Nevada and California.
This narrow-gauge railroad starts at Reno and runs northward into Lassen County, California. It has now attained a length of about eighty miles, and is still in process of construction. It is penetrating a region of country containing vast forests of pine timber, good mines, and many fine mountain valleys. Eventually it will be run northward into the interior of Oregon. It will presently bring to Reno great quantities of lumber and timber to be shipped eastward into the timberless regions of the Great Basin country.
Proposed Railroads.
A section of railroad of narrow gauge has been constructed through the Beckworth Pass westward. It connects with the Nevada and California road at Moran, and is called the Sierra Valley and Mohawk Railroad. After rails had been laid through the pass and a short distance down the western slope of the Sierras, work was discontinued. It is supposed that the section of road was laid in the interest of some one of the great Eastern roads now heading toward the Pacific Ocean in order to hold the pass. The Beckworth Pass is nearly 2,000 feet lower than that through which the Central Pacific Railroad is laid.
The Salt Lake and Los Angeles.
The Salt Lake and Los Angeles is a proposed railroad on which surveying parties have been engaged for nearly a year. It is intended to start at Milford, on the Utah Central, pass through Lincoln County, Nevada, and connect with the railroad system of Southern California at Barstow. This road would tap a rich mining and a fine agricultural and grazing region in Southern Nevada. It would give life to an immense region of country that has long lain as dead.
Nevada, Central, and Idaho
Another proposed road is an extension of the Nevada Central from Battle Mountain northward into Idaho.
Nevada a Land of Great Possibilities.
Notwithstanding its sterile and forbidding appearance, Nevada is capable of supporting an immense population. The soil, which to the eyes of strangers appears so poor and barren, is one of the strongest and richest in America. It is formed of decomposed lava and various kinds of volcanic rocks, and contains large quantities of all the various mineral constituents necessary to a strong and healthy growth of every kind of farm produce known to the temperate zone. All that is required to produce a rank growth of vegetation of every kind is a supply of water; all other life-giving agents are contained in the soil. On the mountain slopes and the bench-lands, which look so arid and worthless, the soil is even stronger and more kindly than in the valleys. With water all the mountain-sides may be made veritable hanging gardens. Until within the past year agriculture (as regards irrigation) has been left to take care of itself. It has been left to individuals, each working after a plan of his own. There has been no established system of irrigation, and, save in one or two instances, no attempt at storing water in order to maintain a large and regular supply. The water used is taken as it flows from the mountains, as the snow banks deposited in winter melt away in the early spring and first summer months. Then, in average seasons, there are for a month or two floods of water pouring down all the rivers, creeks, and canyons. This great rush of water passes down into the interior lakes and “sinks” without being utilized for any purpose, and is lost. Were this water caught up in storage reservoirs ten times the area of land at present irrigated could be brought under cultivation.