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8 The Nevada Traverse Vol.51, No.3, 2024Taking all the surveys in total, Williamson reported that the Tehachapi Pass was the most suitable for the rail line from San Francisco to San Diego. In due course, the Southern Pacific Railroad constructed a rail line through the Tehachapi Pass in the 1870%u2019s. Three-thousand Chinese did the grading and tunnel work, most having worked on the Transcontinental Railroad. Numerous tunnels and bridges, together with a loop that crossed over itself, the first of its kind in the U.S., were required.Williamson was then detailed to find a rail route near the 39th Parallel. This time he was assisted by Lt. Henry L. Abbot, a recent West Point graduate. When Williamson became ill, he returned to Benicia and Abbot took command. Williamson recovered, though he would be plagued with illness the rest of his Army career.Their orders also called for the survey of routes from Sacramento north to the Columbia River, in the Oregon Territory. They were to explore routes up the Willamette Valley and the valley of the Des Chutes River. The party left Benicia in July of 1855. With them were 18 civilian packers. And typical of Army surveys, they also included artists and scientists: John S. Young, the German-born artist, John Strong Newberry, a noted geologist and botanist, Dr. E. Sterling, the physician and naturalist, H.C. Fillebraun, an assistant surveyor and C.D. Anderson, a computational specialist or %u201ccomputer%u201d. They reached Fort Redding in eleven days, where they rested and reprovisioned. The hostilities between settlers and Native Americans in northern California deemed an escort necessary. Sixty troopers were assigned to the survey party. Abbot was equipped with a Gambey sextant with a mercury artificial horizon, one of Green%u2019s cistern barometers, a thermometer and a tripod mounted prismatic compass. He had with him another Army officer, civilians who assisted with the observations, packers who managed the pack train, and from time to time, an escort of soldiers. For part of his survey, the notable geologist/paleontologist John Strong Newberry accompanied him, adding his part to the report. Newberry would accompany several more Army surveys in the years ahead.11Abbot%u2019s survey is recorded in his biography, written by his nephew, %u201cAfter following up the Sacramento valley for a considerable distance, the expedition crossed over the Cascade range, and struggled on among lava beds, precipices%u2026past the Klamath lakes to the upper canyon of the Deschutes river. Here Lieutenant Williamson, with the dragoons under Lieutenant Sheridan, attempted to find a practicable pass over into the Willamette valley, while Lieutenant Abbot pushed on to the Columbia river and returned 11 In 1857%u201358 he acted as geologist to an expedition headed by Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives, sent out to explore the Colorado River, the first geologist known to examine the Grand Canyon. He served as naturalist on an expedition in 1859 under Captain John N. Macomb, which explored southwestern Colorado and adjacent parts of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.Robert Stockton Williamson... continued from previous pageThe mercury cistern barometer with sectional view showing its constructionGambey sextant, from the period of the Army%u2019s Pacific Railroad Surveys Survey party at Livermore%u2019s Pass (now called Altamont Pass) between Livermore and Tracy, California. From the Pacific Railroad Report