The Brutal Survey of Cedar River

Yesterday, by invitation, we accompanied Messrs. Colman, Denny and Matthias, Directors, Scurry and Thorn, Engineers, and Mr. E. M. Smithers, in an examination of the route for an eight-mile extension of the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad, from Benton, with a view to an immediate commencement of the work. The party took the 6:50 o’clock train to Benton and from thence proceeded on foot up Cedar River as far as the Cedar Mountain Coal Mine, crossing the river twice and making a thorough reconnaissance of both sides, covering not less than 20 miles of hard travel in going and returning, a considerable portion being made through almost impenetrable thickets and climbing through the interlacing branches of fallen timber, at times 10 to 20 feet from the ground. The route, upon the whole, is more direct and of easier grade than any not acquainted with it had heretofore anticipated, being far cheaper per mile than that of the branch to Newcastle. Near the end of the section examined, the railroad location skirts the Cedar Mountain coal mine, the most remarkable coal deposit of which we have any report in the world. At this point, the bed of Cedar River is of solid coal; seventy feet above a grade of a wagon road is cut in the mountain, the upper side of which is a solid wall of coal; thirty-five feet above this grade, upon the same ledge, a chamber has been excavated, not less than twenty feet high and thirty feet across, deep into a solid mass of coal, above, below, and upon all sides, equal in quality to the best that has ever been mined upon this coast.