] RANS- PONTINENTAL MONDAY MORNING, MAY 30. ka Communications and Exchanyes for | this paper should be addressed, TRANS- CONTINENTAL, 46 State Street, Chicago. ROCKY MOUNTAIN JOTTINGS. In our course westward, after passing the Father of Waters, we have crossed in Iowa 367 miles; Nebraska 473 miles; Wyoming 487 miles: Utah 221 miles. Westward again we shall cross Nevada 455 miles, and California 281 miles, making some 2,284 miles from the Mis- sissippi to the Golden Gate. Everywhere our party have been greeted by a hearty welcome, and by spontaneous expressions of kindness extended at each stopping place. We have found a constant variety of excitement, sometimes by watching for buffalo, or gazing on groves of grace- ful antelopes coursing over the plains, and occasionally in watching prairie dogs, and their singular community of dwellings. Through Echo and Weber Canyons, on Saturday last. the open “ car of observa- tion” on the rear of our train, was crowded, to view the wild grandeur of scenes, enclosed in their narrow passes, as our train thundered through their tortuous course at a speed never sur- passed. Bold and rocky cliffs; eccentric forms worn by water and by time; pre- sent to the eye, shapes resembling an- cient cathedrals and feudal castles. Such massive walls of natural mason- ry often enclose green intervales, every- where fertile under the hand of Mormon industry. Who would be content with books of travels, when from the open page of nature such lessons of pleasure and improvement are before us! Genius never reared such wondrous forms; ro- mance never was marvellous as nature, in her elementary simplicity ; but with all our admiration, we can but admire the mighty power of man’s well directed intellect, presented to our view, in this stupendous work now spanning a con- tinent. and as a triumph of mind over matter, is even more impressive than the magnificence of nature herself. SnEnEIIEEnnnetinn 2 c.cmmeeeeeee —Robert B. Forbes, one of our party, commanded, during the Irish famine in 1847, the U. S. sloop-of-war Jamestown, when she carried a cargo of grain, as a gift from Bostonians, to the famished in Treland. He also invented the “ Forbes rig,’ and sent the first American mer- chant steamer into Chinese waters, thus inaugurating a trade, which has since developed into oneof great magnitude. i | | | | Sea teen enters enema FLORA. —Through Weber and Echo Canyons, the U. P. R. R. car of observation was The influence of woman’s presence is | taken on behind our train. Its internal manifest everywhere, by the develop- | arrangement much resembles an open ment of an appreciation of the beauti- ful. Our “FLoRA” has been enthusias- tic among the wild flowers whenever a stop at any way station afforded the least opportunity for a short ramble. We are furnished a list of a bouquet gathered by the way side, which we annex :— Purple and Pink Phlox; Purple Lark- spur; Hairy Puccoon, or Lithospermum; Spiderwort, or Tradescantia Virginica; White Crowfoot, Waterleaf, or Hydro phythim Virginicum ; and several others We are told that on our return, we shall find a much larger variety blooming later. At Alkali Station, 322 miles west of Omaha, our train having stopped appar- ently to allow us to pick flowers, we found white evening primroses, very large and showy. Pentstemon Glaber, in pretty spikes of blue and purple bells; vetch, charlock, and wild roses, and a showy, peculiar speciesof dock. Other flowers seen in profusion along the route across the continent, our botanist has had no opportunity to examine, fh NEW WAYS FOR OLD. The great highways of commerce are changing. The recent arrival of the Idaho at San Francisco, with the first mails and passengers which have reached us from Australia, entirely by steam- ship, marks an historic era worthy of mention. Of 150 through passengers bound from Australia to Europe, 104 have passed our train, on their way across the United States, which route will hereafter— when steamships of suitable size are placed on this route — furnish England with the shortest and most direct route to her Australian Colonies, and one offering greater attrac- tions and comfort than through the tropics, via Suez. ——— Op —For three hundred miles or more we may find Mormon settlements extend- ing in the valley of Salt Lake, which now ‘blossoms as the rose,” having been reclaimed by the well-bestowed industry of Latter Day Saints, who, by artificial irrigation, have fertilized the soil—once a barren waste. (a —Fossil fishes were collected by our geologists, and moss-agates by all our party, inthe Wahsatch mountains, at a spot where our train was kindly stopped for the purpose. i es ge —The gopher is a little animal; so called because he is ready to go for the farmer’s grain as soon as planted. sleigh, and afforded a fine opportunity to gaze on the picturesque and strange scenery so noted on this section of the road, nic cL nee —Saturday evening most of our party attended the Salt Lake Theatre, which isa large building; was well filled; and the performanee, by native artists, was truly excellent. eS —Passing through the alkali and sage bush country, a party of eight in the com- missary car got a meal by looking out of the window; for they eight saw-sages there. ne pe —One of the conductors says the prai- rie dog is an animal full of life and spirit. We should think so; nearly every one we saw was pretty well “set up.” —___+