson, to Tah-ee-chay-pah Pass, and thence to San Francisco. For full descriptions of 
the surveys upon that line, reference will be made to Lieutenant Williamson’s report, from 
which may be obtained a knowledge of the character of the country from the Mojave river 
across the Great Basin, and through the Tah-ee-chay-pah Pass into Tulare valley. The height 
of the Mojave river at the point between Camps 146 and 147, where we propose to leave it, is 
2,313 feet above the sea. The latitude of this place is 34° 53'.5. Mr. Williamson’s Dry lake 
is nearly west, about thirty miles distant, at an altitude of 2,388 feet above the sea, or seventy- 
five feet above the Majove river. The country between is an undulating prairie, deemed favor¬ 
able for the location of a railroad. The width of the lake appears to be about 9.5 miles. 
From the western edge of it to the stream at the entrance to Tah-ee-chay-pah Pass, which 
has an elevation of 3,300 feet above the sea, the distance would be 23.5 miles, in a course 
slightly north of west, with an average grade of about 39 feet per mile. Thence ascending 
the stream 16| miles to the summit of the pass, the maximum natural grade is 88 feet per mile. 
The following extract from Captain Humphries’s report will suffice to give an idea of the 
remainder of this route to the Pacific : 
“The most direct route to San Francisco from the Tah-ee-chay-pah Pass will be found 
through one of the passes known to exist in the mountain range separating the San Joaquin 
valley from those of the Salinas river and San Jose river. The distance through them is about 
ten miles ; the elevation of their summits about 600 feet. They may be reached from the 
Tah-ee-chay-pah Pass by passing around the head of the Tulares valley to its western side, or 
by keeping on the eastern side of the Tulares valley 15 or 20 miles after crossing Kern river, 
then crossing the valley ; in doing which, it will be necessary to use piling for the distance of 
ten miles to make a sufficiently firm road-bed over the soft, miry, alluvial soil. The distance 
to the port of San Francisco, by this route, from the Tah-ee-chay-pah Pass, is about 288 miles. 
The average grades, except through the short pass, will be two or three feet per mile. 
