rennial pasturage, and the soil is exceedingly fertile.

Wild game abounds in the mountains; the streams are filled with excellent fish; the climate is delightful at all seasons of the year; and "breathing is a real luxury." Southward, over the rim of the great basin, is a fine cotton-growing region, into which the Mormons are penetrating. The vast hills and mountain slopes present the finest pasturage in the world for sheep, alpacas, and goats. The water-power of the whole region is immense. Iron-mines everywhere abound, and in the Green river basin, there are inexhaustible beds of coal. In these great natural resources and defenses, possessed by a people of such indomitable energy and perseverance as the Mormons have shown, we see the vital elements of a powerful mountain nation, in proportions, in the heart of our continent, and in the direct pathway from the Atlantic to the Pacific States, that may yet play a most important part, for good or for evil, in the destinies of our country and of the world.

The most important measure adopted during the early part of Fillmore's administration was the Compromise Act, already considered.' During his official career the President firmly supported the measure, and at the close of his administration, in the spring of 1853, there seemed to be very little disquietude in the public mind on the subject of slavery. That calm was the lull before a tempest. The Fugitive Slave Law was so much at variance with the spirit of free institutions, Christian ethics, and the civilization of the age, that the hearts of the people of the free-labor States, and of thousands in the slavelabor States, burned with a desire not only to purge the National statute-books of that law, but to stay the further spread of slavery over the domain of the Republic. That desire, and a determination of the slave-holders to extend the area of their labor system, speedily led to terrible results, as we shall observe presently.

In the spring of 1851, Congress made important and salutary changes in the general post-office laws, chiefly in the reduction of letter postage, fixing the rate upon a letter weighing not more than half an ounce, and pre-paid, at three cents, to any part of the United States, excepting California and the Pacific Territories. The exception was afterward abandoned. At the same time, electro-magnetic telegraphing had become quite perfect; and by means of the subtile agency of electricity, communications were speeding over thousands of miles of iron wire, with the rapidity of lightning. The establishment of this instantaneous communication between distant points is one of the most important achievements of this age of invention and discovery; and the names of Fulton and Morse' will be forever indissolubly connected in the commercial and social history of our republic. During the summer of 1851, there was again con'Page 501.

In 1832, Professor Samuel F. B. Morse had his attention directed to the experiments of Franklin, upon a wire a few miles in length on the banks of the Schuylkill, in which the velocity

siderable excitement produced throughout the country because other concerted movements were made, at different points, in the organization of a military force for the purpose of invading Cuba.' The vigilance of the government of the United States was awakened, and orders were given to its marshals to arrest suspected men, and seize suspected vessels and munitions of war. Pursuant to these orders, the steamboat Cleopatra was detained at New York; and several gentlemen, of the highest respectability, were arrested on a charge of a violation of existing neutrality laws. In the mean time the greatest excitement prevailed in Cuba, and forty thousand Spanish troops were concentrated there, while a considerable naval force watched and guarded the coasts. These hindrances caused the dispersion of the armed bands who were preparing to invade Cuba, and quiet was restored for a while. But in July the excitement was renewed. General Lopez,2 who appears to have been under the control of designing politicians, made a speech to a large crowd in New Orleans, in favor of an invading expedition. Soon afterward [August, 1851], he sailed from that port with about four hundred and eighty followers, and landed [August 11] on the northern coast of Cuba. There he left Colonel William L. Crittenden, of Kentucky, with one hundred men, and proceeded toward the interior. Crittenden and his party were captured, carried to Havana, and on the 16th were shot. Lopez was attacked on the 13th, and his little army was dispersed. He had been deceived. There appeared no signs of a promised revolution in Cuba, and he became a fugitive. He was arrested on the 28th, with six of his followers, taken to Havana, and on the 1st of September was executed.

In the autumn of 1851, more accessions were made to the vastly extended ·

of electricity was found to be so inappreciable that it was supposed to be instantaneous. Professor Morse, pondering upon this subject, suggested that electricity might be made the means of recording characters as signs of intelligence at a distance; and in the autumn of 1832 he constructed a portion of the instrumentalities for that purpose. In 1835 he showed the first complete instrument for telegraphic recording, at the New York City University. In 1837 he completed a more perfect machinery. In 1838 he submitted the matter and the telegraphic instruments to Congress, asking their aid to construct a line of sufficient length to test its practicability and utility." The committee to whom the subject was referred reported favorably, and proposed an appropriation of $30,000 to construct the first line. The appropriation, however, was not made until the 3d of March, 1843. The posts for supporting the wires were erected between Washington and Baltimore, a distance of forty miles. In the spring of 1844 the line was completed, and the proceedings of the Democratic Convention, then sitting in Baltimore, which nominated James K. Polk for the Presidency of the United States, was the first use, for public purposes, ever made by the telegraph, whose lines have been extended to all parts of the civilized world, the total length of which, at this time [1867], is about 225,000 miles. Professor Morse's system of Recording Telegraphis is adopted generally on the continent of Europe, and has been selected by the government of Australia for the telegraphic systems of that country. A very ingenious machine for recording telegraphic communications with printing types, so as to avoid the necessity of copying, was constructed, a few years ago, by House, and is now extensively used. Professor Morse is the eldest son of Rev. Jedediah Morse, the first American geographer. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1791, and was graduated at Yale College in 1810. He studied painting in England, and was very successful. He was one of the founders of the National Academy of Design in New York, and he was the first to deliver a course of lectures upon art in America. He became a professor in the University of the city of New York, and there perfected his magnetic telegraph. Mr. Morse now [1867] resides on his beautiful estate of Locust Grove, near Poughkeepsie, New York, but since the summer of 1866 has spent much time in Europe. He has received many testimonials of appreciation from eminent individuals and societies beyond the Atlantic.

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possessions of the United States. Population was pouring into the regions of the Northwest, beyond the Mississippi, and crowding the dusky inhabitants of the Indian reservations in Minnesota. Negotiations for a cession of those lands to the United States were opened. These resulted in the purchase of many millions of acres from the Upper and Lower Sioux tribes of Indians,' their removal to another reservation, and the blooming of the wilderness they occupied under the hands of the white man. And while inter-emigration was seen flowing in a continuous stream in that direction, population was also flowing in large volume from Europe, increasing the inhabitants and wealth of the country. There had been for some time unwonted activity everywhere, and this was one of its many phases. States and Territories were growing. Additional representatives in the National Legislature were crowding its halls." These were becoming too narrow, and Congress made provision for enlarging them. Accordingly, on the 4th of July, 1851, the corner-stone of the addition to the National Capitol was laid by the President, with appropriate ceremonies.3

Circumstances at about the time we are considering, caused a remarkable American expedition to the polar regions. Sir John Franklin, an English navigator, sailed to that part of the globe, with two vessels, in May, 1845, in search of the long-sought northwest passage from Europe to the West Indies.* Years passed by, and no tidings of him came. Expeditions were sent from England in search of him; and in May, 1850, Henry Grinnell, a wealthy merchant of New York, sent two ships, in charge of Lieutenant De Haven, to assist in the benevolent effort. They returned, after remarkable adventures, in the autumn of 1851, without success. The effort was renewed by the opulent merchant, in connection with his government, in 1853, and in May of that year two vessels under the command of Elisha Kent Kane, M. D., the surgeon of the first expedition, sailed from New York, while a similar expedition was sent out from England. Kane and his party made valuable discoveries, among which was that of the "open polar sea," whose existence was believed in by scien

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2 Each State is entitled to two senators. The number of States now [1867] bemg thirtyeight, the Senate is composed of seventy-six members. The number of Representatives to which each State is entitled, is determined by the number of inhabitants and the ratio of representation. The present number of the members in the House of Representatives is two hundred and fiftythree, including delegates from nine Territories.

Note 1, page 388. On the occasion of laying the corner-stone, an oration was pronounced by Daniel Webster, in the course of which he said: "If, therefore, it shall hereafter be the will of God that this structure shall fall from its base, that its foundations be upturned, and the deposit beneath this stone brought to the eyes of men, be it then known, that on this day the Union of the United States of America stands firm-that their Constitution still exists unimpaired, and with all its usefulness and glory, growing every day stronger in the affections of the great body of the American people, and attracting, more and more, the admiration of the world." 4 Note 2, page 47, also page 52, and note 8, page 59.

Elisha Kent Kane was born in Philadelphia, in February, 1822, and he took his degree in the Medical University of Pennsylvania in 1843. He entered the American nary as assistant