Westward from Ogden in Utah the Union Pacific route to California is continued upon the Southern Pacific system, that company having absorbed the original Central Pacific road. It passes Corinne, the largest Gentile city in Utah, and then through the Promontory Mountains, on the northern verge of Great Salt Lake. It was at Promontory Point on May 10, 1869, that the railway builders of this original transcontinental line, coming both ways, met, and joined the tracks. The last tie was made of California rosewood, trimmed with silver, and the last four spikes were of silver and gold. The final golden spike was driven with a silver hammer in the presence of a large and silent assemblage. The locomotives coming from the East and the West met, as Bret Harte has written:
"Pilots touching—head to head
Facing on the single track;
Half a world behind each back!"
Beyond, the Great American Desert, an alkaline waste, is crossed, the State of Nevada is entered, the Humboldt River is followed for awhile, and then Truckee River is ascended through the Pleasant Valley, leading into the Sierra Nevada, the lower mountain slopes covered with magnificent forests and the railroad protected from avalanches by snow-sheds. The Humboldt River has no outlet. It spreads out in an extensive sheet of water known as the "Carson Sink" and evaporates. At Reno is the Nevada State University, and as this is a silver region there are extensive smelting mills. Thirty-one miles southward is Carson, the capital of Nevada, and twenty-one miles farther the famous silver-mining town of Virginia City, with ten thousand people, built half-way up a steep mountain slope and completely surrounded by mountains. Virginia City stands directly over the noted Comstock Lode, and here are the Bonanza Mines, which were such prolific producers in the great silver days. This lode has produced over $450,000,000, chiefly silver, and it is drained by the Sutro Tunnel, nearly four miles long, which cost $4,500,000 to construct. Nearby, on the California boundary, and at six thousand feet elevation, is the beautiful Lake Tahoe, one of the loveliest sheets of water in the world, twenty-two miles long, very deep, surrounded by snow-clad mountains, and yet it never freezes, its outlet being the Truckee River. In a region of many lakes, it is known as "the gem of the high Sierras." To the westward of Reno is another lovely sheet of water, Donner Lake, embosomed in the lap of towering hills, its name coming from an early explorer, Captain Donner, who, with many of his party, perished on its shores during a heavy snowstorm in 1846. The top of the Sierra Nevada is crossed through a tunnel at Summit Station, elevated seven thousand feet, and beyond there is a complete change both in climate and vegetation, the descent being rapid and the transition from arctic snows to sub-tropical flowers very quick. The line is in many places carved out of the faces of startling precipices, and here it rounds the famous beetling promontory known as Cape Horn. Then, coming down among the orchards and vineyards, it enters the wide and fertile Sacramento Valley, and almost at sea-level comes to the capital of California, the city of Sacramento, built on the eastern bank of Sacramento River just below the mouth of the American River. It is a busy city with thirty thousand people, and has a large and handsome State Capitol.
TRANSCONTINENTAL ROUTES.
The Northern Pacific Railway, the next route northward, after following up the Yellowstone River to Livingston, at the entrance to Yellowstone Park in Montana, ascends the Belt Mountains, crossing them through Bozeman Tunnel at an elevation of nearly fifty-six hundred feet. This range is an outlying eastern spur of the Rockies. The road passes the mining town of Butte, there being forty thousand people in the neighboring settlements. Here are many gold, silver and copper mines, including the great Anaconda Mine, which was sold in 1898 to the company at present working it for $45,000,000, the product of the mine being silver and copper. The Butte copper output is two hundred and fifty million pounds annually, and the smelting-works at Anaconda are the largest in the world. At Three Forks, not far away, is the confluence of the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin Rivers, forming the Missouri. Beyond is Helena, the capital of Montana, built in the Prickly Pear Valley near the eastern base of the main Rocky Mountain range and having fifteen thousand population. This is in another rich mining district, and the "Last Chance Gulch," running through the city, has yielded over $30,000,000 gold, while all around are gold, silver, copper and lead-deposits. Twenty-four miles from Helena, the main range of the Rockies is crossed by the Mullen's Pass tunnel at fifty-five hundred and fifty feet elevation. At Gold Creek in the valley beyond, the last golden spike of the Northern Pacific Railway was driven in September, 1883, uniting the tracks which had advanced from the east and west and met there. President Henry Villard made this the occasion of great festivity, bringing many train-loads of distinguished men to the ceremony, and shortly afterwards the company, which was heavily in debt, went into a Receivership. The railroad follows the Missoula and Pend d'Oreille (the "earring") Rivers, which unite in Clark's Fork, a tributary of the Columbia River, and enters Idaho, "the gem of the mountains," or, as called by the Nez Perces, Edah-hoe; finally coming to Spokane in Washington State. This busy manufacturing town of over twenty thousand people was burnt in 1889, but has entirely recovered from the calamity. The Spokane River descends one hundred and fifty feet in two falls within the town, furnishing an admirable water-power. To the southwest is the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers, and beyond, the railway penetrates the defiles of the Cascade Mountains, the northern prolongation of the California Coast range, the Northern Pacific line finally terminating at Tacoma on Puget Sound.
The great Columbia is the chief river draining the western slopes of the Rockies. It has a broad estuary, and in May, 1792, Captain Robert Gray of Boston, coasting along the shore in his bark "Columbia Rediviva," discovered it, was baffled more than a week before he could cross the shallow bar at its mouth, and gave it the name of his vessel. The Spaniards marked his discovery on one of their maps without any head to the river, recording alongside in Spanish y-aun se ignora—meaning "and it is not yet known" where the source of the river is situated. The famous Danish geographer, Malte-Brun, reading this, made the mistake of recognizing the word ignora as Oregon, and published it in the early nineteenth century as the name of the country, to which it has stuck. Thus is Oregon, like California, a name given without meaning. The Columbia is an enormous river, over twelve hundred miles long, rising in Otter Lake, just north of the Dominion boundary, making a long loop up into British America, then coming down into the United States between the Rockies and the Cascades with another broad western loop, and swinging around to the southeast, finally turning westward to form the boundary between Oregon and Washington State to the Pacific. The chief tributary is Snake River, known also as Lewis Fork, which comes out of the western verge of the Yellowstone Park, makes an extensive southern bend through Idaho and is nine hundred miles long, being a most remarkable river. West of the Rockies is an enormous area, estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand square miles, that has been subjected to volcanic action, being overflowed by what is known as the "Columbia lava," in deposits from one-half mile to a mile in thickness. Through this region the Snake River has carved out its extraordinary canyon in places four thousand feet deep, and in some respects rivalling the canyons of the Colorado. Down in the bottom of this gigantic fissure can be seen the ancient rocky formation of the mountains, elsewhere covered by the sheet of lava. The curious sight is also given of various tributaries sinking under the strata of lava and ultimately coming out through the sides of the canyon, pouring their waters down into the main river far below.
Within this canyon the Snake River goes over the noted Shoshoné Falls, a series of cataracts. The first one is the Twin Falls descending one hundred and eighty feet, then the river goes down the Bridal Veil of eighty feet descent, and finally it pours in grandeur over the great Shoshoné Falls, nearly a thousand feet wide, and descending two hundred and ten feet, a most magnificent cataract. After the confluence with the Columbia, the latter river leaves the region of sands and lava for the rocks and mountains, and here are the Dalles. These are mainly flagstones that make troughs and fissures, and compress the channel. At first the river, a mile wide, goes over a wall twenty feet high and stretching completely across, and the enormous current is compressed not far below into a narrow pass only a hundred and thirty feet wide and nearly three miles long, encompassed by high perpendicular cliffs of such regular formation that they seem as if constructed of masonry. The Dalles make crooked, trough-like channels through which the waters wildly rush. The amazing way in which the agile fish are able to ascend these rapids and cataract through all the turmoil, seeking the quiet river reaches above, caused the Indians to call the place the Salmon Falls. Here is the town of the Dalles, the supplying market for the Idaho mining district, an active manufacturing place with five thousand people. There are various islands in these rapids, most of them having been used for Indian burial-places and some having numerous graves. Below, the Columbia presents very fine scenery in passing the defiles of the Cascade Mountains, and to the southward is the noble form of Mount Hood, rising over eleven thousand feet, displaying glaciers and having snow-covered peaks all about. At the Cascade Locks the Columbia descends another rapid, where huge rocks buffet the turbulent waters, the whirling foaming torrent wildly rushing among them. Here the descent is twenty-five feet, and the Government has improved the navigation by a spacious ship canal a mile long, built at a cost of $4,000,000. Enormous cliffs, some of grand and imposing form, environ the river in passing through these Cascade Mountains, some rising twenty-five hundred feet. We are told these mountains were first named from the numerous cascades which pour in from tributary streams coming over the cliffs and through the crevices of this tremendous chasm. Often a dozen of these fairy waterfalls can be seen in a single river reach, some dissolving into spray before half-way down, others stealing through crooked crannies, and many being tiny threads of glistening foam apparently frozen to the mountain side. Here is Undine's Veil pouring over a broader ledge, and the Oneonta, Horse Tail, La Tourelle and Bridal Veil cataracts, with the far-famed Multnomah Fall, the most beautiful of all, eight hundred feet high, descending with graceful gentleness over the massive cliffs a long and filmy yet matchless thread of silver spray. Emerging, the Columbia receives the Willamette River, coming up from the south on the western verge of the Cascades, and then proceeds grandly by its broad estuary to the Pacific.
Near the Canadian border the Great Northern Railway crosses the continent, surmounting the Rockies at the lowest elevation of any of the transcontinental lines. Starting from St. Paul, it traverses the Devil's Lake country in Montana, passes Fort Buford on the Upper Missouri, and crosses the Rockies at fifty-two hundred feet elevation. Beyond is the Kootenay gold district, and the road comes to Spokane, crosses the Columbia River and surmounts the Cascades at thirty-three hundred and seventy-five feet elevation, the mountain top being pierced by a three-mile tunnel. Then traversing sixty miles of fine forests, the railway terminates at Everett on Puget Sound.