ZOOLOGY. The buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, prairie dogs, and squir rels are among the quadrupeds; and of the feathered tribes there are the wild-turkey and goose, prairie hen, partridge, golden oriole, bluejay, redbird, crow, and a great variety of the smaller birds. Among the reptiles is the horned frog.

HISTORY.-Kansas originally formed part of the great Louisiana purchase acquired from France in 1803, and subsequently formed part of the Missouri, Arkansas, and Indian Territories, from which last it was, in 1854, erected into a separate Territory, after a stormy debate in the National Congress as to whether the Missouri Compromise (an act passed in 1820 forbidding slavery north of 36° 30′ north latitude) should be repealed. The repeal was carried by a large majority in the Senate, and a decided one in the House, it being thus left to a majority of the white inhabitants of the Territory, when they might apply for admission into the confederacy as a State, to allow or forbid slavery as they might deem proper. Kansas has been, from its organization as a Territory, the scene of much suffering and distress. A border warfare scourged it for nearly five years, and it had not emerged from the effects of the marauding forays, when, in the summer and autumn of 1860, it was visited by a terrible drought, which, in the most populous districts, completely cut off the crops. The famine which followed in the winter of 1860–61, was distressing and terrible beyond description. Thousands were reduced to the verge of starvation, and a considerable number actually perished. The liberality of the people of other States, and their large contributions of grain, clothing, etc., alleviated the suffering to a great extent. This great drought can be looked upon in no other light than as one of those anomalous events for which it is difficult, if not impossible, to account. Observations have shown that Kansas, though pos sessing a dry atmosphere, has in ordinary years a sufficiency of rain to grow and mature its crops.

Kansas was admitted into the Union as a State at the session of Congress of 1860-61, with a Constitution prohibiting slavery.

COUNTIES.-The following table presents the counties in Kansas, their several county towns, and also the population of each county ac eording to the census of 1860:

AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. According to the national census, there were in Kansas in 1860, 372,835 acres of improved land in farms, and 1,284,626 acres of unimproved land in farms. The cash value of the farms was $11,394,184, and of farming implements and machinery, $675,336. The number of horses in the State was 18,882; asses and mules, 1,430; milch cows, 26,726; working oxen, 20,133; other cattle, 41,000; sheep, 15,702, and swine, 128,309. The live stock was valued at $3,205,522, and the animals slaughtered at $547,450.

The annual produce of wheat was 168,527 bushels; rye, 3,928; Indian corn, 5,678,834; oats, 80,744; tobacco, 16,978 pounds; wool, 22,593 pounds; peas and beans, 10,167 bushels; Irish potatoes, 283,968; sweet potatoes, 9,221; barley, 4,128, and buckwheat, 36,799 bushels.

The yearly orchard products were valued at $724. There were produced 241 gallons of wine, and the value of the garden products for market was $36,353. There were made 1,012,975 pounds of butter, and 28,053 pounds of cheese. There were gathered 50,812 tons of hay; 98 bushels of clover-seed; 2,633 bushels of other grass seeds, and 130 pounds of hops. Of dew-rotted hemp, the annual product was 44 tons. There were made 1,548 pounds of maple sugar, 79,482 gallons of sorghum, 467 pounds of beeswax, and 14,942 pounds of honey. The value of the home-made manufactures was $15,371.

MANUFACTURES.-There were in Kansas in 1860, according to the census taken that year, 299 manufacturing establishments, with a capital invested in the same of $1,063,000. The value of the raw material annually used in the same, including fuel, was $669,269. The average number of male hands employed was 1,719, and of female hands, none. The total value of manufactured products for the year was $2,800,000.

FINANCES.-The liabilities of Kansas for the year ending November 30, 1865, were as follows:

The resources of the State at the same time were:

$517 413 72

The foregoing statement shows a balance of resources over liabilities of $10,362.70.

EDUCATION.-The Governor of Kansas, in his message to the Legislature, at the beginning of the year 1867, stated that there were 871 school districts in the State, 1,248 teachers, and 37,789 pupils.

POPULATION.-The national census of 1860 gave the aggregate population of Kansas as 107,206. The number of white males in the State was 58,892; and of white females, 47,689; total number of whites, including 189 taxed Indians, 106,579. The number of colored males was 286, and of colored females, 341; total number of colored, 627. The total vote cast by Kansas for President, in 1864, was 19,382, and for Governor, in 1866, it was 27,530.

The State census was taken in May, 1865. Complete returns had been received at the close of the year from all the counties but three. The returns showed a total population in the State of 135,807, and thus exhibited a gain in five years of 28,901. In four counties there was a slight decrease of population; all the others showed an increase, varying from nearly one hundred per cent. in Leavenworth and Douglas Counties to two or three per cent. in Davis and Marshall. In conse quence of the return of the State volunteers since the census was taken, and the annual influx of immigration, larger in 1865 and 1866 than for several years before, it is probable that the population of Kansas now exceeds 150,000, or has gained more than fifty per cent. on the

census of 1860.

GEOLOGY.-The geological survey of Kansas, undertaken by Professor Swallow, had, at the close of the year 1865, embraced little more than the southern portions of the State. The result of his partial examinations indicate great mineral resources. The coal formation is of large extent and very rich. One vein alone, having an average thickness of six feet, extends over an area of 17,000 square miles, and will,

it is estimated, yield a thousand million tons. There are others vary. ing from one to five feet in thickness. The central and western portions of the State appear to contain inexhaustible beds of gypsum from fifteen to one hundred feet in thickness, and of incalculable value. There are, besides, beds of iron ore, which underlie a great portion of Kansas, capable of producing a fine quality of metal. In several rivers in the southern part of the State, explored by Professor Swallow, the crude ore had washed out from their banks, and was scattered in their beds in enormous quantities. Kansas has also rich deposits of lead, and in several counties petroleum has been discovered.

SALT REGION.-Another great source of wealth will doubtless be found in the salt springs which exist above Fort Riley, in the valleys of the Republican, Solomon, and Saline Forks. These are so abundant, and of such uncommon strength as sensibly to affect the quality of the water of the large streams which flow through those valleys into the Smoky Hill. These salines are supposed to have their center near the confluence of the Solomon and Smoky Hill. Hundreds of acres are covered with incrustations of pure salt on the surface of the ground, from three-eighths to half an inch in thickness. These remarkable formations come from brine oozing up from below, and not from surface flowings, so that crystallization succeeds crystallization on the removal of the salt already formed. Wells sunk 25 to 30 feet below the surface produce brine of more than three times the strength of sea-water, from which salt of remarkable purity is obtained. Chemical analysis, it is said, proves that the brines of Kansas contain less than four per cent. of impure matter, showing in this particular a marked superiority over those of New York, Michigan, and other States. The dryness of the atmosphere is favorable to the successful manufacture of salt by evaporation. Kansas seems destined to become one of the greatest salt-producing States.

SOIL AND CLIMATE.-The soil of Kansas is of a richness unsurpassed in any part of the United States, and capable of many years' culture before being exhausted. The climate is healthy, and calculated to cure many diseases prevalent in the Eastern States. The popular impression that a sufficient quantity of rain does not fall there for agriclutural purposes is asserted to be without foundation in fact. From records kept at the military posts, it appears that during the past forty years there has been a sufficiency of rain except in 1860; and the drought of that year would have been less severely felt had Kansas, like the older States, been provided with a surplus of food from former years.

WOOL-GROWING.-The production and manufacture of wool promises to be an important branch of industry in Kansas. A large portion of the State is well adapted to sheep-raising, and so profitable had this proved, that in 1865 woolen-mills were in process of erection at AtchiIt was estimated that during 1866, 75,000 to 100,000 sheep would be imported from the Eastern and Middle States.

son.

RAILROADS. For the development of their great agricultural and mineral resources, the people of Kansas have been for some years past

actively engaged in establishing railroad communication with the Eastern and Pacific States. At the close of the year 1865, nearly fifty miles of the Kansas (lower) branch of the Union Pacific Railroad, which commences at Wyandotte, at the mouth of the Kansas River, and is destined to connect with the main line in Western Nebraska, were completed. Surveys had been extended to the one-hundredth meridian, a distance of about 381 miles; and there was a party in the field making surveys of the Smoky Hill route, who were to extend their labors to Denver City, about 581 miles from the eastern terminus of the road. The Atchison branch of the Union Pacific Road was also well under way, and the first forty miles, it was supposed, would be completed by May 1, 1866.

In addition to these enterprises, projects were also advanced for lines terminating at Galveston, on the Gulf of Mexico, and at Santa Fe.

At the beginning of the year 1867, the Governor of Kansas, in his message to the Legislature, stated the number of miles of railroad in the State at three hundred, and that the Union Pacific Company expected to complete two hundred miles more during the year.

Early in February, 1867, the people of Douglas County voted in favor of a subscription of $300,000, in county bonds, to the capital of the Leavenworth, Lawrence, and Galveston Railroad. This, it was said, would insure the immediate commencement of the work at Lawrence.

At the beginning of 1867, the Wyandotte branch of the Pacific Railroad had been completed twenty miles west of Fort Riley. The road was graded forty miles beyond, and under the contract it was to be finished to the three hundred and eighty-fifth mile by the first of January, 1868. The earnings of the road were nearly $80,000 per month, and were expected to average $100,000 per month in 1867.

CITIES AND TOWNS.-Lawrence, a city, and the capital of Douglas County, is situated on the right bank of the Kansas River, 70 miles from its mouth by the windings of the stream, and 43 in a straight line. It is built on a slope, and many of its buildings are constructed of brick or stone. It has churches belonging to the Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, etc.; newspapers, saw and grist-mills, a machine-shop, coach and wagon factories, a tannery, a soap and candle factory, a brewery and distillery, and a large number of hotels. It is well supplied with schools. The population of the city in 1860 was about 2,500. It was founded in 1854 by emigrants from the Eastern States. A salt well sunk about the beginning of the present year (1867), within the corporate limits of Lawrence, it was stated, was yielding one hundred bushels of salt daily, with only a small cistern pump. A company had

been formed and works were to be forthwith erected.

Leavenworth, a city, and the capital of the county of the same name, is situated on the right bank of the Missouri River, three miles below Fort Leavenworth, and 500 miles from the mouth of the river. The city has straight avenues, crossing each other at right angles. It is lighted with gas. It embraced in 1860 twelve churches, seven schools, eight banking-houses, eleven hotels, thirteen lumber-yards, seven