mer only seven quartz-mills were worked; yet in October, 1865, eighteen were in successful operation. Immense sums of money have been lost in reckless speculation and unskilled efforts; but wherever reasonable care has been taken in the employment of experienced miners, a judicious investment has resulted, profitable to both capitalists and operators. The silver-mines have attracted the attention of prospectors, and, as far as worked, prove rich and extensive. Next in importance to precious metals are the coal deposits, which crop out along the whole eastern slope of the mountains from the southern border northward for a distance of two hundred miles. These deposits yield a superior quality of bituminous coal. Iron, copper, and lead also abound in connection with the precious metals. Salt is found in both the North and South Parks. At the South Park Spring, works were being erected in 1865, with a capacity to produce ten thousand pounds of salt per diem.

A gentleman residing at Golden City, writes as follows, under date of February 7, 1867:

"Colorado is proving herself the richest mineral country in the world! Gold, silver, copper, lead, and iron are produced in great quantities. In Gilpin County alone there are now twenty large mining companies in successful operation. Weekly shipments of gold, raised by these companies, are made; the aggregate since September 1st, 1866, to January 1st, 1867, exceed $1,000,000. This includes the shipments by the banks alone, while there are large amounts remitted by private persons.

"According to the ratio of increase in the weekly shipments of gold during the last season, it is confidently believed that we will be able to send out of the Territory for the same time in the year 1867 not less than $3,000,000; this, it must be remembered, is the net, and not the gross amount raised. Messrs. Smith & Parmelee shipped a single retort of gold, weighing 128 pounds, and worth in coin $37,000, being the result of one month's clearing up.' The cost of this 'button did not exceed $5,000, leaving a net profit for the month of $32,000. About September 1st, 1866, the Sensenderfer Company commenced operations, since which time it has declared monthly dividends of one per cent. per month in gold, on a capital of $1,000,000. I could give numerous instances of this sort, but space forbids.

"I must not forget to mention that the mining in this Territory is quartz, or 'lode' mining; this requires machinery. Capitalists are turning attention hitherward, and invariably find the best bank for the deposit of currency is the golden lode of the eternal hills.'

Coloradoans regard the future of the Territory not only golden, but glorious. Already the Union Pacific Railroad has stretched itself to within 280 miles of Denver, and will reach that city by January 1, 1868. This is an advantage no other "gold country" can boast of for years to come. With the reduction of the price of labor and living, the profits of mining, already highly remunerative, will be enhanced three-fold. The inexhaustible banks of coal, flowing oil-wells, strong salt springs, rich mines of gold, silver, and copper, boundless and un

surpassed grazing lands, Colorado may well challenge the world for a parallel."

MOVEMENTS FOR THE ADMISSION OF COLORADO AS A STATE.—An act was passed by Congress, approved March 2, 1864, "to enable the people of Colorado to form a Constitution and State Government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States." The act provided for a Convention to meet on the first Monday in July following, to form a State Constitution, which was to be submitted to the people at an election to be held on the second Tuesday of October, 1864. The act also provided that in case the Constitution should be ratified by the people, the President should issue his proclamation announcing such ratification, and thereupon Colorado should become a State of the Union without further action on the part of Congress.

Delegates were elected to a Convention, the Convention was held, a State Constitution framed and submitted to the people at a general election, as required by the enabling act. But the Constitution was rejected by the popular vote, there being, out of 6,192 votes cast, a majority of 3,152 against the Constitution.

During the following year, (1865,) a second Convention was called, another Constitution framed, and submitted to the people at a general election in September. The Constitution received the popular sanction by a small vote, there being, out of 5,905 votes cast, a majority of 155 in its favor. This Constitution provides that "every white male citizen of the age of twenty-one years and upward, who is by birth, or has become by naturalization or treaty, or shall have declared his intention to become, a citizen of the United States, according to the laws thereof, and who shall have resided in the State of Colorado for six months next preceding the election, and shall have been a resident ten days, of the precinct or election district in which he offers to vote, shall be deemed a qualified elector, and entitled to vote at the same."

Among the miscellaneous provisions of the Constitution was one submitting to the popular vote the question whether the word "white," in the above clause, should be stricken out, which was decided in the negative by a majority of 3,716 in a total vote of 4,668.

Under this Constitution, a State election was held in November, 1865, at which the following State officers were chosen: Governor, William Gilpin; Lieutenant-Governor, George A. Hinsdale; Secretary of State, Josiah H. Gest; Treasurer, Alexander W. Atkins; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Rufus K. Frisbee; Attorney-General, U. B. Holloway.

The foregoing officers were all elected for two years from the first Monday in January, 1866.

The following gentlemen were chosen Judges of the Supreme Court of the State: William H. Girsline, Allen U. Bradford, and J. Bright Smith. The Judges were required to draw lots for terms of one, two, and three years—their successors to be elected for three years.

George M. Chilcott was elected to represent the new State in Congress.

Members of a State Legislature were also chosen at the clection in November. The Legislature convened at Golden City on the second Tuesday of December, 1865, and elected for United States Senators from the new State of Colorado John Evans, the Territorial Governor, and Jerome B. Chaffee, formerly Speaker of the House in the Territorial Legislature.

These Senators elect, early in January, 1866, in compliance with a joint resolution of their State Legislature, presented the papers relating to the State organization to the President of the United States, asking his influence in favor of the early admission of the State into the Union. This influence the President declined to give; but submitted the whole subject to Congress, as will appear by the following communication which he made to that body:

"I herewith transmit a communication addressed to me by Messrs. John Evans and J. B. Chaffee, as United States Senators elect from the State of Colorado, together with the accompanying documents. Under the act of Congress, approved on the 2d day of March, 1864, the people of Colorado through a Convention formed a Constitution, making provision for a State Government, which, when submitted to the qualified voters of the Territory, was rejected. In the summer of 1865, a second Convention was called by the Executive Committees of the several political parties in the Territory, which assembled at Denver on the 8th of August. On the 12th of that month, the Convention adopted a State Constitution, which was submitted to the people on the 5th of September, 1865, and ratified by a majority of 155 of the qualified voters. The proceedings in the second instance having differed in time and mode from those specified in the act of March, 1864, I have declined to issue the proclamation for which provision is made in the 5th section of the law, and therefore submit the question for the consultation and further action of Congress.

(Signed)

"WASHINGTON, D. C., June 12, 1866."

"ANDREW JOHNSON.

This document was referred in the United States Senate to the Committee on Territories, which, on the 18th of January, 1866, reported a bill for the admission of Colorado into the Union, with the Constitution adopted by her people.

This bill, which had previously been passed by the House of Representatives on the 3d of May, 1866, was passed in the Senate by a vote of 19 to 13, and in the House by a vote of 80 to 55. The bill was not approved by the President. The reason assigned for his veto were substantially as follows:

First. That the establishment of a State Government was not at that time necessary for the welfare of Colorado. The population was smallfrom twenty-five thousand to forty thousand-and many of these were not permanent inhabitants, but were ready to remove to other mining districts, if circumstances should render them more inviting.

Secondly. It was not certain that a majority of the people desired the establishment of a State Government. In 1864, out of a vote of 6,192, there was a majority of 3,152 against the proposed change from the

Territorial condition. In September, 1865, the question was again presented, without any legal authority, and out of 5,905 votes there was a majority of only 155 in favor of a State organization. It was not safe to recognize the illegal election as setting aside the former legal

one.

Thirdly. It would be unjust to give to (say) thirty thousand people of Colorado an equal weight in the Senate with the four millions in New York, and in the Electoral College three votes to the thirty-three of New York; that is, in the choice of President to allow one person in Colorado to have as much weight as one hundred in New York. It was desirable to have something like an equality in this respect among the several States. Though for various reasons great irregularities had been allowed, in no one was it so great as in that instance.

A bill for the admission of Colorado, similar in its essential provisions to the former, was passed at the second session of the 39th Congress. This bill was vetoed by the President as the former had been. It was returned on the 28th of January, 1867, to the Senate, in which it originated, with the President's objections. These were, in general, the same as those to the bill passed at the previous session. The principal grounds, on which the President withheld his signature from the second bill were, that the population of Colorado, as appeared from an official census, was only 28,000, and that the third section of the bill, prescribing, as a condition precedent to the admission of the State, the allowing of citizens to vote without distinction of race or color, was in conflict with the legislation of the Territory and with the State Constitution under which it was proposed to admit Colorado into the Union.

DAKOTA.

DAKOTA TERRITORY was first settled by employés of the Hudson Bay Company, but is now being rapidly peopled by emigrants from the Northern and Western States. It was set off from the western portion of Minnesota when that Territory became a State in 1857, and was organized March 2, 1861.

Dakota may be said to consist of two sections nearly square in form, the north-eastern and the south-western, the former being much the larger. The north-eastern section is bounded on the north by the British Possessions, on the east by Minnesota and Iowa, on the south by Nebraska, and on the west by the south-western section and MonThe south-western section is bounded on the north by Montana, on the east by the south-eastern section and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado and Utah, and on the west by Idaho. The south-westerr portion of the latter section is crossed by the great Rocky Mountain Range in a north-eastern and south-western direction.

tana.

Dakota Territory may be defined, in general terms, as lying immediately west of Minnesota and the north-western part of Iowa, and as extending from the 41st to the 49th parallel of north latitude, and from the 20th to the 34th degree of longitude west from Washington, embracing an area of country greater in extent than all New England combined with the great States of New York and Pennsylvania. It occupies the most elevated section of country between the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, forming, to a great extent, the watershed of the two great basins of North America-the one of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and the other of the tributaries of Hudson Bay. Thus, within the limits of Dakota we find the sources of rivers running diametrically opposite; those flowing northward reach a region of eternal ice, while those flowing southward pass from the haunts of the grizzly bear and the region of wild rice, through the cotton fields and sugar plantations of the Southerner, until their waters are mingled with the waves of the gulf.

The general surface of the country east and north of the Missouri is a beautiful, rich, undulating prairie, free from marsh, swamp, or slough, traversed by many streams, and dotted over with innumerable lakes of various sizes, whose wooded margins, rocky shores, and gravel bottoms afford to the settler the purest of water, and give to the scenery of the Territory much of its interest and fascination. West of the Missouri the country is more rolling, and gradually becomes broken, hilly, and finally mountainous as the western limits are reached and terminated by the Rocky Mountains.

The mighty Missouri runs through the very heart of Dakota, and gives it nearly a thousand miles of navigable water-course, thus affording the facility of cheap water transportation, by means of which the inhabitants can bear away the surplus products of their rich, luxuriant lands to Southern markets, and receive in exchange the trade and commerce of all climes and lands.

On the Missouri, Big Sioux, Red River of the North, Vermillion, Dakota, and Niobrara are located millions on millions of acres of the richest and most productive lands, to be found anywhere within the domain of the National Government.

Dakota combines the pleasant, salubrious climate of Southern Minnesota and the fertile soil of Central Illinois. Thermal statistics and experiments prove that within the limits of the Territory are to be found both the climate and the soil necessary to produce most successfully the two great staples of American agriculture-corn and wheat. Starting from Chicago as a point, the isothermal line rises to a higher and higher degree of latitude as we proceed northward. Fort Benton, on the Missouri River, formerly in the extreme northern part of Dakota, but now included in the new Territory of Montana, possesses the same mean temperature as Chicago, Albany, and New York. The corn-producing belt of country which runs through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois extends north and west through Iowa, and up the valley of the Missouri through Dakota.

According to Blodgett, the author of a very able and interesting