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Show 30 THE SHORTEST ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA. The march would have been disastrous; though Rock-well and others are of the opinion that by going on a line some thirty miles farther south, along the foot of mountains seen in that direction, a fine road can be laid out, avoiding, in a great degree, the desert. I believe such to be the case myself. I am clearly of the opinion that a suitable officer could, by a proper reconnoissance, lay out a road passing by ' Rush Valley,' turning southwest, and going by New River, Walker's Lake, into Carson Valley, and save two hundred miles' distance. This route having been declared impracticable, the colonel decided to pass around the north end of the lake, and thence by the Humboldt to Carson Valley."* It thus seems that Colonel Steptoe was deterred from attempting a direct route across the Great Basin toward San Francisco, by the reports which he had received, and took the old roundabout road by way of the Humboldt River. We have now, as we believe, exhausted the subject of the Explorations in and around the Great Basin, up to the time when the writer reported for duty as chief engineer with the army under General Albert Sidney Johnston, in Utah, in August, 1858. This history shows that up to this period a direct road toward San Francisco, from Great Salt Lake, or Camp Floyd, across the Great Basin, had never been thor- * Appendix A, Qr.- Master- Gen.' s Report, accompanying Sec. War's Annual Report, 1855, constituting Ex. Doc. No. 1, House of Rep., p. 156, 34th Cong., 1st Session. |