The Nevada journal., 1854-01-06
The Northern Pacific Railroad Route.

Having completed his survey with ref
erence to an extreme Northern route for
the Great Pacific Railway, Gov. Stevens
writes as follows concerning the geograph-
ical importance of the region of country
between the head waters of the Mississippi
and Puget Sound, its adaptation to settle
ment its railroad routes,its emigrant roads,
and the nomadic tribes within its borders.
Resting on the two great rivers of the
Eastern and Western coasts, the Missouri
and Columbia it connects by a navigable
stream with Hudson Bay and the Arctic
Ocean. Between the upper tributaries Of
these two rivers, the Rocky mountains are
broken into spurs, filled with beautiful and
fertile valleys, furnishing several good pass
es much lower than the Southern passes,
and beinr by barometric measurement
more than one thousand FIVE hundred feet
below the South Pass. The head of navi-
cation of the Missouri is only about seven
hundred miles from the waters of Puget
Sound, inexhaustible in its lumber, its coal
and its fisheries, and in this distance there
is one long reach of the Columbia naviea-
ble for steamers. From this head of nav
igation, in two hundred miles and in ten
days, the emigrant reaches that beautiful
valley in Washington Territory at the base
of the mountains, which even the honest
and simple-minded Flathead Indians have
filled with cattle, and raised wheat and po-
tatoes for their own use. Through this
valley, all the Indians from the Cascades
to the Rocky mountains pass on their way
to the vast buffalo plains between the Miss
ouri and Yellowstone, where with the
Crows and Blsckfeet they lay in their
stores of meat and robes, and which has
been the scene of many ssnguinary con-
ficts. The best natural wagon roads con-
meet the head of navigation of the Missouri
with the fertile valleys along all the streams
issued from the Rocky mountains to the
head of the Yellowstone-vallsys so mild,
cattle need not shelter in winter-rich in
buffalo grass-abounding in wood and
the water of the purest quality-and game,
buffalo, elk, deer, bighorn, antelope, black
bear, in the greatest abundance. The pass
es are yearly traversed by the Flathcad
Indians between the Christmas and New
Years on horseback, and March is the fa-
vorite month for the buffalo hunt by the
Washington Territory Indians and their
return across the mountains to their homes
on the plains and in the valleys of the Co.
lumbia river and its tributaries. From
the head Of navigation of the Missouri
through the Territory of Minnesota and
the region occupied by the Assineboines,
the Grosventres and the Blackfeet, the en-
igrant will find grass over every mile of
the route, and water never at greater dis
tances than ten miles. Myriads of buffalo
occupy this vast region, and their numbers
have not sensibly diminished though two
thousand Red river hunters, each on his
buffalo horse, four months each year, pour
death into their ranks, and they are almost
the only subsistence of some twenty five
thousand Indians.
Four routes within the Territory ol
Washington are pursued by the Indians ir
passing from the valley at the western base
Of the Rocky mountains to the plains ant
valleys between tho Ceur d,Eleine AM
Cascade mountains, an extension of tn
Blue mountains to Clark's Fork Of the Co
lumbia, north OF which the range Is knewl