The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
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ditch across this summit which is only eighteen feet deep at the apex of the divide, through which they carry the waters of 'Divide Creek,' a tributary of the Missouri, across to the Pacific side, where it is used in gold-washing, and the waste water passes into the Pacific Ocean. This has been justly termed highway robbery."
There are half a dozen passes nearly as low, — Mullan's, Blackfoot, Lewis and Clark's, Cadotte's, and the Marias.
Going through the Deer Lodge Pass, we find that the stream changes its name very often before reaching the Pacific. The little brook on the summit of the divide, turbid with the washings of the gold-mines, is called the Deer Lodge Creek. Twenty-five miles farther on it is joined by a small stream that trickles from the summit of Mullan's Pass, near Helena, and the two form the Hell Gate, just as the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee form the Merrimac in New Hampshire, receiving its name from the many Indian fights that have taken place in its valley, where the Blackfeet and Nez Perces have had many a battle. The stream bears the name of Hell Gate for about eighty miles before being joined by the Blackfoot, which flows from the mountains in the vicinity of Cadotte's and Lewis and Clark's Passes.
A little below the junction it empties into the Bitter Root, which, after a winding course of a hundred miles, is joined by the Flathead, that comes down from Flathead Lake and the country around Marias Pass. The united streams below the junction take the name of Clark's River, which has a circuitous course northward, running for a little distance into British America, then back again through a wide plain till joined by the Snake, and the two become the Columbia, pouring a mighty flood westward to the ocean. The line of the road does not follow the river to the boundary between the United States and the British Possessions, but strikes across the plain of the Columbia.
The characteristics of Clark's River and the surrounding country are thus described by Mr. Roberts: —
"Clark's River has a flow in low water at least six times greater than the low-water flow of the Ohio River between Pittsburg and Wheeling; and while its fall is slight, considered with reference to railroad grades, it is so considerable as to afford a great number of water-powers, whose future value must be very great, — an average of eleven feet per mile.
"Around Lake Pend d'Oreille, and for some miles westward, and all along Clark's River above the lake as far as we traversed it, there is a magnificent region of pine, cypress, hemlock, tamarack, and cedar timber, many of the trees of prodigious size. I measured one which was thirty-four feet in circumference, and a number that were over twenty-seven feet, and saw hundreds, as we passed along, that were from twenty to twenty-five feet in circumference, and from two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet high. A number of valleys containing large bodies of this character of timber enter Clark's River from both sides, and the soil of these valleys is very rich. Clark's River Valley itself is for much of the distance confined by very high hills approaching near to the stream in many places; but there are sufficient sites for cities and farms adjacent to water-powers of the first class, and not many years can elapse after the opening of a railroad through this valley till it will exhibit a combination of industries and population analogous to those which now mark the Lehigh, the Schuylkill, the Susquehanna, and the Pomroy region of the Ohio River. Passing along its quiet scenes of to-day, we can see in the near future the vast change which the enterprise of man will bring. That which was once the work of half a century is now the product of three or four years. Indeed, in a single year after the route of this Northern Pacific Railroad shall have been determined, and the work fairly begun, all this region, now so calm and undisturbed, will be teeming with life instilled into it by hardy pioneers from the Atlantic and from the Pacific.
"Passing along the Flathead River for a short distance, we entered the valley of the Jocko River. The same general remarks concerning Clark's River Valley are applicable to the Flathead and Bitter Root Valleys. The climate, the valleys, the timber, the soil, the water-powers, all are here, awaiting only the presence of the industrious white man to render to mankind the benefits implanted in them by a beneficent Creator."
The entire distance from Lake Superior by the Yellowstone Valley to the tide-waters of the Pacific below the cascades of the Columbia will be about eighteen hundred miles. It is nearly the same distance to Seattle, on Puget Sound, by the Snoqualmie Pass of the Cascade Range.
The Union Pacific line has had no serious obstruction from snow since its completion. It has suffered no more than other roads of the country, and its trains have arrived as regularly at Omaha and Sacramento as the trains of the New York Central at Buffalo or Albany. That the Northern Pacific road will be quite as free from snow-blockades will be manifest by a perusal of the following paragraphs from the report of Mr. Roberts: —
"There is evidence enough to show that the line of road on the general route herein described will, in ordinary winters, be much less encumbered with snow where it crosses the mountains than are the passes at more southerly points, which are much more elevated above the sea. The difference of five or six degrees of latitude is more than compensated by the reduced elevation above the sea-level, and the climatic effect of the warm ocean-currents from the equator, already referred to, ameliorating the seasons from the Pacific to the Rocky Mountains. An examination of the profile of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines between Omaha, on the Missouri River, and Sacramento, California, a distance of 1,775 miles, shows that there are four main summits, — Sherman Summit, on the Black Hills, about 550 miles from Omaha, 8,235 feet above the sea; one on the Rocky Mountains, at Aspen Summit, about 935 miles from Omaha, 7,463 feet; one at Humboldt Mountain, about 1,245 miles from Omaha, 6,076 feet; and another on the Sierra Nevada, only 105 miles from the western terminus at Sacramento, 7,062 feet; whilst from a point west of Cheyenne, 520 miles from Omaha, to Wasatch, 970 miles from Omaha, a continuous length of 450 miles, every portion of the graded road is more than 6,000 feet above the sea, being about 1,000 feet on this long distance higher than the highest summit grade on the Northern Pacific Railroad route; whilst for the corresponding distance on the Northern Pacific line the average elevation is under 3,000 feet, or three thousand feet lower than the Sherman Summit on the Pacific line.
"On the Union Pacific road the profile also shows that for 900 continuous miles, from Sidney westward, the road has an average height of over 5,000 feet, and the lowest spot on that distance is more than 4,000 feet above the sea, whereas on the Northern route only about sixty miles at most are as high as 4,000 feet, and the corresponding distance of 900 miles, extending from the mouth of the Yellowstone to the valley of Clark's River, is, on an average, about 3,000 feet lower than the Union Pacific line. Allowing that 1,000 feet of elevation causes a decrease of temperature of three degrees, this would be a difference of nine degrees. There is, therefore, a substantial reason for the circumstance, now well authenticated, that the snows on the Northern route are much less troublesome than they are on the Union Pacific and Central Pacific routes" (Report, p. 43).
That the Northern Pacific can be economically worked is demonstrated by a comparison of its grades with those of the line already constructed. The comparison is thus presented by Mr. Roberts: —
"The grades on the route across through the State of Minnesota and Territory of Dakota to the Missouri River will not be materially dissimilar to those on the other finished railroads south of it, passing from Chicago to Sioux City, Council Bluffs, etc.; namely, undulating within the general limit of about forty feet per mile, although it may be deemed advisable, at a few points for short distances, to run to a maximum of one foot per hundred or fifty-three feet per mile. There is sufficient knowledge of this portion of the route to warrant this assumption. And beyond the Missouri, along the valley of the Yellowstone, to near the Bozeman Pass, there is no known reason for assuming any higher limits. In passing Bozeman Summit of the Belt Range, and in going up the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, it may be found advisable to adopt a somewhat higher gradient for a few miles in overcoming those summits. This, however, can only be finally determined after careful surveys.
"The highest ground encountered between Lake Superior and the Missouri River, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, is only 2,300 feet above the sea; the low summit of the Rocky Mountains is but little over 5,000 feet, and the Bozeman Pass, through the Belt Range, is assumed to be about 500 feet lower. The height of the country upon which the line is traced, and upon which my estimate of cost is based, may be approximately stated thus, beginning at Lake Superior,