from both the coast and Cascade Mountains, while Western Washington is all a vast forest, where the clearings are mere specks upon the immense expanse of woodland. This magnificent forest is destined to be a source of great wealth for centuries to come. The lumbering operations up to this time, although very extensive, have only notched it here and there at long intervals close to the water-side.

CLIMATIC PECULIARITIES.

It is a common mistake in the East to suppose that the rigorous winter climate of Minnesota continues westward on parallels of latitude all the way to the Rocky Mountains. Dakota winters are even more severe than those of Minnesota, because there are no forests to break the force of the blizzards. There is, however, a great deal of bright, still weather, when the cold is hardly felt, because of the dryness of the air. West of the Missouri the mean winter temperature steadily increases as you go toward the Rockies, and the weather in December, January, and February, in the valley of the Yellowstone, is no more rude than in Maryland or Southern Ohio, with the great advantage of a dry, bracing atmosphere, instead of the cold rains and sloppy snow-falls which characterize the season in the middle latitudes of the Atlantic coast and Mississippi Valley. The snow-fall is much less than in the belt of country along the Union Pacific Railroad. On the Northern Pacific line, which runs at one point in Idaho almost as far north as the boundary of British America, the only region of heavy snow-fall is around Lake Pend d'Oreille, and for a hundred miles up Clark's Fork of the Columbia; but there the road is protected from drifts by the heavy forest growth. No serious obstacle to regular winter traffic will be occasioned by snow on any of the railways penetrating the northern line of States and Territories between Lake Superior and Puget Sound. The fact that Montana was formerly the great buffalo range, and is fast becoming a vast cattle and sheep range, verifies the assertions of its inhabitants regarding the light snow-fall.

Between the Rockies and the Cascade Range, in the new agricultural regions of Washington and Oregon, the climate does not greatly differ from that of Pennsylvania. The summers are cooler, because of the greater elevation above the sea level, and the winters dryer, with less snow. Cattle and horses live on the dried grasses all winter, in the whole region, as far north as the British line. West of the Cascades, in the rich valley of the Willamette, and the Puget Sound country, the summer weather is perfect; but there

are five disagreeable, rainy months, from October to April. Very little snow falls, but "the rain it raineth every day"; or, to be more precise, about two days out of three. Perhaps the best climate, the year round, of the Pacific North-west, is that of the Rogue River Valley, in Southern Oregon. The south-west winds, which bring the winter rains, strike the coast a little north of this valley, and its winter climate is said to resemble that of Italy. The summer climate is not unlike that of the interior of Massachusetts. On all the Pacific coast, it is the direction of the mountain ranges and of the currents of sea-air, that determine climate more than latitude. Thus, the winter in Victoria, on Vancouver's Island, is no colder than that of Baltimore, while the summer resembles that of Newfoundland, if any parallel to its delightful, cool, bracing weather can be found on the Atlantic coast. For the most agreeable climatic conditions possible, one should have a cottage in Victoria for the summer, looking out over the blue waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and a fruit ranch for the winter in one of the warm valleys of Southern California.

FUTURE STATES.

PUBLIC opinion in Dakota has firmly decided that the territory shall be cut into halves by a line following the 45th parallel of latitude, and be thus made into two States. The line is not a natural boundary. It is chosen because it gives about an equal area to North and South Dakota, and runs through the center of an unsettled belt now dividing the settled region along the Northern Pacific Railroad from the southern section of the present territory, already well supplied with railway facilities. Very soon this vacant belt will fill up with people, and the completion of north and south railroad lines, now considerably advanced, will make of both sections a homogeneous community. Still the territory is too large for one State, and the reasons for dividing it are identical with those which led to separating Minnesota from Iowa, and Kansas from Nebraska. Montana is even larger than Dakota, but it contains far less farming land and, save in a few valleys, will never support a dense population. The eastern portion is mainly a grazing country, while the western portion is a mass of mountain ridges, between which lie narrow, fertile valleys, where agriculture is very profitable, but can only be carried on with the aid of irrigation. There is no talk yet of dividing this immense territory, but the time will come when conflicts of opinion will arise between the people living on the Yellowstone and its

tributaries, and those inhabiting the mountain country. Perhaps it will then be found wise to make two States out of Montana, by a line drawn north and south.

Washington is destined to become a rich, populous State. It has in its eastern counties an extensive area of remarkably productive wheat land, yielding thirty, forty, and even fifty bushels to the acre. The Puget Sound counties are rich in coal and lumber, and in the region north of the Columbia, as yet only partly explored, both iron and coal have lately been found, as well as mines of nickel, silver, and gold. The population of Washington, now a little over 100,000, will probably increase to a million in a quarter of a century. Idaho develops very slowly. The streams mostly run in deep cañons, making no fertile valleys, and the high lands are too dry for cultivation. Mining for the precious metals is the leading industry. This territory and Wyoming will be the last to come in as States. The only section of Idaho containing broad, contiguous areas of arable land is embraced in the Pan Handle on the extreme north, and the four counties comprising that district are eagerly seeking to be detached and to be united with Washington, with which they are closely identified both geographically and commercially.

THE ULTIMATE FRONTIER.

IMMIGRATION pushes eastward from the Pacific coast as well as westward from the Valley of the Mississippi. In Oregon and Washington I met hundreds of families going East. They came from the well-settled valley of the Willamette and were bound for the new grain and pasture regions east of the Columbia River. The ultimate frontier may be said to be in Idaho. Into that territory emigrants seeking a new country come from east, west, and south. The whole Rocky Mountain region will, however, remain practically a frontier country for a long time to come. It is only adapted for very sparse settlement and will always afford a field of adventure for hunters and tourists. A belt of country about two hundred miles wide, in Montana and Idaho, and widening out to nearly one thousand in New Mexico and Arizona, will probably always preserve most of its present characteristics of wildness and vacancy. The lofty wooded ranges of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington, with their sublime isolated snow peaks and their profound gorge-like valleys, will also repel all settlement save that of hunters, lumbermen, and miners. Along the Pacific coast, between the Coast Range and the sea,

there is another belt of country too heavily timbered for occupancy by farmers save on the bottom lands along the streams.

DEFECTS OF THE PUBLIC LAND SYSTEM.

TRAVEL in the scantily settled regions of the Far West has convinced me that our present system of land laws abounds in mischievous defects. It was adopted when the central and extreme western portions of the continent were little known, and was well enough adapted at that day to encourage immigration into regions of nearly uniform fertility like Illinois and Iowa, and to parcel out the public domain among those who intended to occupy and cultivate it. The system is, however, poorly adapted to meet the conditions existing in regions like Montana, where the arable lands lie in narrow strips of valleys and most of the country consists of mountain ranges, or high, dry pasturage tracts unfit for crops. In Eastern Dakota, one hundred and sixty acres of rich wheat-land ample for a homestead, which will support a family; but what is a settler to make of one hundred and sixty acres of grassy plateau, too dry for any crop, but good for cattle and sheep, if he had enough of it.

are

The preemption feature of the land system should be abolished altogether. Under it the gigantic wheat farms of Dakota have been formed. The owners first bought the alternate sections of land from the railroad company, and then placed their own hired men upon the government sections to preëmpt, purchase, and transfer them. Six months' real, or pretended residence in a six by nine shanty is sufficient to perfect a preëmption claim. The claimant then gets his patent by paying $2.50 an acre if within the limits of a railroad grant, or $1.25 if not, and he can at once sell out to the speculator or the "bonanza farmer." The public land laws ought to make the way of the land-grabber a hard one, and preserve the arable portions of the public domain for actual settlement and cultivation in small tracts. The "bonanza farm" system secures the cultivation of large areas, but only by the hired labor of men without families, who leave the farm as soon as the crop is harvested. Ten thousand acres tilled on this plan will support, as permanent residents, perhaps half a dozen families of employés, who look after the machinery, animals, and buildings. If divided into small, separate holdings, the same tract would sustain a hundred families, raising less wheat, perhaps, but more children, to become good citizens of the republic.

E. V. Smalley.

I.

PRAYING TO THE KING.

IN 1699, France, by the hand of her gallant sailor, D'Iberville, founded the province of Louisiana. In 1718, his younger brother, Bienville, laid out the little parallelogram of streets and ditches, and palisaded lots which formed New Orleans. Here, amid the willowjungles of the Mississippi's low banks, under the glaring sunshine of bayou clearings, in the dark shadows of the Delta's wet forests, the Louisiana Creoles came into existence,-valorous, unlettered, and unrestrained, as military outpost life in such a land might make them. In sentiment they were loyal to their king; in principle, to themselves and their soil. Sixtythree years had passed, with floods and famines and Indian wars, corrupt misgovernment and its resultant distresses, when in 1762 it suited the schemes of an unprincipled court secretly to convey the unprofitable colonyland and people, all and singular-to the King of Spain.

In the early summer of 1764, before the news of this unfeeling barter had startled the ears of the colonists, a certain class in New Orleans had begun to make formal complaint of a condition of affairs in their sorry little town (commercial and financial rather than political) that seemed to them no longer bearable. There had been commercial development; but, in the light of their grievances, this only showed through what a débris of public disorder the commerce of a country or town may make a certain progress.

These petitioners were the merchants of New Orleans. Their voice was now heard for the first time. The private material interests of the town and the oppressions of two corrupt governments were soon to come to an open struggle. It was to end, for the Creoles, in ignominy and disaster. But in better years further on there was a time in store when arms should no longer overawe; but when commerce, instead, was to rule the destinies, not of a French or Spanish military post, but of the great southern sea-port of a nation yet to be. Meanwhile, the spirit of independence was stirring within the inhabitants. They

scarcely half-recognized it themselves (there is a certain unconsciousness in truth and right); but their director-general's zeal for royalty was chafed.

"As I was finishing this letter," wrote M. d'Abbadie, "the merchants of New Orleans presented me with a petition, a copy of which I have the honor to forward. You will find in it those characteristic features of sedition and insubordination of which I complain."

A few months later came word of the cession to Spain. The people refused to believe it. It was nothing that the king's letter directly stated the fact. It was nothing that official instructions to M. d'Abbadie as to the manner of evacuating and surrendering the province were full and precise. It was nothing that copies of the treaty and of Spain's letter of acceptance were spread out in the council chamber, where the humblest white man could go and read them. Such perfidy was simply incredible. The transfer must be a make-believe, or they were doomed to bankruptcy,-not figuratively only, but, as we shall presently see, literally also.

So, when doubt could stay no longer, hope took its place, the hope that a prayer to their sovereign might avert the consummation of the treaty, which had already been so inexplicably delayed. On a certain day, therefore, early in 1765, there was an imposing gathering on the Place d'Armes. The voice of the people was to be heard in advocacy of their rights. Nearly all the notables of the town were present; planters, too, from all the nearer parts of the Delta, with some of the superior council and other officials,-an odd motley of lace and flannel, powdered wigs, buckskin, dress-swords, French leather, and cow-hide. One Jean Milhet was there. He was the wealthiest merchant in the town. He had signed the petition of the previous June, with its "features of sedition and insubordination." And he was now sent to France with this new prayer that the king would arrange with Spain to nullify the act of cession.

Milhet met, in Paris, Bienville, ex-governor of the province and unsuccessful campaigner against its Indian foes, who, in his eightysixth year, was fated to fail once more in his effort to serve Louisiana. They sought, to

gether, the royal audience. But the minister, the Duc de Choiseul (the transfer had been part of his policy) adroitly barred the way. They never saw the king, and their mission was brought to naught with courteous dispatch. Such was the word Milhet sent back. But a hope without foundations is not to be undermined. The Creoles, in 1766, heard his ill-tidings without despair, and fed their delusion on his continued stay in France and on the non-display of the Spanish authority.

By another treaty Great Britain had received a vast territory on the eastern side of the Mississippi. This transfer was easier to understand. The English had gone promptly into possession, and, much to the mental distress of the acting-governor of Louisiana, M. Aubry (M. d'Abbadie having died in 1765), were making the harbor of New Orleans a highway for their men-of-war and transports, while without ships, ammunition, or money, and with only a few soldiers, and they entitled to their discharge, he awaited Spain's languid receipt of the gift which had been made her only to keep it from these very English.

But, at length, Spain moved, or seemed about to move. Late in the summer a letter came to the superior council from Havana, addressed to it by Don Antonio de Ulloa, a commodore in the Spanish navy, a scientific scholar and author of renown, and now revealed as the royally commissioned governor of Louisiana. This letter announced that Don Antonio would soon arrive in New Orleans.

Here was another seed of cruel delusion. For month after month went by, the year closed, January and February, 1766, came and passed, and the new governor had not made his appearance. Surely, it seemed, this was all a mere diplomatic maneuver. But, when the delay had done as much harm as it could, on the 5th of March, 1766, Ulloa landed in New Orleans. He brought with him only two companies of Spanish infantry, his government having taken the assurance of France that more troops would not be needed.

II.

ULLOA, AUBRY, AND THE SUPERIOR COUNCIL.

THE cession. —a sentence, as it seemed to the Louisianians, of commercial and industrial annihilation-had now only to go into effect. It was this, not loyalty to France, that furnished the true motive of the Creoles and justification of the struggle of 1768. The merchants were, therefore, its mainspring. But merchants are not apt to be public leaders. They were behind and under the people. Who, then, or

what, was in front? An official body whose growth and power in the colony had had great influence in forming the public character of the Creoles,—the Superior Council.

It was older than New Orleans. Formed in 1712 of but two members, of whom the governor was one, but gradually enlarged, it dispensed justice and administered civil government over the whole colony, under the ancient "custom of Paris," and the laws, edicts, and ordinances of the kingdom of France. It early contained a germ of popular government in its power to make good the want of a quorum by calling in notable inhabitants of its own selection. By and by its judicial functions had become purely appellate, and it took on features suggestive, at least, of representative rule.

It was this Superior Council which, in 1722, with Bienville at its head, removed to the new settlement of New Orleans, and so made it the colony's capital. In 1723, it was exercising powers of police. It was by this body that, in 1724, was issued that dark enactment which, through the dominations of three successive national powers, remained on the statute-book,-the Black Code. One of its articles forbade the freeing of a slave without reason shown to the council, and by it esteemed good. In 1726, its too free spirit was already receiving the reprimand of the home government. Yet, in 1728, the king assigned to it the supervision of land titles and power to appoint and remove at will a lower court of its own members.

With each important development in the colony it had grown in numbers and powers, and, in 1748, especially, had been given discretionary authority over land titles, such as must have been a virtual control of the whole agricultural community's moral support. About 1752 it is seen resisting the encroachments of the Jesuits, though these were based on a commission from the Bishop of Quebec; and it was this body that, in 1763, boldly dispos sessed this same order of its plantations, a year before the home government expelled it from France. In 1758, with Kerlerec at its head, this council had been too strong for Rochemore, the intendant-commissary, and too free,-jostled him rudely for three years, and then procured of the king his dismissal from office. And lastly, it was this body that d'Abbadie, in another part of the dispatch already quoted from, denounced as seditious in spirit, urging the displacement of its Creole members, and the filling of their seats with imported Frenchmen.

Ulloa, the Spanish governor, stepped ashore on the Place d'Armes in a cold rain, with that absence of pomp which character

izes both the sailor and the recluse. The people received him in cold and haughty silence that soon turned to aggression. Foucault, the intendant-commissary, was the first to move. On the very day of the governor's arrival he called his attention to the French paper money left unprovided for in the province. There were seven million livres of it, worth only a fourth of its face value. "What was to be done about it?" The governor answered promptly and kindly: It should be the circulating medium at its market value, pending instructions from Spain. But the people instantly and clamorously took another stand: It must be redeemed at par.

A few days later he was waited on by the merchants. They presented a series of written questions touching their commercial interests. They awaited his answers, they said, in order to know how to direct their future actions. In a dispatch to his government, Ulloa termed the address "imperious, insolent, and menacing."

The first approach of the Superior Council was quite as offensive. At the head of this body sat Aubry. He was loyal to his king, brave, and determined to execute the orders he held to transfer the province. The troops were under his command. But, by the rules of the council it was the intendant, Foucault, the evil genius of the hour, who performed the functions of president. Foucault ruled the insurgent council and signed its pronunciamentos, while Aubry, the sternly protesting but helpless governor, filled the seat of honor. And here, too, sat Lafrénière, the attorneygeneral. It was he who had harangued the notables and the people on the Place d'Armes when they sent Milhet to France. The petition to the king was from his turgid pen. He was a Creole, the son of a poor Canadian, and a striking type of the people that now looked to him as their leader: of commanding mien, luxurious in his tastes, passionate, over-bearing, ambitious, replete with wild energy, and equipped with the wordy eloquence that moves the ignorant or half-informed. The council requested Ulloa to exhibit his commission. He replied coldly that he would not take possession of the colony until the arrival of additional Spanish troops, which he was expecting; and that then his dealings would be with the French governor, Aubry, and not with a subordinate civil body.

Thus the populace, the merchants, and the civil government-which included the judiciary-ranged themselves at once in hostility to Spain. The military soon moved forward and took their stand on the same line, refusing point-blank to pass into the Spanish service.

Aubry alone recognized the cession and Ulloa's powers, and to him alone Ulloa showed his commission. Yet the Spanish governor virtually assumed control, set his few Spanish soldiers to building and garrisoning new forts at important points in various quarters, and, with Aubry, endeavored to maintain a conciliatory policy pending the arrival of troops. It was a policy wise only because momentarily imperative in dealing with such a people. They were but partly conscious of their rights, but they were smarting under a lively knowledge of their wrongs; and their impatient temper could brook any other treatment with better dignity and less resentment than that which trifled with their feelings.

Ill-will began, before long, to find open utterance. An arrangement by which the three or four companies of French soldiers remained in service under Spanish pay, but under French colors and Aubry's command, was fiercely denounced.

Ulloa was a man of great amiability and enlightenment, but nervous and sensitive. Not only was the defective civilization around him discordant to his gentle tastes, but the extreme contrast which his personal character offered was an intolerable offense to the people. Yet he easily recognized that behind and beneath all their frivolous criticisms and imperious demands, and the fierce determination of their Superior Council to resist all contractions of its powers, the true object of dread and aversion was the iron tyrannies. and extortions of Spanish colonial revenue laws. This feeling it was that had produced the offensive memorial of the merchants; and yet he met it kindly, and, only two months after his arrival, began a series of concessions looking to the preservation of trade with France and the French West Indies, which the colonists had believed themselves doomed to lose. The people met these concessions with resentful remonstrance. One of the governor's proposals was to fix a schedule of reasonable prices on all imported goods, through the appraisement of a board of disinterested citizens. Certainly it was unjust and oppressive, as any Spanish commercial ordinance was likely to be; but it was intended to benefit the mass of consumers. But consumers and suppliers for once had struck hands, and the whole people raised a united voice of such grievous complaint that the ordinance was verbally revoked. A further motive-the fear of displacement

moved the office-holders, and kept them maliciously diligent. Every harmless incident, every trivial mistake, was caught up vindictively. The governor's "manner of living, his tastes, his habits, his conversation, the most trivial occurrences of his household,"