The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1872-04-16
The Northern Pacific Railroad.

vo,r 70 advertise the Northern Pacific rail-
ro,d and sell its bonds. JAY COOKE is the
financial AGENT. who has undertaken the sale
Of bonds, and a number of Pamphlets ana
hundreds of newspaper publications have
tecmcd from the press representing in glow
inc colors the fertility of the country to be
traycrscd by the road and the deliShtfm
climate that prevails there. Even Congress
man G,RF,ELpE, of Washington Territory,
has helped on this deception--for such 1t
must be-with pamphlet crammcd with
spccious statements and plausible arguments.
It was claimed that the route was even
more temperate than that of the Union Tor
Middle) Pacific route. We could not see now
this superior gentleness, this ethereal mild
ne<s. should be found north of the Union
Pacific line; We know what terrors the
winters troe4 create along that line, and few
men will believe that the terrors of more
northern route can possibly be less.
An apparently well-informed correspond
emf Of the Cincinnati Commercial, writing
ror, Oregon, Mo-, describes the winter
nerils OH thc Upper Missouri and i'll the vi
cjnity of Sioax City. There, owing to the
| extensive and bare plains in the whole
country for five hundred miles north and
west of Sioux City, very slight fall Of snow
serves to I'll up the deepest cuts and raVlnes
by drifting and packing. This snow Is de-
sclibcd Us fine, penetrating, frozen li'is' VI
powder. The storms of this snow arise
every winter. always with loss ct ]ite 10 Hill
and beast. They often last three alln iou'
DAYS, and nothing can be seen but the shee.
Of white mist. Men have been lost in the
streets, and wandered away to the suburbs
and there persisted. The snow is binding,
and nothing cain be seen beyond few feet.
| These snow-storiris arise often liz beautiful
warm weather, when the thermometer sinks
| RAPIDLY. On the 10Th Of last February there
was storm on bright day, which caused
the thermometer at Sioux city to fall forty de-
grees i'm ten hours, and still farther north,
near the line of the North Pacific Railway, it
fell to what would he equivalent i'll Fahren-
het to tilty-nine degrees below zero. The
day was serene, and many pcoplein northern
Nebraska, opposite Sioux city, had gone out
of their villages to get wood. Suddenly, at
y o'clock, the wind brought binding sheets
of this fine snow. Many of these poor peo-
pie persisted where the snow found them.
They were found, some of them, leaning
against trees, dead, with as much as six inches
of this snow enveloping their bodies, and
frozen tight to the skin. Horses and cattle
persisted also in almost every snow-storm
in that part of the world.
This writer is familiar with the country
for some distance north of his present home,
and he expresses his establishment at the rap
idly-incre;.sing severity of the temperature
i'm winter as you travel north. Between
thirty eight and forty degrees he says the diff:
ference Is scarcely perceptible; between forty
and forty-one it is immense. lie adds:
From forty-one and q half to forty-fve
degrees the climate in winter is, strictly
speaking, terrible-within Seventy-tiye miles
: of the latitude of Sioux City ; and that ii
should be any less terrible one hundred and
eighty miles north of forty-fiye degrees,
don't believe on the contrary, the few re-
ports received from there fifteen years age
led me to believe it was positively uninhabi'
table," .....~.-.
The writer thus iaments the fate of immi
grants who have been induced by the flaming
advertisements of the railroad ring to go out
upon the line of the Northern Pacific road
"And now, Mr.. Editor, when know that
thousands on thousands Of poor, deceived
misguided men are leading their families
there this spring to make homes in such q
region us that, where, at the best, they can
) only get few logs to pile up to make cabins,
and where they must haul them and every
, stick they burn twenty miles or more, and
when remember the suffering I have wit.
messed as far south us Omaha on account OF
these dreadful winters, my heart turns sick.
The things that happen are not published so
long as suppression is possible"
/ Our readers are familiar with the terrible
accounts of the suffering of passengers on
the Union Pacific. railway the past winter. It
is idle to tell the world that there will be less
hardship--less danger--seyeral hundred miles
farther north upon the Northern Pacific
route. If it is ever built, it will turn out to
be utterly useless in winter. The Southern
Pacific line uiG the Southwest Pass is to be
the great road Of the Continent. It win be
the safest OF all, and will be able to run all
the year with never moments interruption
Lon account Of the weather.
But 1t L most strange to zee large colonies
i 30 s,>@.~ 4 Z n