construction of the track over the summit before pushing the work on the line beyond. While that is advanced as fast as possible, they will commence next spring at Donner Lake, and proceed down the mountains, and out into and through Nevada as rapidly as may be, eager to absorb as much of the whole enterprise, and meet the road coming west at a point as far east as they can.

"So far the company have used none of the United States bonds granted by Congress in aid of the work. Some two and a half millions in these bonds are now due. The company can issue an equal amount of their own bonds, guaranteed by a preceding or first mortgage; but none of these, also, have yet been used. They also have available a million and a half of other bonds, on which the State of California pays seven per cent. interest in gold for twenty years. Here are six millions and a half of good securities now on hand for prosecuting the work, besides what is earned as the road progresses, and the power to anticipate the issue of their first mortgage bonds at the rate of fortyeight thousand dollars for a mile of mountains and sixteen thousand dollars for a mile of plain, for one hundred miles in advance of construction. The work so far has been done out of about a million of paid-up stock, and subscriptions of the county of Sacramento of three hundred thousand dollars, the county of Placer of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and of San Francisco of four hundred thousand dollars, and the profits of that part of the road in running order. Of these sums, nearly a million is still left, and as the road has gone so far as to substantially secure a monopoly of all the business over the mountains, the profits on its completed section will be constantly increasing. Then, besides all this, there are between eighteen and nineteen millions of the twenty millions capital stock of the road yet unsubscribed for. Sometime, though not at present, this will be paying property; and it may suffice even now for the profits of the contractors. The company thus feel strong financially, and, though much of their securities are not now marketable except at a discount, they are confident there need be no further delay for the lack of means, and are increasing their working force upon the road as fast as laborers can be had. All the Chinese that offer, or that can be encouraged to emigrate from home, are employed, and it is expected that five thousand will be at work on the road before the present season closes.

"There is really nothing unreasonable in demanding that rails should be laid and trains running over half the line between the Pacific Ocean and the Missouri River in two years and a half, over two-thirds of it in another year, and the entire distance unbroken in five years. There are short sections in the mountains that may require three or even five years to work them out; but the great bulk of the way can be graded and laid with rails in three years. The California Pacific Railroad Company, led by some of the best men of the State, with Ex-Governor Stanford for President, say, calmly and distinctly, in their annual report just published, that they will take their completed line into Salt Lake City in three years. I believe they can and will do it, with anything like an easy money and labor market. And it is just as prac

ticable for the road from the east to reach the Rocky Mountains in twelve or eighteen months, and to span these mountains in two years. "Next spring should see as many men at work on the eastern line as there will be on the western; the fall, fifteen to twenty thousand along the entire route; 1867 should count fifty thousand shovels, and picks, and drills, leveling the paths for the national highway; and in 1868, the hungry hearts of these people of the Pacific States should dance to the music of a hundred thousand strong-music sweeter and holier, even, than all the martial bands of the new Republic!"

As appropriate to the foregoing, we annex the following from a number of the Alta Californian, issued in the latter part of Decem ber, 1866:

"The bell is ringing on the Sierra Nevada and in the valley of the Platte; it is time to look out for the locomotive, and prepare for its approach. The Pacific Railroad is no longer a wild dream of an untrustworthy promise; it has been placed on the basis of a sound pecuniary investment, and its prospects are so good that it is progressing with a speed almost unequaled in the annals of railway history. It has already advanced so far as to have an important economical value; and before twelve months we may expect to see travelers go and come across the continent every day with the help of the rail.

"The two nominal and intermediate termini of the route are Omaha, on the Missouri River, and Sacramento, although a larger city than either can grow to be, must be the ultimate and real terminus or end. Traveling westward from Omaha, we reach Fort Kearney in 250 miles, the Forks of Platte in 350 miles, Julesburg in 450, Denver in 600, Salt Lake City in 1,200, Austin in 1,600, Virginia City in 1,800, and Sacramento in 1,975 miles.

"But the road is now in running order from Omaha to Fort Kearney, 250 miles, at the eastern end, and from Sacramento to Alta, 70 miles, at the western end, so that 1,655 miles only are to be built; and the Union Pacific Railway Company has promised that the cars shall run to the Forks of Platte on the 1st of January; so the distance will have been reduced another hundred miles by the beginning of 1867. Peculiar influences are driving the work ahead at both ends. In the first place, Congress has provided that each company shall have as much of the road as it can build; so that the company which advances with the most rapidity gets the most. And the trade of the interior of the continent makes it of vast importance to get as much as possible. It is now evident that the Pacific Railroad is to be one of the most profitable investments in the country.

"Stages can average about six miles an hour, and at this rate the 1,655 miles of stage road between Alta and Fort Kearney can be traversed in less than twelve days, while the trip from San Francisco to Alta can be made in ten hours, and that from Fort Kearney to New York in less than four days. Thus we see that, in case of need, the trip from the metropolis of the East to that of the West of our continent can be made regularly within seventeen days. By two hundred miles of additional rail, one day's time is saved, and before the

end of next year the trip will be made to New York regularly, overland, in fourteen or fifteen days, and so many travelers will go that way that the stage company will find it profitable to make better time and provide better stages along the road. It is not improbable that within three years we shall be able to make a continuous trip to New York by rail. So let us be prepared for the approach of the loc»motive."

ALASKA,

LATE THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN POSSESSIONS.

By a treaty negotiated at the city of Washington by the recognized authorities of the United States of America and the Czar of Russia, the ratification of which by the respective powers was exchanged in the early months of the present year (1867), the United States acquired the property in, and jurisdiction over an extensive region of country, theretofore a domain of the Russian Empire, in the north-western quarter of the North American continent. In such light estimation were these possessions held, so late as the closing years of the last century, as scarcely to be recognized on the authentic maps of that time as composing a portion of the Empire; the only portion thus delineated being that link of the Aleutian chain of islands between Behring Sea and North Pacific Ocean, nearest to Asia.

TITLE. The Russian title to these possessions is derived from prior discovery, and dates from the year 1728. The Czar (Peter the Great) died in the winter of 1725; but, several years prior to that event, his active genius had been exercised with the problem as to whether Asia and America were really distinct continents, separated by the sea, or whether they constituted one undivided body, whose remote parts were designated by different names. To solve that question, that enlightened monarch (who, with his own hands, had toiled incognita as a ship-builder in England and Holland) wrote to his chief admiral an order directing the fitting out of an exploring expedition in that direction. Before time had intervened for the execution of that order, the Czar was gathered to his fathers; but the Empress Catharine, faithful to the purposes of her liege, did not allow this anxious wish of his to fail. After three years of toil and hardship in the work of preparation and reaching the place of embarkation, the exploring party set sail, on the 20th of July, 1728, in a small vessel called the Gabriel, under the command of Vitus Behring, a Dane by birth, and a navigator of some experience. Steering in a northern direction from the place of embarkation, (which was on the opposite side of the Asiatic continent,) Behring entered the strait which bears his name, passing a large island, which he called St. Lawrence, from the saint on whose day the island was first seen. This island, which is included in the recent cession, may be regarded as the first point of Russian discovery, as it is also the first outpost of the North American continent. Behring pursued his voyage until convinced of the duality of the continents; and having penetrated 67° 30′ north latitude, he turned back, and, by a dreary land journey, made his way to St. Petersburgh, in March, 1730, after an absence of five years.

Eleven years later (1741), Behring was sent out on another expedition, with the rank of Commodore, to discover a passage to the frozen

sea. Crossing in the latitude of the Aleutian Islands, the two ships of the expedition were separated in a fog, Captain Tschirikow reaching the coast on the 15th of July, at about 56° north latitude, while the Commodore, three days later, got sight of the continent in latitude 58° 28′ north. Here Behring saw a high mountain, and, it being St. Elias' day, he called it Mount St. Elias. In the winter following, Behring died of scurvy, on the American coast, in what was afterward called Behring Bay, just south of Mount St. Elias. The eastern coast of the continent had already been discovered and occupied by the English, who pushed their settlements into the interior. The Russians, on the contrary, discovered and occupied only the coast, and that merely for carrying out

the fur-trade.

EXTENT AND BOUNDARIES.-Alaska, or, as it is more familiarly known, "Russian America," comprehends all the north-west coast of the Pacific and adjacent islands north of the parallel of 54° 40′ north, and the portion of the mainland west of the meridian (about 141° west) of Mount St. Elias, including the group of Aleutian Islands. The Map of North America has habitually set apart a region in its north-western extremity, to which, without imparting much exact information, it has given the general appellation of "Russian Possessions." Inasmuch as that region is now part and parcel of the Great Republic, it becomes the citizens of that Republic to understand somewhat more definitely its location, extent, boundaries, and resources. By the treaty by which this region is ceded to the United States, the boundaries are fixed as commencing at the parallel of 54° 40′ north latitude, the line ascending Portland Channel to the mountains, which it follows on their summits to the point of intersection with the 141° west longitude, which line it ascends to the Frozen Ocean. This is the eastern boundary, separating this region from the British possessions, and is the same line as fixed by the treaty of 1825 between Russia and Great Britain. From the Frozen Ocean the western boundary descends Behring Straits, midway between the two islands of Krusenstern and Ratmanov, to the parallel of 65° 30′, just below where the continents of America and Asia approach nearest each other; and from this point it proceeds, in a course nearly south-west, through Behring Straits, midway between the Island St. Lawrence and Cape Choukotski, to the meridian of 170° west longitude; and thence, in a south-westerly direction, traversing Behring Sea, midway between the Island Attou on the east, and Copper Island on the west, to the meridian of 193° west longitude; embracing the prolonged group of Aleutian Islands in the possessions now transferred to the United States, and making the western boundary of our country the dividing line which separates Asia from America.

The area of this extensive region is estimated at more than five hundred and seventy thousand square miles or more than double the area embraced in the thirteen original States of the Union! Mount St. Elias (the point whence the boundary, as fixed by Great Britain and Russia, proceeds north to the Arctic Ocean) is 16,758 feet above the level of the ocean. Along the southern coast, from Mount St. Elias to Alaska Peninsula, the shore is well wooded; but beyond that no forests are seen