The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
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grass. By going from Omaha to San Francisco over the Pacific Railroad, we see the elevations of the country; then by striking westward from this point to the head-waters of the Missouri, and then down the Columbia, we shall see at once the physical features of the two sections. The engineers of the Pacific Railroad, after gaining the top of the bluff behind Omaha, have a long and apparently level sweep before them. Yet there is a gradually ascending grade. Four hundred and eighty-five miles west of Omaha we come to the 104th meridian, at an elevation of 4,861 feet. If we go west from this point to that meridian, we shall strike it at the mouth of the Yellowstone, 1,970 feet above tide-water. Near the 105th meridian is the highest point on the Union Pacific, at Sherman, which is 8,235 feet above the sea. Three hundred miles beyond Sherman, at Green River, is the lowest point between Omaha and the descent into Salt Lake Valley, 6,112 feet above the ocean level. At that point we are about twenty-six miles west of the 110th meridian. Now going northward to the valley of the Missouri once more, we find that Fort Benton is about the same number of miles west of the same meridian, but the fort is only 2,747 feet above the sea.
Just beyond Fort Benton we come to the Rocky Mountains, — the only range to be crossed between Lake Superior and the Columbia. We enter the Deer Lodge Pass near the 112th meridian, where our barometer will show us that we are about five thousand feet above the sea. We find that the miners at work on the western slope have cut a canal through the pass, and have turned the waters of the Missouri into the Columbia. The pass is so level that the traveller can hardly tell when he has reached the dividing line.
Going south now along the meridian, we shall find that between Green River and Salt Lake lies the Wasatch Range, which the Union Pacific crosses at an elevation of 7,463 feet at Aspen Station, 940 miles west of Omaha. From that point the line descends to Salt Lake, which is 4,220 feet above the sea. Westward of this, on the 115th meridian, 1,240 miles from Omaha, we reach the top of Humboldt Mountains, 6,169 feet above tide-water, while the elevation is only 1,500 feet on the same meridian in the valley of the Columbia.
At Humboldt Lake, 1,493 miles west of Omaha, the rails are at the lowest level of the mountain region, 4,047 feet above the sea. This is a little west of the 119th meridian, about the same longitude as Walla Walla on the great plain of the Columbia, which is less than 400 feet above the sea.
Westward of Humboldt Lake the Central Line rises to the summit of the Sierra Nevadas, crossing them 7,042 feet above the sea, then descending at the rate of 116 feet to the mile into the valley of the Sacramento.
Now going back to the plains, to the town of Sidney, which is 410 miles west of Omaha, we find the altitude there the same as at Humboldt Lake. This level does not show itself again till we are well down on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Range. The entire country between Omaha and Sacramento, with the exception of about 510 miles, is above the level of 4,000 feet, while on the line westward from the point where I am indulging in this topographical revery there are not thirty miles reaching that altitude.
With this glance at the configuration of the continent I might make an isometric map in the sand with my fingers, heaping it up to represent the Black Hills at Sherman, a lower ridge to indicate the Wasatch Range, a depression to show the Salt Lake Valley, and then another high ridge to represent the Sierra Nevadas. I might trace the channel of the Missouri and the Columbia, and show that most of this territory is a great plain sloping northward, — that it is lower at Winnipeg than it is here, as low here as it is at Omaha.
The upper line represents the elevations between Omaha and Sacramento, and the lower line between the Red River and Portland, Oregon.
Taking this glance at the physical features of the northern and central portions of the continent, I can see that nature has adapted all this vast area drained by the Missouri and Yellowstone and their tributaries, by the Mississippi, by the Red River, the Assinniboine, the Saskatchawan, and the Columbia, to be the abode, in the future, of uncounted millions of the human race.
It is a solitude now, but the vanguard of the approaching multitude is near at hand. The farmer who lives up the stream and tends the ferry where we crossed yesterday has one neighbor within twelve miles; but a twelvemonth hence these acres will have many farm-houses. To-day we have listened to a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Lord, who preached beneath a canvas roof. We were called together by the blowing of a tin trumpet, but a year hence the sweet and solemn tones of church-bells will in all probability echo over these verdant meadows.
The locomotive — that great civilizer of this century — will be here before the flowers bloom in the spring of 1871. It will bring towns, villages, churches, school-houses, printing-presses, and millions of free people. I sit as in a dream. I can hear, in imagination, the voices of the advancing multitude, — of light-hearted maidens and sober matrons, of bright-eyed boys and strong-armed men. The wild roses are blooming here to-day, the sod is as yet unturned, and the lilies of the field hold up their cups to catch the falling dew; but another year will bring the beginning of the change. Civilization, which has crossed the Mississippi, will soon flow down this stream, and sweep on to the valley of the Upper Missouri.
Think of it, young men of the East, you who are measuring off tape for young ladies through the long and wearisome hours, barely earning your living! Throw down the yardstick and come out here if you would be men. Let the fresh breeze fan your brow, take hold of the plough, bend down for a few years to hard work with determination to win nobility, and success will attend your efforts. Is this too enthusiastic? Will those who read it say, "He has lost his head and gone daft out there on the prairies"? Not quite. I am an observer here, as I have been in other lands. I have ridden many times over the great States of the Northwest; have seen the riches of Santa Clara and Napa west of the Sierra Nevadas; have looked out over the meadows of the Yangtse and the Nile, and can say, with honest conviction, that I have seen nowhere so inviting a field as that of Minnesota, none with greater undeveloped wealth, or with such prospect of quick development.
CHAPTER III
THE RED RIVER COUNTRY
Monday morning saw us on our way northward, — down the valley of the Red River.
It was exhilarating to gallop over the level prairies, inhaling the fresh air, our horses brushing the dew from the grass, and to see flocks of plump prairie chickens rise in the air and whirr away, — to mark where they settled, and then to start them again and bring them down, one by one, with a double-barrelled shot-gun. Did we not think of the stews and roasts we would have at night?
For a dozen years or more every school-boy has seen upon his map the town of Breckenbridge, located on the Red River of the North. It is off from the travelled road. The town, as one of our teamsters informed us, "has gone up." It originally consisted of two houses and a saw-mill, but the Sioux Indians swooped down upon it in 1862, and burned the whole place. A few logs, the charred remains of timbers, and tall fire-weeds alone mark the spot.
Riding on, we reached Fort Abercrombie at noon. It is situated in Dakota, on the west bank of the Red River, which we crossed by a rope ferry. It is a resting-place for the thousands of teams passing between St. Cloud and Fort Garry, and other places in the far Northwest. The place is of no particular account except as a distributing point for government supplies for forts farther on, and the advancement of civilization will soon enable the War Department to break up the establishment.
The river is fringed with timber. We ride beneath stately oaks growing upon the bottom-lands, and notice upon the trees the high-water marks of former years. The stream is very winding, and when the spring rains come on the rise is as great, though not usually so rapid, as in the Merrimac and Connecticut, and other rivers of the East.
The valley of the Red River is not such as we are accustomed to see in the East, bounded by hills or mountains, but a level plain.
When the sky is clear and the air serene, we can catch far away in the east the faint outline of the Leaf Hills, composing