They are the wild animals--
the buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, and bear--which traverse the forest,
not by compass, but by an instinct which leads them always the right way
to the lowest passes in the mountains, the shallowest fords in the
rivers, the richest pastures in the forest, the best salt springs, the
shortest practicable route between two distant points. They are the
first engineers to lay out a road; the Indian follows. Hence the buffalo
road becomes the war path. The white hunter follows the same trail in
the pursuit of game; after that the buffalo road becomes the wagon road
of the emigrant, and, lastly, the railroad of the scientific man."
Through her senators and representatives California spent several years
in pushing this matter. In vain they called attention to the fact that
the distance from Washington to San Francisco by the way of Cape Horn
was 19,000 miles, or more than the entire distance round the earth in
the latitude of San Francisco; and that by Panama it was as far as from
Washington to Peking in a direct line.
In 1859-60 there appeared in Washington a young engineer named Judah,
who had been sent by the people of the Pacific coast to urge the
immediate building of the road by the middle route that which was
finally chosen.
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