work on the climatology of the United States, the thermal capacity required for the successful cultivation of Indian corn is a mean temperature of 67° for July, and it may go a little beyond 65° for the summer. According to the same authority, the thermal capacity re quired for the successful cultivation of wheat is a mean temperature of from 60° to 65° during the ripening months. Statistics prove that Dakota possesses a considerable excess of the temperature required, being beyond 70°.

While Dakota is not flooded with the excessive spring rains which often retard the putting in of crops in the States south-west of it, the late spring and early summer months bring copious showers, which supply vegetation with all the moisture needed for the rapid growth which is characteristic of that region. The capacity of the Territory for raising immense herds of cattle, and for the production of large crops of corn, wheat, oats, rye, barley, buckwheat, potatoes, sorgho, melons, fruits, and vegetables demonstrates its ability to sustain a dense population.

Dakota possesses a climate especially conducive to health and longevity. Occupying an elevated position, it is free from the humid, raw, chilly weather often prevailing in the central Western States, and has a dry, bracing atmosphere, giving tone and vigor to the physical system.

Said Governor W. Jayne, in March, 1862, in his message to the first Legislative Assembly of Dakota :

"I venture the prediction that the wheat granary of this continent will yet be found in the valleys of the Red River and the Saskatch

awan.

"The day is not distant when the eye which can now behold only the vast expanse of prairie, and the tall, luxuriant grass waving before the wind, will rest contented upon the farm and workshop, the schoolhouse and church. We should bear in mind that within the last thirty years the great States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Missouri have been settled up, and that within twenty years Iowa and Wisconsin have been rescued from the possession of the roaming Indian and subdued to the usages of civilized man.

"Thus has one generation witnessed an area of country no less than ours transformed from the hunting-ground of the Indian, the scene of the chase and the war-dance, and converted and divided into six of the most populous and thriving States of the Union.

"Shall we not judge of the future by the past? As regards soil, climate, beautiful uplands, rich prairies, luxuriant bottoms, productive mountain valleys, and navigable rivers upon which to float our cereal products and commercial exchange, what section of country within the broad confines of our Republic is fairer, or lovelier, or richer, or more inviting as the home of the active, intelligent, and industrious citizen? Before a generation shall have passed, more than a million of people will be living in the valley of the Missouri alone. The Pacific Railroad will have been completed, connecting the two oceans with its iron bands. The trade with India and Japan, the commerce of the opulent

and gorgeous East, will pass great cities on the Atlantic. over a large portion of our benefit."

through our borders on its way to the By the transit of a world's commerce Territory, we shall derive incalculable

COUNTIES AND COUNTY TOWNS.-Dakota is divided into thirteen counties. The following is a list of the counties and county towns:

Five of the foregoing counties, Buffalo, Gregory, Hutchinson, Jayne, and Lincoln, are attached to other counties for judicial and other governmental purposes.

TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT.-The following was the Territorial Government of Dakota as constituted at the commencement of the year 1866. The Federal officers were: Governor, Newton Edmonds, residence at Yankton; Secretary, S. L. Spink, residence at Yankton; Surveyor-General, George D. Hill, residence at Ann Arbor, Michigan; Register United States Land-office, Nelson Minor, residence at Vermillion; Receiver United States Land-office, John W. Boyle, residence at Vermillion; Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Governor Newton Edmonds, residence at Yankton. United States Indian Agents.-For "Yankton Sioux," Major Patrick H. Conyer; for "Poncas," Major Joel H. Potter; for "Santees," Major James M. Stone; for "Goranties" and other tribes, Major Mahlon Wilkinson; for "Yankt-mais," Major Samuel N. Latta.

The salary of Newton Edmonds was $1,500 as Governor, and $1,000 as Superintendent of Indian Affairs; the salary of the Secretary was $1,800; of the Surveyor-General, $2,000 and mileage, and of the Indian Agents, $1,500 each."

The Judges of the Supreme Court of Dakota were: Asa Bartlett, Chief-Justice, residing at Yankton; J. P. Hulder, residence at Vermillion, and William E. Gleeson, residing at Bon Homme, Associate Justices. The salary of cach Judge was fixed at $1,800. The United States Marshal of the Territory was Laban H. Litchfield, residence at Yankton; United States Attorney-General, James Christian, residence at Yankton; Clerk of Supreme Court, Moses K. Armstrong, residence at Yankton. Clerks of District Courts and Registers in Chancery.-For the First District, John W. Boyle, residing at Vermillion; for the Second District, Moses K. Armstrong, residing at Yankton; for the Third District, T. James Gleeson, residing at Bon Homme.

The Territorial Officers were: Auditor, Joseph R. Hanson, residence at Yankton; Treasurer, Isaiah T. Gore, residence at Brule Creek P. O.;

Superintendent of Public Instruction, James S. Foster, residence at Yankton.

The Delegate to the Thirty-ninth Congress from Dakota is Walter A. Burleigh, who resides at Bon Homme. Governor Edmonds has been succeeded by A. J. Faulk, who is the present Governor of Dakota Territory.

THE CHURCH BUTTE.-Butte is a French word, signifying an isolated hill or mountain, and is applied to a solitary mountain rising out of a plain. On the Pacific slope in Dakota, and on the stage route to Fort Bridger, is one of the most curious specimens of natural architecture, called the Church Butte." It is described by a traveler as looming up from the level plain a large, ill-shapen hill, seeming a marvelous counterfeit of a half-ruined gigantic old cathedral. Porch, nave, transept, steeple, carryatides, monster animals, saints, and apostles, with broken columns, tumbled roof, departed nose or foot, worn and crumbling features, are all in their places, a little out, but recognizable and nameable. Our traveler walked around it for half a mile, and calls it one of the great natural wonders of the continent.

Flowing out of the Butte on all sides is a thick and solid stream of fine stone and clay, refining, pointing, carving, chiseling, but gradually and surely leveling. The high winds, by the sand they take up and blow in right lines and in curves, do a share in this great work of fantasy and destruction. Sand showers and sand whirlpools are of almost daily occurrence, loading the atmosphere with sand, carrying it every-where, among rocks, into houses, through walls, into the bodies of every thing animate and inanimate, keeping up the work of destruction and reconstruction.

There is a window among the mountains of Colorado that a single sand-storm of this sort has changed from common glass into the most perfect ground glass, and fantastic architecture of a similar creation is common among the rocks of the country from the North Platte to Fort Bridger.

REMARKABLE FOSSILS.-There is a singular tract of land or valley known as the "Mauvaises Terres," or "Bad Lands," lying between Fort Laramie and the Missouri River, about thirty miles wide and eighty or ninety long, with a thin, sterile soil, covered only with a scanty growth of grass. Recently Dr. Hayden arrived in Philadelphia with a large amount of fossils of extinct animals, collected during an expedition to the "Bad Lands" of Dakota, for the Smithsonian Institute at Washington and the Philadelphia Academy of the Natural Sciences. These fossil remains were discovered in the "Bad Lands" some time

ago, by mere accident. A fur-trader named Culbertson, residing in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, was attracted by their curious appearance, and took some specimens to his home as a matter of interest to his family. These were seen by scientific men, who at once perceived their rarity and value. Subsequently the naturalists accompanying the Government expeditions to lay out wagon roads, brought home large quantities of these fossils, and the great interest they excited induced the fitting out of the private expedition of Dr. Hayden. The specimens

brought home by this expedition are all remains of extinct species of animals, and belong to an age of the world of such remote antiquity that no traces of mankind have been found in the geological formations of that period.

The rocks in which these remains are found were evidently once the muddy shore of some immense fresh-water lake, the extent and boundaries of which can not now be defined; and as these animals perished, their bones lay undisturbed in the mud till petrefaction prevented their final destruction. In one piece of rock can plainly be seen the trail left by some marine animal in the original mud. In another specimen there is seen the skull, with the jaw wide open, as it evidently lay loose in decay, when the waves washed up the mud in the jaw and prevented its closing. There are also fresh-water turtles of all sizes up to a very large one. These indications leave no room to doubt that the places in which these fossils are found must have been the lines of the great lake.

There are also specimens of the fossil remains of an extinct species. of camel, showing that after the upheaval of the earth had destroyed the lake, the bottom of the latter was converted into one vast arid plain, upon which only such animals could exist as are found in the desert regions of the Old World. Then, next in order, are specimens of extinct species of ruminating animals, from which it appears that the once arid plain had become covered with luxuriant grass. From the number of these latter specimens it is evident that these ruminating animals must have multiplied into herds, rivaling those of the buffaloes now seen. Perhaps the most curious of these are the remains of several species of the horse, the smallest being about the size of an ordinary setter dog, and the largest about three times that size.

Among the specimens are several species of carnivorous animals now extinct, evidently designed by nature to prey upon those immense herds of ruminants and prevent their increase. Among these are varieties of the tiger and the rhinoceros. As both the tiger and the camel are peculiar to tropical regions, some may think it strange that they should be found in these high latitudes. But there are also among the specimens fossil remains of a species of the elephant, as well as of the tapir, and the fossil plants are all tropical. Palm-trees once grew upon the shores of that great lake, and several species of the ammonite sailed their barques upon its waters. Yet, in all this immense wilderness, no trace of man is found, and there nature must have rioted in luxuriance without the footfall or the voice of any being created with intelligence above the brute.

RIVERS.-The Missouri River enters from Montana the north-eastern section of Dakota, at its north-western corner, and passing through that section to its south-east corner in a general south-eastern direction, separates the north-eastern portion of Nebraska from the south-eastern part of Dakota. The following affluents of the Missouri are partly or wholly in the north-eastern section of Dakota in the order named, beginning with the most northern: Yellow Stone, Little Missouri, Great Knife, Heart, Cannon-ball, Grand, Owl, Big Cheyenne, White, Riviere

a Jaques, and Big Sioux. The last-named forms, for a short distance, the boundary between Dakota and Iowa. In the south-western section of Dakota are the Madison and Gallatin, branches of the Missouri; Big Horn, Tongue, and Powder Rivers, branches of the Yellow Stone; Owl Creek and Wind River, affluents of the Big Horn; and the North Fork of the Platte River, which rises in Colorado in the North Park of the Rocky Mountains, and running Lorth into Dakota, curves to the northeast and then to the south-west, and passes into Nebraska. Among the affluents of the North Fork, in Dakota, are the Sweet Water and Medicine Bow.

The Niobrara, Eau qui Court, Rapid or Running Water River, which has its course mostly in the northern part of Nebraska, running eastwardly into the Missouri, forms in part the boundary between Dakota and Nebraska. The Keha Paha, or Turtle Hill River, an affluent of the Niobrara, also forms a small portion of the same boundary.

The Green River, a confluent of the Colorado, coming down from the mountains in Idaho, passes through the south-western corner of Dakota in a southerly course toward Utah.

The Red River of the North, which has its source in a collection of small lakes in Central Minnesota, and flows south-west, then north-west, and then nearly north, forms, for a considerable distance, the boundary line between Dakota and Minnesota. The Cheyenne, an affluent of the Red, is in the north-eastern part of Dakota.

TOWNS AND SETTLEMENTS.-Yankton, the capital of Dakota, is sit uated on the Missouri River, sixty miles from the Iowa line, and due west from Chicago.

Among the other principal settlements are Big Sioux Point, Elk Point, Bruley Creek, Vermillion, Bon Homme, Greenwood, Fort Randall, and Dakota City.

Fort Laramie is an important military post and settlement, on the North Fork of the Platte River, not far from the Nebraska line. It is in latitude 40° 12', and longitude 104° 47'.

THE FORT KEARNEY MASSACRE.-An account of the massacre of United States soldiers by Indians, at or near Fort Philip Kearney, on the 21st of December, 1866, is given in the following letter, dated at Fort Reno, Dakota Territory, January 8, 1867 :

"Herewith, I give you additional and accurate information of the terrible calamity that befel the 18th United States Infantry, on the 21st day of December, 1866, at or near Fort Philip Kearney, in Dakota Territory. On that ill-fated day the Indians made an attack on the woodtrain of the aforesaid post. Colonel H. B. Carrington, the commandant, sent out re-enforcements to assist the guard of the wood train. The Indians numbered fifty, the re-enforcing party numbering eighty-one men, including officers and citizens. As soon as the Indians perceived that our men were in close quarters they began to retreat. Our men followed them. The Indians entered a ravine, our men still following. The Indians had two thousand warriors concealed in the ravine. The troops were permitted to enter the narrow defile, until they were carefully and hopelessly surrounded. Then commenced one of the most terrible hand