From Yale to the Quesnell River, a distance of some three hundred miles, the line will follow the wagon-road, which has been built at an enormous expense by the Colonial Government, as a means of communication with the gold-mining regions of Carriboo. It will be a matter of considerable difficulty to set up a line of telegraph over that portion of this road which passes through the great canon, as in many places the road has a perpendicular wall of rock upon one side and a perpendicular precipice on the other, and in one place is carried around the face of a cliff in this manner, at an elevation of some two thousand feet, directly over the river, being in some places blasted out of the solid rock, and in others supported by a sort of staging.
Two exploring parties have been dispatched from San Francisco: one to examine the route through Eastern Siberia, between Behring's Strait and the Amoor; and the other to follow the proposed route up the Frazer River in British Columbia, and thence along the valley supposed to exist between the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Range, to the head-waters of Pelly River, following down the valley of this river and the Yerkin, into which it empties, to a point near the mouth of the latter, or in the neighborhood of Behring's Strait.
The Pacific Telegraph Line, which will form an important link in the overland line to Europe, was projected in 1859, when the measure was first brought to the attention of Congress. A bill in aid of the project was passed after some opposition, and proposals for the construction of the line were invited by Secretary Cobb. Mr. Hiram Sibley, President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, who was really the originator of the whole enterprise, submitted to the directors of the Company the question of authorizing him to send in proposals; but so formidable did the undertaking appear, that the proposition was carried only by a single vote.
After long and tedious delays on the part of Secretary Cobb, the contract for building the line was awarded, on the 20th of September, 1860, to Mr. Sibley, on behalf of the Western Union Telegraph Company. The Company at once assumed the contract, and furnished all the money required for the line east of Salt Lake.
Mr. J. H. Wade, of Cleveland, one of the officers of the Company, now visited California to confer with parties familiar with the various routes, to determine where and how to build the line, and to arrange with the telegraph companies in the Pacific States to extend their lines eastward and form a business connection. The California Company agreed to assume the construction of the line to Salt Lake City, and, if possible, to have it completed to that point as soon as the line from the eastward reached there. The route selected was viâ Forts Kearney, Laramie, and Bridger, crossing the Rocky Mountains at the South Pass, and thence to Salt Lake City; and from this point, viâ Forts Crittenden and Churchill, across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Placerville and San Francisco. Mr. Edward Creighton, who had already surveyed the proposed route, and was convinced of the feasibility of maintaining a line over it, was appointed superintendent of construction.
The Company was organized April 17th, 1862, after which time nearly all the wire, insulators, and other material had to be manufactured before the construction of the line could be proceeded with. The reader can judge of the extent of the preparations required for setting up two thousand miles of telegraph through a wilderness inhabited only by Indians and wild beasts, and a part of which was a desert. The materials and tools were taken to Omaha, Kansas, at which point everything necessary for the enterprise was gathered in readiness to start westward.
Of the force employed on the Pacific side we have no knowledge; but for the line from Omaha to Salt Lake City, Mr. Creighton had four hundred men, fitted out for a hard campaign, with a rifle and navy-revolver for each man, and with the necessary provisions, including one hundred head of cattle for beef, to be driven with the train and killed as needed. For the transportation of the material and the supplies for this army of workmen, five hundred oxen and mules and over one hundred wagons were purchased by the Company; and these not proving sufficient, other transportation was hired, making the total number of beasts of burden seven hundred oxen and one hundred pair of mules.
The first pole was set up on the 4th of July, 1862, and the line was completed to Salt Lake on the 18th of October following,—the California party reaching the same point six days later. The work proceeded at the rate of about ten miles per day.
The whole line is upon poles,—it being thought best to cross the rivers in this manner rather than by means of submarine cables. The country is for the most part bare of wood; the longest distance, however, that timber had to be drawn in one stretch was two hundred and forty miles. The poles are of large size, and stand eighty to the mile, more than half of red cedar, the remainder mostly pine. On the highest mountains, where the snow accumulates to a great depth during the winter, they are of extra size, and sufficiently tall to keep the wires above the deepest snow; they are also placed close enough together to prevent the wire being broken by an accumulation of snow and sleet.
The wire used in this line is No. 9 iron, zinc-coated, weighing three hundred and fifty pounds to the mile, and the total weight used between Omaha and San Francisco amounts to seven hundred thousand pounds. The insulators are of glass, protected by a wooden shield, of the pattern known as the Wade insulator.