Across the Sierra Nevada.
THE FIRST RAILWAY PASSENGER TRAIN FROM SACRAMENTO OVER THE MOUNTAIN. [Everything pertaining to the progress of that great national work, the Pacific Railroad, will be of interest to our readers. The crossing of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the most difficult portion of the western division, has been accomplished, and the following is a thrilling description of the first passage of the passenger train over the route. California will soon be within five days of the Atlantic States.] The Alta Californian gives the following description of the passage of the first railroad passenger train over the Sierra Nevada: Desiring to be among the first to cross the Sierra Nevada by through train, the writer left San Francisco at 4, P. M., on Wednesday, June 17, by the steamer Yo Semite, in company with several friends, bound for Silver Land. It was long past midnight when the heavily laden steamer reached Sacramento, and tied up at the landing. The train moves out of the town of Sacramento, across “the Slough,” past the unfinished round house and immense machine shops of the Central Pacific Railroad Company—in which an army of workmen will be employed at no distant day—up the valley, along the northern outskirts of the rambling town, and then by a long bridge across the American river. As we emerge from the trees and shrubbery along the American into the open plain, which stretches away to the eastward toward the foot-hills, the mighty Sierra Nevada looms up, like a gigantic cloud-bank, against the eastern horizon. The mountains, for a long way upward from their base, are enveloped in a dim, blue haze, which contrasts beautifully with the snow-fields on their summits, flashing against the blue sky, and lighted up by the glory of the summer morning sun. One distant peak sparkles like an iceberg, with all the hues of the opal; another is tinged with delicate pink, like the inner surface of a sea-shell; and a third is of a pure brilliant white, like frosted silver. The country at one point is open and treeless, like a Western prairie, and at another dotted with wide-spreading trees, like the “oak openings” of Michigan; but the soil is poor, and a few herds of horses, and now and then the residence of some small ranchman or herder, are the only signs of life we see for miles and miles. The country is poor, uncultivated, and, for the most part, unfenced, and uninhabited. At the Junction, eighteen miles from Sacramento, a branch road leading toward Marysville takes away a portion of our passengers, and four miles further on we come to Rocklyn, where are the immense granite quarries, from which an unlimited supply of building material for Sacramento and San Francisco is obtained, with simply the trouble of quarrying. Now we enter the foot-hills, and as we commence to ascend more rapidly, the great mountains before us seem to sink down until we lose sight of them altogether, and we do not see the snow-fields again for a long time. The sun is shining down upon us from an unclouded sky, and the heat is such as to drive us all to the shady side of the cars. Luscious strawberries, ripe pears, cherries, and other summer fruits, are brought through the cars for sale—everything around speaks of midsummer. The engine blows and wheezes with short, sharp aspirations, and the feeling of weight, as we lean back on the seat, tells us that we are ascending a steep and increasing grade. Newcastle, Auburn—a pretty little village, and somewhat active place—Clipper Gap, and New England Mill, all more or less important mining and trading posts, are passed, and at 9:50, A. M., we have ascended two thousand four hundred and forty-eight feet, and reached Colfax, fifty-four miles from Sacramento, where stage roads from Grass Valley, Nevada, and other rich mining towns, branch off. The town is built of slight materials, and does not look as if made for all time. Here we should meet and pass the down train from the summit, but snow-slides beyond the great Summit Tunnel have delayed the train between that point and Reno, away down on the Truckee, beyond the Sierra, and after waiting a few minutes, just long enough to partake of a capital cup of coffee, and a nice spring chicken on toast at the depot, we move on. Soon after leaving Colfax the cars pass on a high embankment around Cape Horn, and nervous passengers begin to look around anxiously, peering with evident trepidation down into the depths below. Around the edge of a canon the train whirls steadily along, a branch of the American river lying like a yellow ribbon hundreds on hundreds of feet below. Eight miles from Colfax we pass the mining camp of Secret Town, and look back into the valley from an elevation of 2,985 feet—something greater than that of Mount Tamalpais. Up, up and onward, ever climbing steadily skyward. Through the openings in the mountains we begin to see other mountains beyond, whose peaks are covered with snow, and the hot air of the valleys reaches us no longer, the breezes now being tempered by the snow-fields above. The atmosphere is gloriously exhilarating, and our spirits rise as our corporeal substance ascends heavenward. At sixty-seven miles from Sacramento, we look down upon the well-nigh exhausted placers and town of Dutch Flat; flat enough the town appears at this time. Two miles further on, we reach Alta at an elevation of 3,625 feet above the sea, almost the height of the summit of Mount Diablo. Here we expected to, but did not, meet the descending train, which had been delayed by an accident on the other side of the summit, by which the cars between Reno and Coburn’s, or Truckee, had been thrown off the track and smashed up, making it impossible for the passengers to reach the summit by stage in time to connect with the regular train on the western side of the mountain. Here, the roofs of the houses begin to pitch sharply, after the style of the Alpine cottages—an indication that the snows fall heavily here in the winter. The mountain sides are covered with magnificent pines, which increase in size as we ascend to a point some distance above here. The stream, far down at the bottom of a deeper canon, is now a saffron-colored thread, and we cling to the side of the mountain as a swallow clings to a cliff. Snow now appears on the heights, but a little above us, and at intervals along the road where there are deep cuts, long, sharp-roof sheds of heavy timbers, to ward off the snow-drifts, rise over the track. Passing Shady Run station, we reach the first tunnel, 500 feet in length, 75 miles from Sacramento, and 4,500 feet above the sea. The mountains are growing more rugged, and the snow fields come down to a level with the road. Still up, up; the trees grow smaller; cedars, tamaracs, and firs, take the place of the noble pines, and we no longer see the red earth of the gold-belt below. Gray granite rocks are growing plentier, and the small mountain peaks on either side of the road begin to show bald heads. We are in the heart of the Sierra—a barren, dreary, desolate country. It is not at all like the heart of the Andes—as Church paints it. At Emigrant Gap, 84 miles above Sacramento, we meet the down train at last, and the road is open before us. Another tunnel, 300 feet in length. We pass Crystal Lake, and are at Cisco, a town of shanties, which was for a long time the terminus of the road. We are 5,900 feet above the sea, and still ascending. The pines have almost entirely disappeared, and we pass through many long cuts blasted through the solid granite spurs of the mountains. We traverse continuous snow-fields and immense drifts, through which the road has been cut with shovels for the passing of the trains. A few hours since, we were among the flowers, ripe fruits, and singing birds of the valley, sweating under the summer sun; now, we are in the midst of dazzling snow-fields, and the atmosphere and aspects of the scene are such as we might find in the mountains of New England on any fine, winter’s day. The streams which come down the sides of every precipice, and dash in foamy torrents down every canon, are cold as ice from the melting snows. Chinamen are swarming all along the road. They have nearly finished their work in this vicinity, and are packing up their traps preparatory to passing on over the summit into the great interior basin of the continent. One hundred and two miles from Sacramento, we reach Summit Valley, and stand 6,800 feet above the level of the sea. Lift Mount Tamalpais bodily from its base and place it on the summit of Mount Diablo, and we could still look down by hundreds of feet on the double mountain height. The snow-banks rise high above the road on either side. Two miles more, and the cars reach the entrance of the great tunnel, 1659 feet in length. THE SUMMIT OF THE SIERRA.
We have scaled the great Sierra at last, and ne plus ultra might be written on the granite walls of the great tunnel before us. We are 7,043 feet above the sea. The air feels cold and damp, but not oppressive, and we experience no inconvenience from its rarefaction at this great elevation. The ice, snow, rocks, and white, fleecy, curling clouds, are all here, but there is not a shadow of a tempest; and if there were, why should he face it, bald-headed? We will not stop to discuss that question, but merely ask it as we pass, and reserve the point for future discussion. The snow lies piled in immense banks, with sheer, precipitous sides, on either side of the track. A swarm of Chinamen are busy at the other end of the tunnel shoveling away the snow, which has come down in great slides, bringing with it huge, granite rocks, upon the track. The water pours down in torrents from numberless crevices and seams in the granite walls and roof of the long, dark, cavernous tunnel, but we struggle through on foot, and anxiously inquire after the prospect of getting the train across the mountain. Two or three hours will clear the track. We wait with what patience we may, and at last, at four o’clock, the prolonged whistle of the good locomotive, “Antelope,” which has drawn us to the summit of the Sierra, is heard. “All aboard,” shouts the conductor, George Wood, who has the honor of taking the first passenger train across the mountains, and the train moves slowly on. A halt for another slide; another start, another halt, and so on, slowly and carefully. The snow-banks come down so close to the track that the eaves of the cars rake them on either side. It is the closest fit imaginable. Six more tunnels, ranging from one hundred to eight hundred and sixty-three feet each in length, in many of which we see great masses of solid blue ice hanging down from the wall like stalactites and stalagmites in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, are slowly passed through. We have descended six hundred feet already, and as we emerge from the last tunnel, the conductor exclaims, “Gentlemen, we are over the mountains! This is a new road finished this summer, and we shall have no more snow-slides!” It is true, indeed, the mighty task is accomplished, after many years of toil and the expenditure of millions of money. Words fail us to describe our sensations; we will not attempt it. And now the train, with accelerated speed, moves steadily downward towards the Valley of the Truckee. The steam is shut off, the brakes put down, and as the eagle sets his wings afloat noiselessly down, down, down, through the realms of air toward the earth from his eyrie among the clouds, we slide swiftly and smoothly down the declivities of the mountains into the Great Basin of Nevada. Donner Lake, as lovely a sheet of water as is to be found on earth, lies far below us among the pine-clad hills, its bosom unruffled by a breath of breeze, and as calm and blue as the heavens above it. The road winds round the precipitous mountain sides, almost encircling Donner Lake as it descends, and following round a long canon, making a circuit of seven miles to gain an advance of no more than a quarter of a mile, we reach the outlet of the Lake, a swift, rushing stream of blue, cold water. We have traveled nine and a half miles and descended seven hundred and eighty-three feet since leaving the summit. Now we descend rapidly on one of the most beautifully-smooth and solid roads on the continent, into the romantic valley of the Truckee, whose mountain torrents come rushing and roaring out of the mountain from the southward, hidden in which lies the loveliest sheet of water on the earth, Lake Tahoe. The timber here is immense, and from this source the supplies for building the road for hundreds of miles eastward are to be drawn. Sawmills by the dozen, driven by the rushing river, line the banks of the stream for miles and miles, and the hills swarm with laborers of every nationality and hue—Europeans, Americans, Africans, and Asiatics (the latter immensely preponderating in numbers)—engaged in cutting down and preparing the timber for the road. As the first through passenger train sweeps down the eastern slope of the Sierra, John, comprehending fully the importance of the event, loses his natural appearance of stolidity and indifference, and welcomes with the waving of his broad-brimmed hat, and loud uncouth shouts, the iron horse and those he brings with him. Well may he shout. Millions of his ancestors toiled for years on years to erect against the barbarian Tartar a barrier over which he should never break; the Tartar wave broke over it, and inundated his land at a single surge. Nature erected between the East and the West a barrier such as in other lands divides countries and makes enemies of nations, and John, with his patient toil, directed by American energy and backed by American capital, has broken it down at last, and opened over it the greatest highway yet created for the march of commerce and civilization around the globe.