The Abbeville banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1847-1869, 1857-08-20
THE OVERLAND MAIL AND TIE PACIFIC
RAILRUAn'

,on Of The grounds Of the selection by the
Postmaster General of the route, rm EI
Paso, for the overland mall to California.
The article is too long for Insertion in our
columns. Its Importance, however, leads
us 10 furnish condensed statement of ifs
facts and conclusions, rs of'rar,icular in
t"rcst to us here, who have concerned our
selves SO much in favor of the Southern
Pacific Railroad. The considerations which
have decided in favor of the mail road arc
equally decisive in favor of a railroad
through the same principal points and along
the same parallels Of latitude.
The subject is introduced by Il general
view Of the geography, metcoroIogy and
physical character of the interior portions
Of the country westward of the limits of
the present population with the conclusion
that the extension Of populations, aud the
march of empire" must be soutllwestwarl
from the Mississippi river. This direction
IS affirmed to be inevitable and dcmon,tra-
hie from the relations between the "mois-
turc-latlen winds of the Gulf Of M,xico"
and the cold and killing blasts from the
north, which meet, rs the north and the
south winds prevail on u huctu:tipg line,
and sometimes bring, rs for The htet two
months, hard aud cold weather in Northern
Texas, and sometimes allow Iux,,r;ani cras-
scs on the plains Of the Arkansas utd the
Kansas rivers.
The conditions Of climate. are decisive
against any Of the northern routes THAT
hy the South Pass and the Salt Lake il
dismissed as not TO te considered at ALL
The figors Of winter may bc ,cstilnaled
from the fact that there has been frost-+,nd
"e there on the 3lst of July. 1t is there
fore, clearly imprac.icaLe for the mails.
Two other routes further south were left
for consideration. They arc respectively
called the Albuquerque and the E Iaso
routes, these being the names of the several
points at which the Upper Eio Gr:,ndr is
passed. El Iaso is near the 22d parallel,
and Albuquerque near the 35th parallel Of
nor.!. Latitude. Bon converge ut Little
Rock, III Arkansas, pursuing one line thence
to Memphis. The upper route proceeds
directly west from Little Rock to Fort
Smith, on the western boundary of Arkan-
sas, and thence through the Indian Terri
tory and New Mexico, and across the Rio
Grande nt Albuquerque, and through Will
iiam's Fork, to Los Angeles. Tile other
defects southwardIy to Fulton, in South
western Arkanas, whence it takes Il route
across Texas to Ell l'aso, and thence through
New Mexico and the Valley Of the Gila to
San Diego. Our readers know how sl,or; n
connection opens Fulton to Marshall, in
Texas, the initial point Of the Southern
Pacific road, and thus opens the whole line
to The Mississippi at New Orleans. Between
these two routes the Postmaster General
was called upon to decide, after excluding
The nothern routes generally, and the South
l'ass and Salt Lake lines as impracticaLle.
The first point was that Of comparative
length. In this The difference is too slight
to be considered. BY the upper route, the
distance from San Francisco to Memphis is
estimated at o,20o miles by the lower
route, ut 2,222.
The subject Of climate is the next topic.
That Of The Albuquerque route is affected
y the greater height of the mountainous
plateau in which it runs, which is nearly
1900 feet higher than that of the III Paso
line. / The result is that in the former
then is often extremely severe weather in
whter. The thermometer often falls manv
agrees below zero, and men on detached
Auty. are often badly frozen there. The
snow in the mountain passes has laid two
feet de p in March. The temperature at
El l'aso is compa atively mild the snow
never lies OH the plains, and the tlcrmonc-
ter never falls to zero.
In addition to this superiority of climate,
: the FL Paso route was asserted to have the
preference from the greater range of well
,Yatered and cultivatable country through
which it passes. OF this, testimony is quo
tel from the reports of exploring officers
more particularly that of Captain John
Pope, who, speaking Of the immense region
of desert which stretches downthe interior
Of this continent, remarks that between tic
320. and 33o Of north latitude its continuity
is broken, and that broad belt of we'll
watcrcd and well timbered country projects
into the "parched and treelcss waste O. the
plains" and approaches to within three hun
dred miles Of the Rio Grande, at FL Paso.
The same fact is commented upon by Capt,
Marcy.
OF the country beyond the Rio Grande,
the same favorable concurrence Of testirno-
ny is quoted to show that the Ell Paso is
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