Elizabeth daily monitor. [volume] (Elizabeth, N.J.) 1868-1880, 1869-07-03
elizabeth Daily @{9onitor,
PUBLISHED AT 155 BROAD STREET, BY
]. MADISON DRAKE.
THROUGH TO THE PACIFIC.

Central, the subject has been thorough
ly written up in a journalistic sense.
That lis, we hear much of the magni-
tude of the undertaking but very little
of the operations of the road, or the
comfort with which travellers can be
carried over it, There is an immense
amount of genera liking wasted on the
subject but we only get a minimum of
particularizing. A. D. Richardson,
who had a large and varied experience
at the West, is laboring to supply this
deficiency for the New York Tribune,
and we reproduce below much of the
more important facts confined in his
letter: l3#
THE HIGHEST RAILROAD POINT IN THE
WORLD.
From Cheyenne I come to Sherman
SO miles west, up to the first heavy.
grade upon the road-90 feet to the
mile. All around are bare mountain
tops. The ashen heritage is brighten
ed by the blue lungwort and yellow
Arkansas wall-fowers in clustsrs as
large as the palm or the crown Of hat.
Granite boulders Of gray and brown,
spotted with yellow moss, are scattered
here and there. One near the summit
is fifty feet high, and shelters the cat
tie ranchman, who has fenced in little
space beside it.
Sherman is the highest railway point
In the worlds, $40 feet above the sea.
Still, it is not the backbone of the
Rocky Mountains, but only Of the
Black Hills, an outlying eastern range.
The continental divide is 200 miles fir
ther west and 1000 feet lower. Sher-
man is in Evans Pass, which bears the
name of its discoverer. He was one of
many martyrs to this great work IA
Union Pacific Surveyor, killed by the
Indians. The pass is in no sense q
gorge or canyon-but looks, topo-
graphically, like vast rolling prairie
disfgured by rocks and reached by
a gentle ascent. Nor are the distant
mountains on the north and south such
slender peaks and pyramids as fanciful
artists depict, but only low, irregular,
broken ridges.
Sherman has half dozen dwellings,.
The landlord OF the little tavern told
me that me that water was thrown up.
on his porch at midnight any night i'll
the year, would freeze before morning.
Like other desert stations, it has
wind mill some tweEt y feet in diameter
which pumps water up from a spring
into high tank beside the track. The
tank holds $4,000 gallons; the pump
will fill it in ten hours. When it is full
the water lifts little float that pulls
a wire shuts up the sails of the wind
mill, dozen yards away, and it in
stantly stops. When the tank gets
nearly empty, the action of another
float opens the sails, and the wind mill
starts again. The cost of the ingenius
apparatus all set is about $4,000. 1t
might be used to great advantage for
irrigating. .-....
COAL ON THE RAILROAD.
Our train was heavy ald late, so we
ran often forty miles IN hour, and
made up two hours during the night.
The sleeping car, though gliding with
perfect smoothness, swayed a good
deal in passing around clrves. Morn
ing found us on the great coal belt of
the Wyoming and Utah, which is
three hundred and fifty miles wide,
and runs from British america down
to New Mexico. The Nothern and the
Southern Pacific roads If the future
will both cross it. ......
On the Union Pacific coal is now
mined at half dozen points, Carbon,
$50 miles from Omaha, beng the most
eastern, and Echo, 337 miles from
Carbon, the most western The veins
range in thickness from afew inches to
twenty -four feet. Five hundred miners
are employed. and they AXE out some
600 tons daily. At Crbon, Black
Buttes, Point of Rocks md other sta
tons horizontal shafts penetrate the
hill sides and bring this rich product
to the main track. 1t i brown coal,
somewhat of the nature If lignite-soft
easily lighted, burning n a blaze to
ashes, and leaving no cilder whatever.
1t is liked greatly, both for steam en-
gines and dwellings. Loaded upon
the cars, it costs the company about 81
per ton. They cannot yet deliver it at
Omaha for less than 81, while Iowa
coal, though of an inferior quality, is
sold there for 49, But this discovery
was Godsend-the best piece of for
tune that has happened to them. Not
only does it supply their long line, but
it will also haveto supply the Central
Pacific, which j awfully short of fuel.
In mining parlince, it is the biggest
thing yet richer possession than
H. Will T15,o c;I,,o,. xraipo ~ 4Io