SNOW ON THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

Grey River Argus, Volume VII, Issue 515, 6 May 1869, Page 4

SNOW ON THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

A correspondent of the Washington Star thus describes a journey in the month of September along the great Pacific Railroad : — Our train ran slowly up the mountain grades, in consequence of the snow and the sleet upon the track. Standing -upon the car platform, the outlook upon that most desolate of wastes, the great Alkali Desert, was dismal in the extreme. The wind having unbroken range, swept past with almost unparalleled fury. In the pauses of the storm the howling of wolves served to give additional unpleasantness to the gloomy surroundings. The eye sought in every direction through the night for a glimmer of light to show a human habitation. A greater contrast to Eastern railroading, where the traveller is whirled through almost a continuous village, could not well be afforded than by this lonely night ride up the Western slope of the ' Rocky Mountains. A railroad track in such a Siberian waste strikes one at such a time at the strangest of incongruities. Scrubby wild sage bushes and grease-wood bushes, the only signs of vegetation, lifted up their scraggy arms loaded with snow. The skeletons of horses, the only signs that any living thing had ever passed over the same waste, were outlined, as. we shot past, by wreaths and crests of snow. It was a scene well fitted in wild gloom and desolation for a Dore illustration of Dante's Hell or the Wandering Jew. It was nine o'clock in the morning when we reached Benton, a rude collection of shanties, but which afforded us at its California (tent) restaurant an excellent breakfast, dinner, and supper, for. we stopped here through the day until we could take the regular train eastward. It was morning when we reached Sherman, the highest point of the Black Hills, and on this return trip we had an opportunity of seeing the whole landscape, with all its sea of mountains covered with a dazzling drapery of snow. On descending the eastern slope of the hills, the snow began to waste away under the sun and wind, and the Cheyenne had almost entirely dissappeard. Thefactof ourencounteringasnowstorm in September, coupled with the other fact that it frequently snows here in June, raises the question whether trains can be run over the roads through the winter months. I find opinion here amongst those who know the country, a good deal divided upon this question. Very many, including old mountaineers, believe that the trains will be liable to serious interruptions during the latter months and March and April, for the heaviest snows here are late in the season. Competent engineers, however, who have had some winter experience in these mountains, do not hold to this opinion, and utterly discredit the reports of enormous snows said to fall here. Curiously enough, the scientific men have frequently been more correct in matters of fact from limited observation than the experienced mountaineers, who are apt to take things for granted and deal sometimes in exaggeration without knowing it. It is found that the actual amount of snow falling here is not large, in consequence of the dryness of the atmosphere ; and what snow falls is literally eaten up by the perpetual westerly winds prevailing, except such as is protected by being caught on the eastern side of ridges and in ravines. The face of the country, except where the sage bush and greasewood break the force of the wind, is quite bare in two or three days after a snow storm. In the opinion of the engineers who have encountered some of the severest snow storms known here, and have seen the rapidity with which it disappeared, there will be as little interruption from snow in these passes east of Salt Lake City, as in New York or lowa. In the Sierra Nevadas the Central Pacific Road will be liable to encounter more serious snows, and will be in danger of snow slides "from the over-hanging mountain cliffs. The company is endeavoring to meet the difficulty by roofing over the portions of their road most liable to snow falls, and the Union Pacific Company are building tiers of stone wall in double lines at points where the snow drifts in to intercept it. It may be safely predicted that the energy and sagacity which have presided oyer the construction of this wonderful road will find means to deal with the snow problem.