afl imaginable shapes-in pieces of all sizes, from one grain to several pounds in weight. The evidences that it was created in combination with quartz, are too numerous and striking to admit of doubt or cavil; they are found in combination in large quantities.

A very large proportion of the pieces of gold found in these situations have more or less quartz adhering to them. In many specimens they are so combined that they cannot be separated without reducing the whole mass to powder, and subjecting it to the action of quicksilver. This gold, not having been exposed to the attrition of a strong current of water, retains in a great degree its original conformation. These dig gings, in some places, spread over valleys of considerable extent, which have the appearance of an alluvion formed by washing from the adjoining hills, of decomposed quartz, and slate earth, and vegetable matter. In addition to these facts, it is beyond doubt true that several vein-mines have been discovered in the quartz, from which numerous specimens have been taken, showing the minute connection between the gold and the rock, and indicating a value hitherto unknown in gold mining. These veins do not present the appearance of places where gold may have been lodged by some violent eruption. It is combined with the quartz in all imaginable forms and degrees of richness. The rivers present very striking, and it would seem conclusive evidence respecting the quantity of gold remaining undiscovered in the quartz veins. It is not probable that the gold in the dry diggings and that in the rivers the former in lumps, the latter in dust-were created by different processes. That which is found in the rivers has undoubtedly been cut or worn from the veins in the rock, with which their currents have come in contact. All of them appear to be equally rich. This is shown by the fact that a laboring man may collect nearly as much in one river as he can in another. They intersect and cut through the gold region, running from east to west, at irregular distances of fifteen to twenty, and perhaps some of them thirty miles apart. Hence it appears that the gold veins are equally rich in all parts of that most remarkable section of country. Were it wanting, there are further proofs of this in the ravines and dry diggings, which uniformly confirm what nature so plainly shows in the river.

To the energy, talent, and enterprise of the Hon. John Charles Frémont we stand indebted for the most important discoveries and surveys of the western territory of the United States, since the great expedition of Lewis and Clarke. The first field of his public services was the country around the head waters of the Mississippi, in the survey of which he acted as an assistant. After receiving the commission of a lieutenant in the corps of topographical engineers, he undertook an expedition, in 1842, under the instructons of government, to examine the country between the Missouri frontier and the Great South Pass, in the Rocky Mountains.

On the 10th of June, the party, consisting of twenty-five men, most of whom were Canadian and Creole voyageurs, set out from a post ten miles above the mouth of the Kansas River. The celebrated Christopher Carson (known as Kit Carson) officiated as guide. Eight mule carts, loaded

with instruments and baggage, with a few spare horses and four oxen for provision, were the only encumbrances; the whole party, with the exception of the cart drivers, were well armed and mounted. After crossing the Kansas, the party took up their line of march over the prairie in a northwesterly direction to the Platte River, which was reached on the 26th, at a distance of more than 300 miles from the point of departure. They followed the course of the South Fork to Fort St. Vrain, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where they arrived on the 10th of July. Many interesting descriptions are recorded of the Indians encountered on the route: among other incidents, a spirited account is given of a buffalo hunt by a party of Arapahoes, whose village, on the Platte, was passed upon the 8th. As soon as they were conscious of danger, in the words of the narrative," the buffalo started for the hills, but were intercepted and driven back towards the river, broken and running in every direction. The clouds of dust soon covered the whole scene, preventing us from having any but an occasional view. *** At every instant through the clouds of dust which the sun made luminous, we could see for a moment two or three buffalo dashing along, and close behind them an Indian with his long spear, or other weapon, and instantly again they disappeared."

Frémont with his little company reached the South Pass about the middle of August, and commenced scientific explorations of the rugged mountain district through which it leads. "He not only fixed the locality and character of that great pass, through which myriads are now pressing to California, but defined the astronomy, geography, botany, geology, metereology, of the country, and designated the route since followed, and the points from which the flag of the Union is now flying from a chain of wilderness fortresses. His report was printed by the Senate, and translated into foreign languages, and the scientific world. looked on Frémont as one of its benefactors."*

The expedition of 1843-4 was far more extensive, interesting, and important than the one which preceded it. Its object was "to connect the reconnoissance of 1842 with the surveys of Commander Wilkes on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, so as to give a connected survey of the interior of our continent." In entering upon this arduous undertaking, Colonel Frémont determined to attempt a new route over the Rocky Mountains, southward of the main pass, in hopes of discovering an easier thoroughfare to Oregon and California. On the 29th of May, with a company of thirty-nine men, many of whom had accompanied him in 1842, he set out from the former point of departure. A detour through the mountains brought them upon the waters of the Bear River, which they followed to its debouchment into Great Salt Lake. In a frail boat of inflated India rubber cloth, a partial survey was effected of this remarkable phenomena of nature, concerning which the only knowledge before obtained had been from the wild reports of the Indians and hunters who had occasionally visited it. Little did the adventurous explorers

*Lester in the "Gallary of Illustrious Americans "

dream of the change that a few years would bring about upon those remote and desolate shores. The party left their camp by the lake on the 12th of September, and, proceeding northward, reached the plains of the Columbia on the 18th, "in sight of the famous Three Buttes,' a well-known landmark in the country, distant about forty-five miles."

In the month of November, having reached Fort Vancouver, and fully accomplished the duties assigned him, Colonel Frémont set out on his return by a new and dangerous route. Nothing but a perusal of the journal of the expedition can convey an adequate idea of the dangers and difficulties attendant upon the remainder of this enterprise, in which the complete circuit was made of that immense and unexplored basin lying between the Sierra Nevada and the Wahsatch or Bear River range of the Rocky Mountains; a region thus laid down in Frémont's chart: "The Great Basin: diameter 11° of latitude: elevation above the sea, between 4000 and 5000 feet: surrounded by lofty mountains: contents almost unknown, but believed to be filled with rivers and lakes which have no communication with the sea, desert and oases which have never been explored, and savage tribes which no traveler has seen or described."

The following synopsis of the narrative of Frémont's return from the Pacific to the States is from the pen of the popular author before cited: "It was the beginning of winter. Without resources, adequate supplies, or even a guide, and with only twenty-five companions, he turned his face once more towards the Rocky Mountains. Then began that wonderful expedition, filled with romance, achievement, daring, and suffering, in which he was lost from the world nine months, traversing 3500 miles in sight of eternal snow; in which he explored and revealed the grand features of Alta California, its great basin, the Sierra Nevada, the valleys of San Joaquin and Sacramento, exploded the fabulous Buenaventura, revealed the real El Dorado, and established the geography of the western part of this continent."

The account of the terrible passage of the Sierra Nevada in the months of February and March, is one of the most thrilling narratives ever recorded of the triumph of heroic endurance over every conceivable difficulty. The ascent was commenced on the 2d of February; the Indian guide "shook his head as he pointed to the icy pinnacles, shooting high up into the sky," and opposing an apparently insuperable barrier to further progress. After weeks of toil and suffering, subsisting upon their mules and horses, for whom it was almost impossible to procure sufficient grass and herbage to support life, the party descended the western slope of the Sierra. Two of the men had lost their reason from suffering and anxiety: one of them, Derosier, who had staid behind for the purpose of bringing a favorite horse of Colonel Frémont, on rejoining the party, in the words of the narrative, "came in, and sitting down by the fire, began to tell us where he had been. He imagined he had been gone several days, and thought we were still at the camp where he had left us; and we were pained to see that his mind was deranged. ***The times were severe when stout men lost their minds from extremity of suffering-when horses died-and when mules and horses

ready to die of starvation, were killed for food. Yet there was no mur muring or hesitation."

"In August, 1844, Colonel Frémont was again in Washington, after an absence of sixteen months. His report put the seal to the fame of the young explorer. He was planning a third expedition while writing a history of the second; and before its publication, in 1845, he was again on his way to the Pacific, collecting his mountain comrades, to examine in detail the Asiatic slope of the North American continent, which resulted in giving a volume of new science to the world, and California to the United States."*

The events immediately succeeding, although highly interesting, as connected with the most important particulars in the political history of the United States, are beyond our limits to record. It is sufficient to state, that throughout the difficulties in which Colonel Frémont was involved, and the lengthened examination to which he was subjected before a court-martial, the sympathies of the public were generally enlisted in his behalf.

As a private citizen, he contemplated yet another survey of a southern route through the western territory to California, and we cannot suf ficiently admire the ardor and self-reliance with which he entered upon the undertaking, after such fearful experience of the dangers attendant on attempting an unknown passage of the great mountain ranges which must be crossed. To resume the remarks of Mr. Lester: " Again he appeared on the far west: his old mountaineers flocked around him; and, with thirty-three men and one hundred and thirty mules, perfectly equip. ped, he started for the Pacific.

"On the Sierra Juan all his mules and a third of his men perished in a more than Russian cold; and Frémont arrived on foot at Santa Fé, stripped of every thing but life. It was a moment for the last pang of despair which breaks the heart, or the moral heroism which conquers fate itself.

"The men of the wilderness knew Frémont; they refitted his expedi tion; he started again, pierced the country of the fierce and remorseless Apaches; met, awed, or defeated savage tribes; and in a hundred days from Santa Fé he stood on the glittering banks of the Sacramento." İa the new state where he took up his abode, his popularity and prosperity have been unsurpassed.

DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY LYING BETWEEN MISSOURI AND CALIFORNIA.

The proposition for a Railroad to the Pacific has been before Congress for several sessions. In January, 1855, the Hon. THOS. H. BENTON made a speech in the House of Representatives upon the subject,

* Gallery of Illustrious Americans.

advocating the great central route for the location of the road. The following extract from his speech is valuable, as a description of the physical features of the country between Missouri and California on the great emigrant route, and its adaptation to settlement. After noticing other proposed railroad routes, Mr. Benton said:

"I make no comparison of routes, but vindicate the one I prefer from erroneous imputations, and invite rigorous examination into its character. The belt of country, about 4° wide, extending from Missouri to California, and of which the parallels 38 and 39 would be about the centre, this belt would be the region for the road; and of this region, its physical geography and adaptation to settlement, and to the construction of the road, it is my intention to speak, and to publish, as a part of this speech, something of what I have spoken elsewhere, but do not now repeat, because unnecessary here, but essential to the full exposition of the subject in the prepared and published speech.

I have paid some attention to this geography, induced by a local position and some turn for geographical inquiry; and, in a period of more than thirty years, have collected whatever information was to be obtained from the reading of books, the reports of travelers, and the conversation of hunters and traders, and all with a view to a practical application. I have studied the country with a view to results, and feel authorized to believe, from all that I have learned, that this vast region is capable of sustaining populous communities, and exalting them to wealth and power; that the line of great States which now stretch half way across our continent in the same latitudes-Pernsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri- may be matched by an equal number of States, equally great, between Missouri and California; and that the country is perfectly adapted to the construction of a railroad, and all sorts of roads, traversable in all seasons. This is my opinion, and I proceed to verify it: and first, of the five States, their diagrams and relative positions; and then their capabilities.

The present Territory of Kansas, extending 700 miles in length, upon 200 in breadth, and containing above 100,000 square miles, would form two states of above 50,000 square miles each. A section of the Rocky Mountains, embracing the Three Parks, and the head-waters of the South Platte, the Arkansas, Del Norte, and the eastern branches of the Great Colorado of the West, would form another State, larger in the opinion of Frémont-than all the Swiss cantons put together, and presenting every thing grand and beautiful that is to be found in Switzerland, without its draw-backs of avalanches and glaciers. The valley of the Upper Colorado, from the western base of the Rocky Mountains to the eastern base of the Wahsatch and Anterria ranges, 200 miles wide by 200 long, and now a part of Utah, might form the fourth; and the remainder of Utah, from the Wahsatch to California, would form the fifth, of which the part this way, covering the Santa Clara meadows, and the Wahsatch and Anterria ranges, would be the brightest part. Here, then, are five diagrams of territory, sufficient in extent, as any map will show, to form five States of the first magnitude. That much is demonstrated. Now for their capabilities to sustain populous communities, and their adaptation to the construction of a railroad.