San Andreas independent., 1858-09-04
Stockton and salt Lake Trade.

horse and mule teams, heavily laden,
bound for Salt Lake City uia Murphy s
and the Big Tree route, and containing
assorted merchandise and suffers stores
for the army now encamped in Salt Lake
Valley In addition to those mentioned,
we understand it is the intention of those
engaged in the undertaking to dispatch
ten more teams so soon as they can be OBJ
tanned We were unable to obtain man.
ifest of all the various articles with which
the train was freighted, but learn there
was no lack of that necessary concomi-
tant which always travels with the advance
of civilization-whisky But whatever
their stock in trade, We hail them with
joy, and wish them God speed, as being
the advance of a large trade which will
spring up in very few years between
the Pacific and that vast and fertile inte-
rior country round about Salt Lake
This train carries out fifty-one tons of
freight, or tree tons to each team of eight
mules. Heavily laden as they are, they
will find many difficulties on the way
Crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains,
there will be some ascents that will re-
quire doubling of teams to surmount;
but we think these will fall far short of
the most difficult portion of the road. In
Carson Valley the road will be reason
ably fair one, and from the Valley they
intend to stop feeding their animals, and
depend upon grazing the balance of the
route. Where the road leads from Car
son river and starts over the desert, there
are twelve miles-of light drift-sand, where
will perhaps be the heaviest hauling that
will be encountered on the whole route
The remainder of the distance across the
desert is mostly good solid road, level
but dry and scorching, and a general
scarcity of water The route up the
Humboldt river will be found generally
good, except an intolerable amount of
oltolt dust, with a scarcity of water in
many places where the road makes a de-
tour from the river, and in many places
there will be only tuft of grass for ami
mails that are required to draw heavy
load each day On approaching the head
of the Humboit, the road is good, with
but little dust, and plenty of water and
grass, Beyond the head o. the Hum
boldt but few difficulties are to be encoun-
tered, excepting the dust in Thousand
Spring Valley, and some rocky hills to
cross in the Goose Creek country; but
over these the road is generally solid
While the road, upon the whole, is equal
to, or better than many of the travelled
roads in this State, we look upon it as
rather severe trip for loaded teams, and
is such on account of the desert nature of
the country and the lack of stations where
forage could be obtained for animals.
But the inconveniences which this pio-
neer trip will have to encounter, will soon
be removed. A line of mail stages, (es-
tablished by our fellow -townsman, Major
George Chorpenning,) are now running
regularly over this same route from Salt
Lake to Carson Valley, and thence to
Placerville. Stations will be established
for the convenience of the stage line, and
as a necessary consequence, settlements
will be made in the most available places
in the vicinity of these stations, and it
will be but a very few years till food for
man and forage for animals can be OBJ
tanned at convenient distances on the en-
tire route from California to the Missouri
river, and teams laden with merchandise
and the various articles of trade, will pass
weekly over the route from Stockton to
Salt Lake and back, and men will be able
to travel, singly, in buggies or on horse
back, from the settled portions of Califor-
MIA to the turbid waters of the Missouri.
In the absence of an overland railroad,
nothing is so much calculated to encour-
age settlements and open up a direct
communication and intercourse by travel
across our vast public domain, as the es-
tablishment and keeping up Of a regular
line of mail stages. Although more
might have been done for us in that way,
vet the Post Master General is deserving
of credit for doing so much as he has
The experiment of regular mail cia
South Pass, and Salt Lake, is being tried,
and will succeed beyond the most san
guine expectations of its warmest friends.
The Post Master General might readily
perform an act which would be of much |
convenience to the people residing in the
Southern Mines of California, by crea-