The passes of the Rocky mountains, Hell Gate, Northern Little Blackfoot, and Cadot's Pass were crossed by parties employed in the exploration of the northern route in the months of December, January, February and March, in the years 1853-4, and in no one of these passes did they find more than fifteen inches of snow. In the winter of 1854-15, the Flathead Indians. passed through these passes in January, February, and March; whole tribes, with their women and children, and their pack animals laden down with furs and meat. Victor, head chief of the Flathead nation, states that since the memory of the Indian, they had passed these mountains year after year through the winter months. That same winter, the party that crossed the Rocky mountains in January, went down Clark's Fork in February; they went on horseback, the sole trouble being that there were some places where the snow was deep enough to cover up the grass; but in these cases it was in the wooded portions, and 24 feet was the greatest depth.

When they left the wooded region where it was 2 feet deep, and came to the open prairie, the snow had entirely disappeared. In the crossing of the Cascade mountains to Puget sound, made by Mr. Tinkham, in January, 1854, the snow was but six feet for a short distance. At Fort Benton and Fort Campbell, on the Upper Missouri, ever since they were established some twenty-five years since, the fur companies have taken their goods. to their winter trading posts, on the Milk and Marias rivers, in wagons, there not being snow enough for sleds.

It is obvious there can be no serious difficulty on the northern route from snow. Will there be difficulty from excessive cold weather?

The

There are now great lines of railroad in operation over tracts of country as cold, and even colder, than the route from Fort Benton to the shores of the Pacific. The mean winter temperature at Fort Benton, in 1853-'54, was 25°.38 above zero. average at Montreal, on the Grand Trunk railroad, for the same. year, was 13°.22, and for a mean of ten years 17°.80, above zero. At Quebec, it was, in 1853-'54, 11°.03 above zero, and for a mean of ten years 13°.30 above zero. On the great Russian railroad, from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the comparison is very similar. The mean winter temperature for a series of twenty-one years, at Moscow, is 15°.20, and at St. Petersburg, for a mean of twenty-five years, 18°.10 above zero.

At Fort Snelling, on the great lines through Minnesota from St. Paul to Pembina, and from St. Paul to Breckenridge, now actually in process of construction, the mean winter temperature of 1853-54 was 11°.64, and the mean of thirty-five winters 16°.10 above zero. Thus in the winter of 1853-'54, an unu

sually cold winter, Fort Benton was 15° warmer than Montreal, 14° warmer than Quebec, 11° warmer than Fort Snelling, 10° warmer than Moscow, and 7° warmer than St. Petersburg. Looking to the Bitter Root valley, its average temperature in the winter of 1853-'54 was 24°.90, and in 1854-'55, 30°.30 above zero, making it for the two winters respectively 10° and 15° warmer than at Moscow, and 7° and 12° warmer than at St. Petersburg. In 1853-54 it was 12° warmer than at Montreal, and 14° warmer than at Quebec. The greatest cold in the winter of 1853-54 was 29° below zero at Cantonment Stevens. At Fort Snelling it was 36°, at Montreal 34°, and at Quebec 29° below zero, from which it is seen that on this route, the greatest cold is not equal to the greatest cold on the route of the Grand Trunk railroad of Canada. The same fact is unquestionably true of the great artery of Russia from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The average temperature was below zero twelve days at Fort Benton, ten days at Cantonment Stevens, eighteen days at Fort Snelling, eighteen days at Montreal, and twentythree days at Quebec. Thus there were more cold days on the line of the Great Trunk railroad, and of the roads in Minnesota, than on this northern route. Moreover, at Fort Benton the thermometer was forty-three out of ninety days, and at Cantonment. Stevens thirty-two out of ninety days above the freezing point, against only six days out of ninety at Fort Snelling, five days out of ninety at Quebec, eight days out of ninety at Montreal, and eighteen days out of ninety at Albany-all in the winter of 1853-54.

Indeed, I doubt not that the blinding sand storms on the southern route would be a much greater obstacle to the running of the cars than the snow storms or the cold on the northern route. Now, the British government are looking to an overland communication with the Pacific. They have redeemed British Columbia from the vassalage of the Hudson's Bay rule, and are about redeeming the Saskatchawan country. All our information goes to establish the fact that there is a very large scope of arable country through the Saskatchawan region, and we know that the development of the mineral wealth of British Columbia will also tend to develop its agricultural resources. The British government have had surveys made of the whole country, and British capitalists-and especially those of the Canadas-are filled with the importance of establishing their overland communication, and doing it by railroad; and yet the British government is not in the condition to start the enterprise within their borders that we are to do it within ours. We are in advance of them in the way of communications. steamers both up the Missouri to Fort Benton, and up the Co

We have run

lumbia and Snake rivers to the mouth of the Palouse-the distance from point to point being less than five hundred miles on the railroad line. The wagon road in charge of Lieut. Mullan, now in process of construction between these two points, will be completed during the present scason. Moreover, the more detailed surveys, and especially the line of spirit levels run by Lieut. Mullan over the Coeur d'Alene or Stevens' Pass, has verified the information previously gained and reported upon by me as to its entire practicability. Our railroads are stretching through Minnesota; whereas in the Canadas their railroads have only reached Lake Huron and the St. Clair river. They are now connecting these with our roads running through Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. They cannot go north of Lake Superior; the country has been examined, and has been found to be impracticable. Their only alternative is to make use of our roads until they reach Pembina on the frontier, between the Red river settlement and Minnesota, and then connect them with a system of their own. Will they take this course, if our own government, taking time by the forelock, shall determine to give the necessary aid to a road crossing the 47th parallel, and reaching the waters of the Pacific at Puget sound? On the contrary, will they not help us? Will we not have the whole force of the railroad capital and enterprise of the Canadas, backed up by the British government, to assist us in establishing this communication? Will not this road accommodate British Columbia? By branches from the great plain of the Columbia, the country can be reached on Thompson's and Frazer's river. Our route is more feasible than theirs; the distance is shorter, the mountain passes more open, the agricultural value of the country (at least west of the Rocky mountains) very much superior; and this is known to be the precise feeling, I am credibly informed, of all the great railroad men of the Canadas, to whose enterprise and forecast we owe the Grand Trunk road. They are ready, if our people start the movement, to join hands with us; and thus this route, so far from being an extreme northern route, is the central route of a vast scope of country having natural outlets both on the Pacific and on the Atlantic, and is the central route of a vast system of railroads having invested in them more than onehalf of the railroad capital of this continent. Is it wise—is it just—is it having a proper regard for the future, to ignore this northern route, and to throw into British hands, and to yield to British enterprise the great commercial development of the northwest?

But let us take a somewhat larger view of the question of national defence than the view already presented. Do we not require, as an element of national defence, that the development

of the northwest should be our development-that the rising city of the northwest coast should be in our borders, south of the 49th parallel? Do we not want to hold in our hands the key of the trade of Asia? Is it not our interest to develope the fisheries and the lumber business, the coal, the mines, and the commerce of that northwest? Do we not need the nursery of seamen growing out of such development? Will we not thus get the seeds of a great navy upon that coast? Will we not have the means of building vessels of the largest class, to make that coast self-sustaining in all the means and facilities of a commercial and naval marine? These are the interests involved in the great overland communication by the northern route; and this is, emphatically, a question of the national defence, of commercial superiority, of America having her proper position among the families of the earth. Or, shall we fall back upon the old selfish apothegm, "Posterity will do nothing for us, and therefore we will do nothing for posterity?" I therefore hold it to be the duty of the people of Oregon and Washington to insist that their commercial advantages and position shall be respected by the Congress of the United States, in any system which it may adopt of an overland communication with the Pacific. I do protest against Congress, when we ask for bread, giving us a stone. I protest against the injustice of our being called upon utterly to abandon our great route, utterly to abandon all idea of the commercial supremacy which our country owes it to itself to establish upon this northwest coast, and to accept instead of this, the boon of a branch communication. It is my deliberate judgment that it will be vastly more difficult for us to establish the branch communication provided for in certain bills, than to establish this great overland communication connecting us directly with the Mississippi river, with the great lakes, and with the vast rail road system of the St. Lawrence basin. What shall be the nature of the branch?

Senator Wigfall's bill proposes a southern and a central route, with a branch to the Columbia river or Puget Sound, from the nearest practicable point on that route. Now it is altogether probable that the central route will go through the Pike's Peak country. The people of Salt Lake and Pike's 'eak urge it; the whole population of that portion of the interior, and the people of Nevada will be satisfied with it. Its distance will be two hundred miles shorter than by the South Pass. If there be no engineering difficulties in the way, it must go through Pikes' Peak; and our branch will be a branch, not from the south pass, but via the Sacramento and the Willamette rivers; but in either event it will be purely a local affair. There will be no great interest to assist us. We will have to build it with our own means, and

with little or no assistance from others. The whole energies of the people of California will be strained to establish their own communication. But the northern route will be a national route. We will have not merely our own feeble force, but in addition, that of the vast communities of our northern states and of the Canadas, and of the many hundreds of millions of railroad capital there invested. We will have aid from Europe. There will be the strongest influence to push the road through; and if the object be to get a branch connecting with San Francisco, we will find the key to its solution in the northern route.

ESTIMATE OF COST.

The estimate of cost of road is not given for the distance east from Breckinridge, on the western boundary of Minnesota, to which point the Minnesota and Pacific Railroad Company have located a road under the recent grants of Congress. Their route crosses the Mississippi near the falls of St. Anthony, does not deflect more than 27 miles at any point from an air line, and saves 20 miles in distance over my surveyed routes. Moreover, with means at hand, it can be built for less than my estimate of $25,000 per mile, viz: for about $21,000 or $22,000 per mile.

Estimate of cost of road from Breckenridge to Seattle, via Fort Union, Fort Benton, Cadotte's Pass, Cour d'Aléne or Stevens' Pass, Coeur d'Alène Mission, north of the Coeur d'Alene Lake, and the Snoqualmoo Pass, using the long tunnel. Entire distance, 1,544.51 miles.