The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1853-12-17

out the vast region of country comprising the
Pacific or extreme western slope of the CONT
nent Still another fact is of more Importance
than these The experience Of trappers and
voyageurs who have operated all over the con-
tlnont, from the great Lakes to the Pacific, goes
to prove that the falls Of snow are much greater,
upon an average, between the degrees of thirty
eight and y-ive, than between those of forty
five and fifty. Thus it is notorious fact, that
when parties OF hunters cannot force their way
through the mountains down toward New Mex
leo, they travel north to find decrease of snow
and safe lines of communication east and west
through the rocky barriers which separate the
waters of our great valley and those of the Pa
cific. Instances of this kind are on record. and
it would be well for doubters to look them up
All this is accounted for upon natural princi-
pies. The atmosphere being more humid as
you travel south to certain point, of course
the fall o: snow is greater. Had Fremont,
four years ago, been traversing the Blackfoot
Pass, recently discovered by Lieut.. Saxton. it
is not probable he would have had so mclan-
choly tale to tell.
But admitting the SHOWS are equal in depth
through the passes of these western ranges to
those which spread over the same character of
country east of us, we find no serious impede
ment to railroad operations in all this. Amer
lean ingenuity has devised means by which the
tracks are cleared of eight and ten feet of snow
in few hours. We hear one day that the cars have
been stopped going out from Boston somewhere
in Vermont or New Hampshire, and the next
mornings paper informs us that the track is
clear and the express trains making their usual
time. So will it be in the Rocky Mountains,
even were it the case that az much snow fell
there as in the ranges of our extreme Eastern
States.
Another great imaginary objection that will
be brought to bear against our Northern route,
is that it is located near one extreme Of
the country, and thus cuts off from its immediate
local benefits the Central and Southern por-
tions of the Union. With all due Difference to
Col. Benton and others, their ground is not ten
able. A national enterprise of this description
should seek to benefit the great centres of trade
and commerce, and not so much the centres of
population. New York, Boston, and the cities
of the great Lakes, are the great hives of our
country, which do now and are to continue to
control, and that too in rapidly increasing ra-
country. New York is the centre, to which
everything must tend the manufactures of
New England will be the commodities sent over
the great thoroughfare and across the Pacific
in exchange for the teas and silks of China and
Japan; and it is the heavy grain growing re-
gion of our own West, extending from the for
tieth parallel to the British line, and from the
Great Lakes to the Pacific, which is to support
and make profitable the way traffic of the road.
1t cannot be made to pay, carrying cotton from
Texas to Charleston and Baltimore, or trans
porting wood and water for the use of its own
iron horses from the groves of the Platte to the
arid and tenantless plains of New Mexico.
The established facts that our Northern land
route, from navigable waters connecting with
the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific, is
several hundred miles shorter than any 9TH
or. and that it passes over n country every
mile of which is susceptible of sustaining an
agricultural population, are admitted, we be-
lievc, by its strongest opponents. 1t is unne-
ccssary to alludc to them in detail. Meantime,
our people, orr presses our Legislative and our
Executive officers, should be active in pushing
forward the great project not forgetting all
the while, that should the road eventually go
through the South Pass, We are hundred miles
nearer thereto than the city of st. Louis and
that by thence. and Mobiles Route beyond. we
can reach the Pacific In much shorter distance
than can that city.