Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/257

Rh Downing, and John Minto were appointed viewers and T. W. Davenport surveyor. After some loss of time by efforts to locate a line of communication, Minto took one comrade and went eastward through the old pass, taking the altitude of it as he went and finding it, according to an ordinary barometer, such as is used by railroad surveyors, to be five thousand five hundred and thirty-six feet above the sea, and proceeding southward and then westward on the same day found the instrument to read at the point indicated by Judge Waldo, four thousand nine hundred and eleven feet above the sea. From this point a line was struck and surveyed, which by way of the southeast branch of the North Santiam, connects with the original survey by an easy grade for railroad purposes and of which the projectors of the Corvallis and Eastern railroad were immediately informed. An examination of the whole route from Gates to Summit via the last viewed section, was made by Colonel Eccleson, civil engineer, and Summit was reached by a fraction over a two per cent grade. Construction began at the Summit with the least possible delay and rails were hauled by wagon from Albany and laid in order to hold the pass. From the pass westward more than half of the right of way was cut and much of the grade made ready for the ties between this lowest pass and the junction with the original Marion County survey at what the party making it called Independence Valley, directly south of and as the bird flies about eight miles from the apex of Mount Jefferson. From Idanha, the terminal of railroad track laid, four miles east of Detroit, fully twelve miles of right of way and grade were constructed when work was suspended by the original railroad company. From Mill City eastward to the Summit, the company appropriated fully ninety per cent of the original surveys made at the cost of Marion County. This need not be objected to,