64 KANSAS AND THE COUNTRY BEYOND.

LETTER XVI— General Subject of Routes discussed — Description of
the Valley of the Platte— The Region between the Heads of the Platte
and the Sierra Nevada— The great Utility of both Roads— The
Route beyond Kansas— Fertility of the Country on the Arkansas and
Purgatoire Rivers— Immense Deposits of Coal — Pine Timber — New
Mexico, its Minerals, and other Resources.

ALLEGHENY Crry, July 12, 1867.
GENERAL SUBJECT OF ROUTES DISCUSSED.

In a former letter I stated the fact that the Union Pacific Railway
Company, Eastern Division, had resolved to carry the main line of
their road to the Pacific, not directly across the Rocky Mountains,
through Utah and Nevada, and over the Alpine heights of the Sierra
Nevada range, but by a more southwestern route through the south-
eastern part of Colorado, east of the Rocky Mountains; thence through
New Mexico and Arizona, to the southeastern border of California,
and thence, through the great valley of Southern California, to San
Francisco.

This important change of route will be attended by many and great
advantages, the chief of which, probably, is, that the tremendous snow-
drifts of the route directly through the mountains will be avoided.
Another is, that the more southern route is level compared with the
other. On the line of the Central Pacific Railroad, running from
Sacramento to Salt Lake, the Sierra Nevada Mountain summit ig
seven thousand feet above the level of the sea, which is one thousand
feet greater elevation than any other railroad summit in the world;
and the Rocky Mountains cannot be surmounted by any pass between
the Rio Grande and the heads of the Missouri at much, if any, less
altitude. On the other hand, on the line through New Mexico, Ari-
zona and Southern California, there are no formidable mountain bar-
riers; and where the elevation is considerable, as in the pass of the
Sierra Madre, west of the Rio Grande, there is no snow. The Sierra
Nevada, on that more southern route, has sunk down almost to a plain,
and up through the magnificent valley of Southern California, cele-
brated for its extraordinary productiveness, there is no difficulty,
neither is there any difficulty between the Sierra Madre range and
the Colorado river, which space embraces the entire breadth, from
east to west, of the territory of Arizona.

The country through which this more southern route runs is all
valuable — very much is rich in soil, and still more, especially in Ari-
zona, is rich in minerals of almost every kind. It is a region of vast