RIVERS-Indian Territory is drained by the Arkansas and Red Rivers, with their tributaries; these all have their sources among or near the Rocky Mountains, and flowing in an east or south-east direction, across or on the borders of the Territory, discharge their waters into the Mississippi. None of these rivers have their source within the Territory. The Red River forms part of the south boundary, while the Arkansas passes through Indian Territory into the State of the same name. The tributaries of the Arkansas are the Cimarron, Neosha, Verdigris, and the North and South Forks of the Canadian; those of the Red River are the Washita, False Washita, and Little Red River; all having nearly an east course, except the Neosha, which runs south. These rivers have generally broad and shallow channels, and in the dry season are little more than a series of sandy pools; in the winter and spring only are they navigable by flatboats and canoes, or for steamboats (if at all) near their mouths. The Arkansas and Red Rivers are both navigable for steamboats, but to what distance we are not accurately informed. The Arkansas has a course of about 2,000 miles, and Red River of 1,200 miles.

CLIMATE. Of the climate we have little definite information, but that of the eastern portion is probably similar to the climates of Arkansas and Missouri, on which it borders. The summers are long and extremely dry, the days being very hot, with cool nights.

SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS.-On this point our information is limited. The east portion, occupied by the partly-civilized Indians, is represented as fertile prairie land, interspersed "with mountain and flat hills," for an extent of 200 miles westward from the boundary of Arkansas. On the borders of the streams are strips of woodland, mostly cotton-wood and willows; the country is, however, generally destitute of timber. The Cross Timbers, thus described by Captain Marcy, are partly in this Territory: "A narrow strip of woodland, called the Cross Timbers, from 5 to 30 miles wide, extending from the Arkansas River some 500 miles in a south-west direction to the Brazos, divides the arable land from the great prairies, for the most part arid and sterile.” The north-west portion of the Territory is mostly a barren, dreary waste "of bare rocks, gravel, and sand," destitute of all vegetation, except, perhaps, a few stunted shrubs, "yuccas, cactuses, grape-vines, and cucurbitaceous plants." The water is brackish, and the surface in many places covered with saline efflorescenses. The eastern prairies are well adapted to grazing, and the products of the adjoining States flourish there. Vast herds of buffaloes and wild horses roam over its prairies, and antelope, deer, prairie-dog, and some other animals are found; wild turkeys, grouse, etc., are among the birds.

Taken as a whole, probably no portion of the country of equal extent within the territorial limits of the United States is better adapted to stock-raising than the country owned by the Indians. Prior to the late civil war, they had engaged in the business extensively, and many of them owned herds of cattle numbered by thousands.

INHABITANTS.-This Territory is chiefly inhabited by immigrant Indians of various tribes and nations, and to some extent by indige

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nous tribes. The Cherokees were originally settled in the north, the Creeks and Seminoles in the middle, and the Choctaws and Chickasaws in the south. In the north-east, between the Neosha River and the eastern boundaries, are small remnants of several tribes, as the Quapaws, Senecas, etc.; and the western and other portions are roamed over by the Osages, Camanches, Kioways, Pawnees, Araphoes, and other nomad tribes. The several immigrant nations, as the Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks and Seminoles, have had distinct and separate districts allotted and marked out by treaty, with boundaries specially defined, each with its own government, subject to the eminent sovereignty of the United States. Now, the several nations form distinct communities. Some of the removed tribes have made considerable advances in agriculture and the industrial arts, and have established schools and churches, while others are relapsing into indolence and vagrancy, and following the common fate of the savage when in contact with the civilized man, are fast diminishing under the influence of intemperance and vicious connections with abandoned whites.

According to the United States census of 1860, the Choctaw nation numbered within its bounds 3,166 persons; the Cherokee, 3,234; the Creek, 2,247; and the Chickasaw, 1,076. These four nations had at that time 7,369 slaves. Other tribal Indians made the aggregate population of the Territory 65,680. The capital is Taklequah.

Indian Territory forms a part of the great Louisiana tract purchased by President Jefferson from France in 1803. The United States Government have military stations at Fort Gibson, on the Arkansas; Fort Towson, on the Red; and Fort Washita on the Washita. The Territory of Kansas, with a portion of Nebraska, was formed from what was formerly called Indian Territory, in 1854.

THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

UNDER date of San Francisco, August 20, 1865, the author of the work, "Across the Continent," to which we have several times referred in the second part of this volume, writes as follows. We extract freely on this great national topic of absorbing interest, and to none more so than to the people of the West, and to those designing settlement in the new and growing States and Territories between the Missouri and the Pacific:

"It is touching to remember that between Plains and Pacific, in country and on coast, on the Columbia, on the Colorado, through all our long journey, the first question asked of us by every man and woman we have met, whether rich or poor, high or humble, has been, 'When do you think the Pacific Railroad will be done?' or, 'Why do n't or won't the Government, now the war is over, put the soldiers to building this road? and their parting appeal and injunction, as well, 'Do

build this Pacific Road for us as soon as possible—we wait, every thing waits for that.' Tender-eyed women, hard-fisted men, pioneers or missionaries, the martyrs and the successful, all alike feel and speak this sentiment. It is the hunger, the prayer, the hope of all these people.

"Many of the obstacles to this great work grow feeble in travel over its line. Want of timber, of water, coal for fuel, the steep grades and high ascents of the two great continental ranges of mountains to be crossed, the Rocky and the Sierras, and the snows they will accumulate upon the track in the winter months, these are the suggested and apparent difficulties to the building and operating of the Pacific Railroad. There is plenty of good timber in the mountains, and the soft cotton-wood of the Plains can be kyanized (hardened by a chemical process) so as to make sound sleepers and ties. There are sections of many miles, even perhaps of two hundred, over which the timber will have to be hauled; but the road itself can do this as it progresses, taking along over the track built to-day the timber and rails for that to be built to-morrow. As to water, artesian wells are sure to find it in the vacant desert stretches, which are neither so long nor so barren of possible water as has been supposed.

"The fuel question is perhaps more difficult to solve as yet. The Sierras will furnish wood in abundance, and cheaply, for all the western end; we know there is coal in the Rocky Mountains; and we were told almost every-where over the entire line that it had been or could undoubtedly be found in Kansas, on the Plains, among the hills of the deserts. But suppose the supplies of food for steam have to be carried over a few hundred miles of the road, east and west from the Sierras and the Rocky Mountains, that is not so hard a matter-certainly nothing to daunt or hesitate the enterprise. We shall soon learn, too, to make steam from petroleum, and that is easily transported for long distances; besides which, prospectors are finding it every-where from the Missouri to the Pacific. Build the road, and the intermediate country will speedily find the means for running it.

"Now as to difficulties of construction, heavy grades and high mountains, and the winter snows as obstacles to continuous use.

"The first third of the line, from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains, is mere baby-work. Three hundred men will grade it as fast as the iron can be laid. It is a level, natural roadway, with very little bridging and no want of water. It is a shame all this section is not finished and running already. The first of January, 1867, ought now to be the limit for its completion. From here (San Francisco) to Salt Lake, there are apparently no greater obstacles to be overcome than the Western Road from Springfield to Albany, the Erie and the Pennsylvania Central, have triumphantly and profitably surmounted. There are various contesting routes; northerly by the North Platte and the South Pass; by the South Platte and Bridger's Pass, which is the route we traveled in the stage; or, more direct still, from Denver through the present gold-mining region of Colorado by Clear Creek and over the Berthoud Pass; or again by a kindred route to the last, up Bowlder Creek and over Bowlder Pass, both these last two entering

the 'Middle Park' of the Mountains, and through that to the headwaters of Salt Lake Basin. The Berthoud and Bowlder Pass routes would probably involve the higher grades and more rock-cutting, and in winter deeper snows; but they would pass through a richer country, avoid the deserts of the north, and save at least one hundred miles of distance. A new road for the overland stages is this very season being cut through the Berthoud Pass route by the help of United States soldiers from Utah, and the stage line is expected to be transferred to it next spring. But by the Bridger or South Pass route the railroad can surmount the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains with the greatest ease. Our stage teams trotted up the hardly-perceptible grades by the Bridger route, without any effort. Coming down into Salt Lake Valley, there would be rougher work; but there are several considerable streams along whose banks the track could be brought, I am sure, with no greater labor or expense than has been incurred in a dozen cases by our Eastern railroads.

"From Salt Lake to the Sierra Nevada are two routes-southerly through the center of Nevada, striking Austin and Virginia City, the centers of the silver mining region-which is the present stage and telegraph route-and northerly by the Humboldt River. The former

would pass more directly through the chief and prospective populations, but it would encounter a dozen or fifteen ranges of hills to be crossed, and find little wood and scant water. The Humboldt route would be more cheaply built, and goes through a naturally better country as to wood, water, and fertility of soil. It is generally conceded to be the true, natural roadway across the Continent. The emigration has always taken it. If the railroad is built through it, Virginia City and Austin will be reached by branches dropping down to them through their neighboring valleys.

"Now we reach the California border, and the toughest part of the work of the railroad-the high-reaching, far-spreading, rock-fastened, and snow-covered Sierra Nevadas. But the difficulties here are mitigated by plenty of water and timber, and by the near presence of an energetic population, and are already being practically overcome by the energy and perseverance of the California Pacific Railroad organization. I only wish the East would get to Salt Lake with their rail so soon as the West can and will with theirs.

"Let me state the condition of the road at each end of the line.

แ Congress has given princely bounties to the enterprise, all that could be expected, every thing that was asked. Government bonds are loaned to it to the amount of sixteen thousand dollars a mile through the plains, and forty-eight thousand dollars a mile in the mountains; besides which, half of all the land each side of the road for twenty miles deep, is donated outright to the companies doing the work. The Union Pacific Railroad Company is recognized at the East, and the Central Pacific Railroad Company here (at San Francisco), as entitled to this bounty, and are respectively authorized to construct the road from their starting points until they meet. The companies are authorized tc issue their own bonds to an amount equal to those granted by the Gov

ernment, and secure them by a first mortgage, the Government loan taking the second place in security.

"The business of supplying the population of Colorado, Utah, and Montana, at least one hundred and fifty thousand persons, invites the speedy construction of the road from the East. This business for 1864 is estimated at forty million pounds, and for 1865 at two hundred millions, and employed last year nine thousand wagons, fifty thousand cattle, sixteen thousand horses and mules, and ten thousand men as drivers, laborers, and guards; and the sum paid for freight in the former year is estimated by one authority at enough to build the railroad the entire distance, at the cost of forty-eight thousand dollars the mile! And during the months of May and June this year (1865), counting both the emigration and the freight trains, there passed west over the plains full ten thousand teams and fifty thousand head of stock, according to data furnished from Fort Laramie and the junction of the overland routes on the Platte River. The shipment of supplies for the United States troops on the plains and in the mountains this season is alone over eleven million pounds.

"All these statistics may not be perfectly accurate; but they have a substantial basis of fact, and with such generous gifts as the Government makes, and with such large railway interests behind to be benefited by further extension of railway lines to the west, they would seem to justify and to demand a rapid construction of the road out from the Missouri River, especially when for the first five hundred to six hun. dred miles of that road there is scarcely more required than to scrape a place in the soft soil for sleepers and ties and iron. though three to four years have passed since the company accepted the bargain of the Government and assumed its responsibilities, not a mile of the main road is running from the Missouri west. The lower branch from Kansas City is open to Lawrence, forty miles, and graded to Topeka, sixty miles; but from Atchison to Omaha there is no iron down, and only small sections graded or half-graded.

And yet,

"Here in California, however, there is more life and progress. Energy and capital are not, perhaps, the best directed possible; there has been, and still is, somewhat of controversy and waste of power as to the true route, but there are earnestness and movement of the right sort, and the track is fast ascending the Sierras, on its progress eastward. It has no immediate way business to tempt it but the trade of Nevada, with thirty thousand population-much less, therefore, than that which invites the laying of the rails across the prairies to the Rocky Mountains; but this business has constructed and amply paid for two fine toll-roads over the Sierras, and was, until a few days ago, building two railroads in their tracks. There being free water-carriage from San Francisco to Sacramento, these rival roads (both carriage and rail) have their base at the latter points, and branch off right and left into the mountains, and cross the summit of the latter some thirty or forty miles apart, coming together at a common point in Nevada on the other side; namely, Virginia City. The distance between Sacramento and Virginia City is about the same, one hundred and sixty miles, by each road, and