OCR Text |
Show 29 along the routes now employed for that purpose, has attracted more or less attention since the y^ ar 18G8, but with no practical result, except that Camp Apache, the most easterly part, and possibly at times new- Camp Grant and Camp Bowie, were thus supplied with commissary stores and short forage. Chauges have been made in the railroad communication reaching out from the Missouri Rivet, and Las Auimas is at this date the terminus of railroad supply, from which point everything shipped from the Missouri Valley, or the eastern portion of the country, goes by wagon transportation hence to Santa F6 or Albuquerque, and thence by the usual traveled wagon- roads, in which very little change has been made for the last twenty years. It is understood that the Atchisou, Topeka and Santa F6 road will follow up the Arkansas as far as Pueblo at least, and that active operations looking to its speedy completion are now in progress, in which case railroad communication will be completed along the valley of the Arkansas, including the branch of the Denver and Rio Grande as far as Canon City. Reconnaissances have been made over several lines west to the Rio Grande, from the point at which it debouches at Del Norte, south as far as Taos Creek toward the west and southwest, and a line practicable for a wagon- road has been discovered by one of our parties as far as the valley of the Chaco. This line will be taken up and followed this year by a special party, with a view to learning the practicability of its continuance through Washington or some other pass near old Fort Defiance, into the valley of the Puerco of the West, reaching which, the direct overland road from Santa F£ to Prescott would be made a branch, reachiug first the drainage of Zuui Creek, aijd thus the Little Colorado will be easily reached, and the present wagon- road from Fort Wingate to Camp Apache joined, probably where it crosses the Little Colorado. It is intended at the close of the season to make a special report, embracing, in systematic form, all the information obtained upon this sub-ject, and collaterally furnishing evidence as to the passes in the Rocky Mountain ranges bordering on the plains, and embracing the heads of the Rio Grande, from latitude 39° 45' K to latitude 33° 4( K X., and comparing the altitudes of such passes as the Tennessee, Puncho, Sangre de Cristo, S& nd Hill, Pass at the bead of the Purgatoire, also the passes at the heads of the Cimarron, including Taos Pass, and the part that they would play as functions of a continental or other railroad of project. Undoubtedly, a part of the section of country known as the San Juan mining region would be better supplied by a railroad- route reaching from the eastern side of tbe Rocky ranges to the San Juan River, below the point of its turning westward, than from any poiut that could be reached by a railroad leading from the Arkausas at any poiut above Canon City, although that stream will be the temporary entrepot for the transactions of that part of the country, and some of the regiou about the heads of the Dolores, Uncompahgre, Lake Fork, and Gunnison Rivers. The reports in regard to the richness of the surface- wealth of minerals in the groups of mountains in which nestle the heads of the northern tributaries of the San Juan, and of the streams just above mentioned, go to show that, when cheaper and more ready transportation and proper means shall have reached these sections, mining on a considerable scale may be expected for gold, both iu place and placer, silver and lead. Profiles of important occupied or natural routes that have been traversed by . parties of the survey siuce its commencement are about being grouped upon special profile- forms, that will be published in sets of the usual atlas size, or 19 by 24 iuches. |