ed by the short and straight route west from the Little Salt Lake discov ered by Frémont in his winter expedition of 1853-54. And this com pletes all that is necessary to be shown in favor of the smoothness of the way its equality of surface throughout the whole line; although it attains a great elevation, and lands you in California, in the rich and settled valley of San Joaquin, proximate to the southern end of the gold mines. Not a tunnel to be made, a mountain to be climbed, a hill to be crossed, a swamp to be seen, or desert or movable sand to be encountered, in the whole distance, and all this equality of surface barometrically determined by Frémont as well as visibly seen by his eye; so that this line for a road, the longest and straightest in the world, is also over the smoothest and most equal surface. For, although a great elevation is attained, it is on a long line, and gradually and imperceptibly, the mere rise of an inclined plane.

Rivers to be passed are obstructions to roads, to be overcome by large applications of skill and means; and here again the central route is most favorable. The entire line is only crossed in its course by the streams in the valley of the Upper Colorado, and those of inconsiderable width, with solid banks, and stone for bridges. On this side of the Rocky Mountains the course of the rivers is parallel to that of the road; the Kansas, the Arkansas, and the Huerfano being all in its line. Beyond the valley of the Colorado, no river at all, only small streams.

Mr. McClanahan, and others whose statements have been given, have attested the supreme excellence of the route for the road from Missouri as far as the San Luis valley, and that upon experiment with wagons, carriages, flocks, and herds. It only remains to produce the same kind of testimony in behalf of the remaining part of the way, from that val ley to California; and that testimony is at hand. Mr. R. S. Wootten, of New Mexico, a large dealer in stock to California, and who drove 8000 sheep there in the summer of 1853, thus writes in a letter which he gave responsibly to the public:

During the last year I have taken a drove of sheep from this place (Taos) to California over the route that Colonel Frémont intended to have gone in the winter of 1848-49, at the time of his disaster. I made the trip through to California in 90 days, arriving there with my sheep in good order, having passed through some of the finest country I ever saw, and had good camps, and plenty of wood, water, and grass every night during the whole trip. There is now being commenced a settlement on the Arkansas River, at the mouth of the Huerfano, at which emigrants can procure such necessaries as they may be in want of, and also at the Mormon settlements at Little Salt Lake. There is also a good ferry at the mouth of the Huerfano, and ferries will also be established during the coming summer on Grand River and Green River, (Upper Colorado.) There is also another great advantage that this route has over a more northern one, as emigrants may leave Missouri as late as the 1st of August, and there is no danger of being stopped by snow. After reaching the great Spanish trail in the valley of Green River, (Upper Colorado,) from thence to California there is never any snow, and the months of October and November are more pleasant to travel, and better for stock, than the summer months."

And

This is the testimony of experience, of actual experiment, in all the country of the mountains; in all the region from the Rocky Mountains out, supposed by some to be so sterile, so rugged, so savage, so impracticable; proved to be so fine that sheep find camps when they please, and they only make ten miles a day, and fatten upon their travel. the settlers already commenced settlements all along, and proceeding rapidly. What was one man at the mouth of the Huerfano in 1853, was forty in the spring of 1854, all raising crops. Other settlements skirt the road, as that of 200 families in the valley of San Luis, and the pueblos San Carlos, Cuerno Verde, and others above Bent's Fort on the extreme upper Arkansas.

This finishes the testimony which time permits to be now produced in favor of the excellence of the country; in fact, its surpassing beauty and great superiority. It is as full and complete as the law of evidence requires any testimony in such a case to be. Still there may be persons to impugn it, and to cry down the country. That is an old business, as old as Moses and the twelve messengers which he sent from the wilderness of Paran to spy out the promised land, and ten of which made an "evil report" of the country and stirred up the mutiny against Moses which continued forty days, and for the punishment of which the rebellious children were detained forty years in the wilderness. This is what happened to the promised land, and it is not to be expected that the distant and unknown countries of the Great West are to fare better. They also must expect to be evilly reported upon; but truth is powerful and must prevail, even where two stand against ten, as in the question between the messengers of Moses, and still more in the case of multitudes against units, as will be the way in the case of evil reports of this far distant West; especially as the country will stand to vindicate itself and the truth. That is the last and greatest witness, the country itselfwork of God-standing where he placed it, exhibiting itself as it is, and ready to cover with shame the faint-hearted wanderers who, to get An excuse to return to the flesh pots of Egypt, are for ever discovering a "lion in the path."

I deem myself justified to develop, with some more detail, but one of the road advantages possessed by this route an advantage often mentioned, but not sufficiently enforced. It is that of coal, so valuable under every aspect, and so indispensable to railroads when in prairies. It exists in superfluous abundance all along this line. Commencing in those coal fields in the west of Missouri which geologists compute to be of 20,000 square miles' extent, it is found all along the Kansas River, on the Upper Kansas, in the Rocky Mountains, in the valley of the Upper Colorado, at the western base of the Wahsatch and Anterria ranges, thus known at present from its own exhibition of itself, cropping out from the bluffs of rivers and the banks of ravines. How much remains to be discovered when so much shows itself spontaneously? Really, it seems like “carrying coals to Newcastle," to tell of coal on this route.

The proposed central route is intended to be a straight line, turned aside by no obstacle, and seduced from its course by no lateral interest. But it will be a road for the accommodation of the whole broad expanse

of the country, from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. Branches striking out like ribs from the spine, would reach every settlementNorthern Missouri and Iowa from a point on the Upper Kansas, New Mexico from a point on the Upper Arkansas, the Great Salt Lake from a point on the upper valley of the Colorado, and thence on to the mouth of the Columbia, and Los Angeles and Southern California, from a point on the Little Salt Lake and Santa Clara settlements. All these places would be conveniently reached by branch roads, while the great trunk would follow its direct course best for itself and for them from Missouri to California, debouching at each end into the midst of business populations, aud connecting with steamboat navigation and all the state improvements. And its settlement would be magic. The line once indicated, and the enterprising emigrants of our America would flock upon it as pigeons to their roosts, tear open the bosom of the virgin soil, and spring into existence the long line of farms and houses, of towns and villages, of orchards, fields, and gardens, of churches and school-houses, of noisy shops, clattering mills, and thundering forges, and all that civilization affords to enliven the wild domain from the Mississippi to the Pacific; to give protection and employment to the road, and to balance the populous communities in the eastern half of the Union by equal populations on its western half.

In this description of the country I have relied chiefly on Frémont, whose exploration, directed by no authority, connected with no company, swayed by no interest, wholly guided by himself, and solely directed to the public good, would be entitled to credit upon his own report, unsupported by subsidiary evidence; but he has not left the credit of his report to his word alone. He has done besides what no other explorer had done; he has made the country report itself. Besides determining elevations barometrically, and fixing positions astronomically, and measuring objects with a practiced eye; besides all that, he has applied the daguerreotype art to the face of the wild domain, and made it speak for itself. Three hundred of these views illustrate the path of his exploration, and compel every object to stand forth and show itself as it is, or was mountain, gap, plain, rock, forest, grass, snow, (where there is any,) and naked ground where there is not; all exhibit themselves as they are; for Daguerre has no power to conceal what is visible, or to exhibit what is unseen. If the "wart" is there, he needs no admonition to show it, and could not suppress it. He uses no pencil to substitute fiction for fact, or fancy for memory. He is a machine that works to a pattern, and that pattern the object before him; and in this way has Frémont reproduced the country from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and made it become the reflex of its own features, and the exhibitor of its own face, present and viewable to every beholder; and that nothing may be wanting to complete the information on a subject of such magnitude, he has now gone back to give the finishing look at the west end of the line, which 30,000 miles of wilderness explorations in the last twelve years (all at his own solicitation, and the last half at his own cost) authorize him to believe is the true and good route for the road which is to unite the Atlantic and the Pacific, and to give a new channel to the commerce of Asia.

All the other requisites for the construction and maintenance of a road, and to give it employment when done, have been shown in the view of the country-wood, water, stone, coal, iron; rich soil to build up settlements and cities, to give local business and travel all along its course, as well as at the great terminating points, and to protect it without government troops. Add to this, picturesque scenery and an entire region of unsurpassed salubrity. This quality of the route, salubrity, requires a special notice. Frémont says of it, "It is a healthy route. No diseases of any kind upon it, and the valetudinarian might travel it in his own vehicle, or on horse, or even on foot, for the mere recovery of spirits and restoration of health." This is what Frémont says, and he ought to know, traversing the region as he has done for twelve years, and never having a physician with him, nor losing a man by sickness. And all his mountain comrades, sojourners, of 20, 30, 40 years in this wild domain, report the same thing. Salubrity, then, is one of the eminent recommendatory qualities of the central route. The whole route for the road between the States of Missouri and California is good; not only good, but supremely excellent; and it is helped out at each end by water lines of transportation, now actually existing, and by railways, projected or in progress. At the Missouri end there is a railway in construction to the line of the State, and steamboat navigation to the mouth of the Kansas, and up that river some hundred miles; at the California end there is the like navigation up the Bay of San Francisco and the San Joaquin River, and a railway projected. And thus this central route would be helped out at once by some 300 miles at each end, connecting it with the great business populations of California and Missouri, at which latter point it would be in central communication with the great business population of the Union.

People now travel it and praise it; buffaloes travel it, and repeat their travel, which is their praise. The federal government only seems to eschew it, and lean to outside routes-one by Canada, which the Canadian provincial parliament appears to be now adopting for its own; aud one through old Mexico, which Santa Anna might adopt, if he had any commerce; and upon neither of which is seen a buffalo track, or a voluntary white man's track going to California, where no white man goes to get to California, except under the orders and at the expense of government, and where no buffalo could be made to go, even by the power of the government. That sensible old animal would die before he would be made such a fool of as to be conducted to the Sacramento, or San Joaquin, or San Francisco, via the hyperborean region of Upper Canada and New Caledonia, or via the burning deserts of Sonora and Chihuahua. The central route is the free choice of men and buffaloes, and is good for all sorts of roads, and in all seasons. Its straightness of course will enable the car to more than double its speed, and consequently earn its money in half the time. The smoothness of its course is but little interrupted by its ascents or descents; for they are gradual, and distributed over long distances; and the whole country between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, is at the general leve. of 5000 feet, the greatest descent being from the Sierra Nevada to the level of the sea and that may distribute itself for the road over some hundred miles.

And now I hold it to be in order of human events, in the regular progression of human affairs, that the road will be built, and that soon; not by public, but private means, by a company of solid men, asking nothing of Congress but the right of way through the public lands, and fair pay for good service in carrying mails, troops, government officials, and munitions of war. Such an enterprise is worthy of enlightened capitalists, who know how to combine private advantage with public good, and who 'eel a laudable desire to connect their names with a monumental enterprise more useful than the pursuits of political ambition, more glorious than the conquest of nations, more durable than the pyramids, and which, being finished, is to change the face of the commercial world, and all to the advantage of our America.

The road will be made, and soon, and by individual enterprise. The age is progressive and utilitarian. It abounds with talent seeking employment, and with capital seeking investment. The temptation is irresistible. To reach the golden California, to put the populations of the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Mississippi Valley into direct communication, to connect Europe and Asia through our America, and to own a road of our own to the East Indies; such is the grandeur of the enter prise, and the time has arrived to begin it. The country is open to settlement, and inviting it, and receiving it. The world is in motion, following the track of the sun to its dip in the western ocean. Westward the torrents of emigration direct their course, and soon the country between Missouri and California is to show the most rapid expansion of the human race that the ages of man have ever beheld. It will all be settled up, and that with magical rapidity; settlements will promote the road, the road will aggrandize the settlements. Soon it will be a line of towns, cities, villages, and farms. And rich will be the man that may own some quarter section on its track, or some squares in the cities which are to grow upon it.

But the road beyond the Mississippi is only the half of the whole; the other half is on this side, and either in progress or completed. Behold your own extended iron ways, departing from this city to go west towards the lakes and the great rivers, to join the great western trunk, now almost finished through Cincinnati, Vincennes, St. Louis, there to find the Pacific road in progress to the western limit of Missouri. Behold the lateral roads from Pennsylvania, New England, New York, all pointing to the west, and converging to the same central track. And behold the diagonal central road of Virginia, to traverse the State from its southeast to its northwest corner, already finished beyond the Blue Ridge, and its advanced pioneers descending the Alleghany Mountain, to arrive at the mouth of Big Sandy, in the very latitude of St. Louis, San Francisco, and Baltimore, and there to join the same great central western trunk. And the Blue Ridge road of South Carolina, bound upon the same destination, and the roads of Georgia, pointing and advancing to the northwest. What is the destiny of all these Atlantic roads, thus pointing to the west, and converging upon the central track, the whole course of which lies through the centre of our Union, and through the centre of its population, wealth, and power, and one end of which points to Canton