“I will respectfully call the attention of the department to the peculiar circumstances of my exploration, which will, it seems to me, explain the exceeding of the appropriation, with every desire and effort on my part so to arrange the scale and conduct it as not to involve a deficiency. The field was almost totally new, rendering it impossible to form an estimate. Much work of reconnoissance had to be done, which had previously been done for all the other routes, before a direction could be given to the railroad examinations and estimates proper. Unforeseen expenses in the way of presents, etc., had to be incurred to conciliate the Indian tribes, for our route was the only one, so far as I was informed, that at the time was deemed particularly dangerous; and the investigation of the question of snow was a vital and fundamental one, essential to making any reliable report at all, and included within the express requirements of the original instructions. I deeply regretted the deficiency which I found impending at Fort Benton, and I took at that place that course which I believed Congress and the department would have taken under the circumstances.”
Moreover, to provide funds indispensable for the immediate needs of the survey, the governor had drawn on Corcoran and Riggs, government bankers in Washington, to the amount of $16,000, and these drafts all went to protest.
But the Secretary’s order arrived too late to frustrate Governor Stevens’s thoroughgoing measures for determining the snow question. The problem was solved before the work of the winter parties could be arrested, and this most important point was clearly and satisfactorily set forth in the report. The much-feared mountain snows were found to be greatly exaggerated, and to present no real obstacle to the operation of railroads. In this respect the report has been fully confirmed by subsequent experience, and in fact less difficulty has been encountered from snow in the mountains than on the plains of Dakota.
He decided, therefore, to hasten to Washington the earliest moment his threefold duties of the governorship, Indian service, and the exploration would admit of, filled with the fixed determination to prevent the discontinuance of the exploration, to secure the payment of the protested drafts, and to enlighten the government as to the necessity of the Blackfoot council, and of extinguishing the Indian title within his own Territory.
To justify his going without leave first obtained, the legislature passed a joint resolution that “no disadvantage would result to the Territory should the governor visit Washington, if, in his judgment, the interests of the Northern Pacific Railroad survey could thereby be promoted.”
CHAPTER XXIII
RETURN TO WASHINGTON.—REPORT OF EXPLORATION
Governor Stevens left Olympia on March 26, and, proceeding by way of the Cowlitz to the Columbia, and by steamer down the coast, reached San Francisco early in April. Here he found a group of his old friends and brother officers, including Mason, Halleck, and Folsom, and how warmly he was received by them, and how interesting they found his accounts of the exploration, the Indians, and the many wild and new scenes he had passed through, may be imagined. His arrival attracted much public attention; his exploration was deemed a very important and remarkable one, and one conducted with remarkable ability and success; and in Music Hall, on Bush Street, April 13, before a crowded audience, and introduced by Mayor Garrison, he gave an able address upon the Northern route. In this address he boldly advocated three railroads across the continent, declaring that the subject of internal communications was too great to be treated from a sectional point of view. He demonstrated the favorable character of the route and country he had explored, the navigability of the upper Columbia and Missouri, and the little obstruction from snows. The impression made by this address is reflected in the editorial of the San Francisco “Herald:”—
“Of all the surveys ordered by the general government at Washington with a view to the selection of a route for a railroad across the continent, that intrusted to Governor Stevens is by far the most satisfactory. He took the field in June last, having left the Mississippi River on the 15th of that month, and, moving steadily westward,—throwing out parties on the right and left of his line, surveying every stream of any consequence, exploring every pass again and again,—he has accomplished in that time the survey of a belt extending two thousand miles from east to west, and from one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles from north to south. In the Rocky Mountains his explorations have extended over four hundred miles from north to south, and in the Cascade Mountains over two hundred and fifty miles. While the main work of reconnoissance was going on, the auxiliary departments of geology, natural history, botany, etc., were prosecuted with vigor and success. The results obtained in so short a space of time are, as far as we are aware, unparalleled.
“The route thus occupied by Governor Stevens and his party is the route of the two great rivers across the continent, the Missouri and Columbia. Their tributaries interlock; the whole mountain range is broken down into spurs and valleys, and no obstruction exists from snow. The whole route is eminently practicable. The highest grade will be fifty feet to the mile. The summit level of the road will be about five thousand feet above the sea. There will be but one tunnel. The snows will be less than in the New England States. The Missouri River has been surveyed, and found to be navigable for steamers to the Falls, about seven hundred miles from Puget Sound, and five hundred miles to the point where the main Columbia is first reached by railroad from the East. This five hundred miles is in part along Clark’s Fork, affording one hundred miles navigable for steamers.