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 north 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 situated 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

to hand fights ever recorded in the history of Indian warfare. Our eighty-one whites repulsed two thousand Indians in three successive charges; but the fourth charge was too much for them. Owing to the overwhelming numbers and disadvantageous ground, our men could sustain themselves no longer. They were killed and scalped to a man. Not one was left to tell the tale of blood. The post was too weak to send assistance to these poor fellows. They were horribly mutilated. There was but one eye-witness to this fight, Dr. Hines, he being at a distance from those men engaged. He states that our men fought desperately. The Indians kept a hundred of their men busy carrying off their dead and wounded. It is the supposition that the loss of the Indians amounted to four hundred men, killed and wounded. This fact, however, is not easily ascertained, as they carry off their dead and wounded on purpose to keep them from being seen or the number known.

ARIZONA.

THE tract of land purchased from the Mexican Government by Mr. Gadsden, under the treaty of December 30, 1853, and commonly known as Arizona, formed a part of the Mexican State of Sonora. It was about 460 miles in length with an extreme breadth of 130 miles, and contained nearly 40,000 square miles, or 25,600,000 acres.

The new Territory of Arizona embraces all that purchase-the portion lying east of the 32d degree of longitude west from Washington excepted-and also a part of Western New Mexico, sufficient to constitute an area of 120,912 square miles, or 77,383,680 acres a district nearly two and one-half times as large as the State of New York.

It is included within the following parallels and boundaries: Commencing at a point where the 32d degree of longitude west from Washington intersects the 37th degree of north latitude; thence south on said degree of longitude to the boundary line between the United States and old Mexico; thence west on said boundary line to the boundary line of south-eastern California; thence north on said boundary line to the 37th degree of north latitude; thence east on said parallel of north latitude to the place of beginning.

The locality of this broad area presupposes great metallic wealth. The mountain ranges are a prolongation of those which, southward in Sonora, Chihuahua, and Durango, have yielded silver by millions for centuries past, and which, northward in Nevada, are now amazing the world by their massive returns of the precious ores. The general direction of the mountains and veins is north-west and south-east, and there are numerous parallel ranges which form long valleys in the same direction. These and the broad and level bottoms of the rivers, which may be easily and cheaply irrigated by acequias, or artesian wells, under which

treatment the soils return an immense yield, and are independent of the seasons, produce, so far as tested, every variety of grain, grass, vege tables, fruits, and flowers. While it has much parched and desolate country, no mineral region belonging to the United States has, in proportion to its extent, more arable, pastoral, and timber lands.

Of the mineral deposits, it is enough, in a general view, to say that in gold, silver, copper, and lead no portion of the world is believed to be so rich. If a tithe of the lodes lately found yield as they promise, to say nothing of the old and confessedly rich mines, some of which were worked two centuries since, the return will be beyond calculation, and more than enough to confirm the reports of the early Jesuit explorers, of the marvelous wealth of the land to which Cortez came for gold.

The climate, considered either in its relation to health and longevity or to agricultural and mining labor, is unsurpassed in the world. Disease is unknown, and the warmest suns of the Gila and Colorado River bottoms are less oppressive and enervating than those of the Southern States. The proportion of fine weather is greater than in any other part of the world.

Soon after the conclusion of the Gadsden treaty, the few American citizens in the Territory urged upon Congress the necessity of its separate organization. On the 17th of December, 1857, Mr. Gwin, of California, introduced into the Senate of the United States a bill to organize the Territory of Arizona. The Territory which was to be divided into four counties, to be named Jefferson, Washington, Jackson, and Buchanan, embraced very little more than the Gadsden purchase. Mr. Gwin's bill, which was very elaborate in detail, was defeated by a decided vote.

On the 22d of November, 1859, Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, also introduced into the Senate a bill to provide a temporary government for the Territory of Arizona. It was a shorter bill than Mr. Gwin's, and the boundaries proposed were those of the Gadsden purchase; but it shared the fate of its predecessor.

Mr. Watts, of New Mexico, on the 23d of December, 1861, introduced into the House of Representatives a bill to provide a temporary government for the Territory of Arizona, and for other purposes, which, after long delays, was at length, with a few amendments, passed by both Houses of Congress. On the 24th of February, 1866, it received the approval of President Lincoln and became a law.

In March, 1863, the President made the following appointments of officers for the Territory: Governor, John A. Gurley, of Ohio; Secretary, Richard C. McCormick, of New York; Chief Justice, John N. Goodwin, of Maine; Associate Justices, William T. Howell, of Michigan, and Joseph P. Allyn, of Connecticut; District Attorney, John Titus, of Pennsylvania; Marshal, Milton B. Duffield, of California; Superintendent of Indian affairs, Charles D. Poston, of Kentucky. These appointments were all confirmed by the Senate, then in extra

session.

On the 26th of May following, Levi Brashford, of Wisconsin, was