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COUNCIL GROVE, a noted stopping-place on the great thoroughfare to Santa Fé, contains some half dozen trading houses, a missionary establishment and school, two blacksmiths' shops, etc.

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CHAPTER VI.

Routes of travel The Pacific railroad- Navigable rivers.

THE territory of Kanzas, from its position, is the great geographical centre of the internal commerce of the United States.

The only overland routes from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which have thus far accommodated emigrants or merchants, either pass through its borders, or along the Missouri river to the valley of the Nebraska, thus passing along on its eastern side.

A southern route through Texas, and another through Arkansas, have been explored, without thus far attracting the travel of any but explorers.

Of the routes really used, the great emigrant track, through the "South Pass," to Oregon and California, is by far the most important.

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It must be understood that the "South Pass called only because it is south of the passes of the upper valley of the Missouri, explored by Lewis and Clarke. It

is more northerly than the pass proposed by Col. Fremont for a railroad, near the line of New Mexico.

The travel along the great emigrant road is equal to that on a considerable turnpike at the east. Settlers leave the river at different places, according as they choose different towns for an outfit. From Independence, Westport, Kanzas City, Weston, St. Mary's, St. Joseph's, and other towns in Missouri and Iowa, are different roads, therefore, leading west or north-west to the valley of the Nebraska, along which is the proper emigrant road. Those of these tracks which pass Fort Leavenworth are accommodated by the military road which the government has completed between that fort and Fort Kearney.

This road, called the "New Military Road," was constructed in 1850, by the government, which caused it to be surveyed, improved and bridged, and, having since kept it in good repair, it is called the best of the emigrant routes, being high, level, dry, with fine grass and convenient water. The old military road, into which the road from St. Joseph enters, was abandoned on account of the large streams, swamps, barrens and hills, and its general crookedness.

At Fort Kearney all these roads unite, and there is from that place but one road up the valley. Blacksmith shops and ferries are established along this road for the accommodation of travellers.

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The great Santa Fé route has been for many years lowed by the overland traders to New Mexico. Its history

ROUTES THROUGH KANZAS.

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will be found fully described in Mr. Gregg's "Commerce of the Prairies." It follows, for a short distance, the Kanzas valley, crosses the "divide" to the great bend of the Arkansas, and by that valley proceeds westward to New Mexico. By this route Gen. Kearney's command advanced in 1846. Leaving the Arkansas river at Bent's Fort and soon turning southwards, it keeps along the east flank of the "Spanish Peaks" until a little south of Santa Fé, when, by a series of passes, it crosses into the valley of the Del Norte.

These two great lines of travel are the only two which are used in general by settlers or merchants passing overland to the west. It is by some modification of the one or the other that almost all the projects for a Pacific railroad propose to cross the continent.

In view, however, of the fact that the Missouri river itself gives, far north, the nearest navigable access to the Rocky Mountains, Gov. Stevens, the governor of the territory of Washington, was directed last year to survey the mountains in the neighborhood of the head waters of that stream, with reference to a route for travel through some of their passes.

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Meanwhile, since the annexation of New Mexico, several methods of passing the mountains to the north of Santa Fé have been suggested, one of which is that adopted by Col. Fremont in his project for a Pacific railroad.

The following general sketch of the country, through which the various routes to the Pacific must pass, is from

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the last report of the Secretary of War. It will enable the reader to understand the details which follow, as to the various passes of the mountains suggested by different enterprises. "The western portion of the continent of North America, irrespective of the mountains, is traversed, from north to south, by a broad, elevated swell or plateau of land, which occupies the greater portion of the whole space between the Mississippi river and the Pacific Ocean. The crest of this plateau, or the water-shed of the country, is nearly midway between the Pacific coast and the Mississippi. It may be represented on the map by an undulating line traced between the head waters of the streams which flow eastward and those which flow westward. It divides the whole area between the Mississippi and the Pacific into two nearly equal portions that on the east being somewhat the larger. This crest of the water-shed has its greatest elevation in Mexico; and thence declines to its lowest point about the latitude of 32°, where it has a height of about four thousand five hundred feet, between the waters of the Rio Grande and those of the San Pedro, a tributary of the Gila. From this parallel it increases in altitude northward, and reaches its maximum near the 38th parallel, where it is about eight thousand feet high. Thence it declines as we pass northward; and, in lat. 42° 24', it has an elevation of say seven thousand feet; and, in the latitude of about 47°, it is reported to be at least one thousand feet lower. The ›heights here given are those of the lowest passes over the

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