Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1882 — Californian Correspendence. [ARTICLE]

Californian Correspendence.

Sacramento, Cal., Jan. 10,1882. My last letter closed at Potter, on Lodge Pole creek. Potter is a small place, but near it is a large city, known as Prairie Dog city. It extends several miles along the creek, and is densely populated. The prairie dogs are of, a sandy brown, and are generally fat. Mexicans and wolves, consider them good eating. Eighteen miles farther on is Antelope, situated in what the plainsmen call the finest grass and grazing country in the world, but we should require better evidence than outward appearance, to convince us of the truth of the assertion. After passing many side tracks and stations, including Pine Bluffs about on the boundary of Wyoming Ten itory, and Egbert, where we leave Lodge Pole creek, our train gradually rises to-the tablelands and we can begin to see the first appearance of the Rocliy Mountains. Directly ahead to our right, Appear the Black Hills,x»f Wyoming. At Cheyenne,, the Capital of Wyoming, the train stops 30 minutes for dinner. It is a town of about 6,000 inhabitants, and is just half way between Omaha and Ogden, 516 miles to either place. Twenty-five miles of upward grade, heavy rock-work snowsheds and snow-fences, brings us to Buford. The country presents a wild ragged and grand appearance. On either aide bald i insses of granite rear their ’gray siues, piled one above another in wild confusion, bi ear Sherman we reach the highest point on the railroad, 8,242 feet above sea level. South and south-west, may be seen snowy, of Long’s and Pike’s peaks, distant 70 and 565 miles. We have seen some snowdrifts but the ground is mostly bare. The snow-sheds are tight frame structures built over and enclosing the track, sometimes a mile in length, and dark as a tunnel. From the wild, weird and desolate country surrounding Sherman, we pass on through snow-sheds and past high piles of boulders until we come to Red Bnttes. This locality takes its name from the strange formation of the sand-stone lying at the foot of the Black Hills. Many of the rocks stand isolated like chimneys, raising their heads many hundred feet above the plain,—worn and washed by the elements into wild fantastic shapes and grotesque figures. Rocks resembling ruined castles, rise side by side with immense forts, columns, monuments and pyramids, are mingled with each other like the ruins of some great ancient city which some mighty power had thrown down there, regardless of the order in which they fell. But we run rapidly down the grade, not needing steam except to hold the brakes, and soon reach Laramie City, an enterprising town (considering its location), which claims 4,000 people and has perhaps half that number; it is said to be surrounded by a rich grazing country, and truly they can say tlysy have “cattle grazing upon a thousand hills.” At Laramie, the first female jury that ever filled a jury box in America, or the world, tried a western desperado, and found him gulity. The shades of evening closed around us as we left Laramie, and as day dawns again wo reach Bock Point, 806 miles west of Omaha. We now follow down Butler creek 40 miles to Green river. The scenery is wild and pictuiesque,and at every curve the mind is furnished with new thoughts. At Green river station we stop for breakfast. The country around is said to be rich in minerals, but we should judge it rich in cattle. The bluffs near the station rise, almost perpendicularly, for hundreds of feet and present a peculiar formation. Near the base of a grayish buff color, and composed sedimentary deposits of varying thickness, composed of clay with mud and sand-stone markings, indicating shallow water; 100 feet higher up the coloris ashen brown, andcoino light colors alternated with greenish layers, and fine white sand. This whole Rocky Mountain country has evidently once been the bed of an ocean. But when we contemplate the convulsions that must have shaken the earth from center to circumference, and have heaved these rocky summits, from ocean depths, to the regions of eternal snow, the brain of man is bewildered, and can but .exclaim, “God

moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.’* We pass on through gulches, around rocky points, across sandy plains covered with sage-brush and grease-wood, and passed numerous small station* situated along the rocky bluff* of red sand-stone. The surrounding country presents a highly desolate appearance, and is inhabited by deer, antelope, cottes and jackrabits. v After passing Aspen, next in elevation to Sherman, oiir course is downward toward Salt Lake VtXley. Following down Bear river WW pass Evanston and Wasatch and come to Echo Canyon. Here is the largest tunnel on the whfle route, cut through red clay and sand-stone, which is not nearly >so difficulty to tunnel as many similar works in the east. We enter the canyon at Castle Rock, so named from the long line of sand-stone bluffs, upon the right hand side of the canyon, which ths storms of ages have worn until they present the appearance of feudal castles —so often spoken of but seldom seen. The cars pass downward through some of the grandest and wildest scenery imaginable, the canyon becoming a grand and awful chasm. The beauties of Echo Canyon are so many and so majestic, it is of but little use, for me to try to describe them. Rain, wind, and time have combined to destroy them, but in vain. Centuries have come and gone, since that mighty convulsion shook the earth, when Echo and Weber canyon’s, sprung into existance—twin sisters, whose birth mas witnessed by throes such 1 as earth may never witness again, until He shall come, the Mighty One of Isreal, when the Mount of Oliyet shall bo parted asunder, and a highway shall be made, for the people of God. Still hangs the delicate fib-work from the wastes of Echo Canyon, still the pillars, columns, domes and spires, stand boldly forth in all their grand, wild, and weird beauty, to. fill the mind of the traveler, with wonder and awe. Weber is a station, between two Morman settlements, taken together is called Morgan City, the first Z. C. M. I. appears, which in Morman reading means, Zions Co-operative Mercantile Institution, a retail branch from Salt Lake City. About 10 mile* further on we approach the Devil’s Gate, a narrow pass between the clifts, then we pass for some distance with towering clifts on either side, while almost beneath us the little stream is boiling along leaping and foaming as it encounters massive boulders which lie in its way, soon we emerge into an Open valley of Salt Lake, here night begins to close around us, and soon we come to Ogden,where we change cars from the U. P. to the 0. r.

R. R.

JOE.

Call for pocket book, money purses, memorandums and writing materal if yom want thenm when you get your mail. O Heaven! for one generation of clean and unpolluted men—men whose veins are not fed by fire, men fit to be companions of pure women; men worthy to be the fathers of children; men who do not stumble upon the rock of appoplexy at mid-age or co blindly groping and staggering down io a drunkard’s grave, but who sit and look upon the faces of their grandchildren with eyes undimmed and heart uncankered. Such a generation as this is possible in America; and to produce such a generation as this the persistent, conscientious worx of the public press is entirely competent as an instrumentality.—Dr. J. G. Holland. . <r Sheet music, both instrumentel and vocal,unprecedentedly cheap at the post-oifice newstand. Will sell for scts music worth $1.25 to $3.00. School Teaohibs—J. V.W. Kirk wishes to call your attention to his fine line of samples in dress goods, consisting of Cashmeres, Silks and Alpacas which he is now able to give greatly reduced prices in. I respectfully ask you to give my I samples a look and leave your orders. You will find sample room at F. J. Sears & Boa’s furniture stow. ~ ■ Mothers! Mothers!—Don’t fail to tnr Rhinehart’s Worm Lozenge* for your children—the only medicine that destroys the worm neat For sale bv Imee & Meyer. ■