secure the trade of the country, but to hold the native tribes in subjection; in short, to hold possession of the country. In 1834, the missionary settlements from the United States commenced, and shortly afterward the American population slowly found their way into Oregon, confining for several years their settlements south of the Columbia. True, two of the three missionary stations, established under the auspices of the American Board of Foreign Missions, viz., Whitman's at Waiilatpu and that of Messrs. Eels and Walker, near the Spokane River, had been located in what is now comprised in this Territory. In 1841 the United-States Exploring Expedition (Captain Charles Wilkes) surveyed the coasts, bays, harbors, and rivers of this Territory. In 1843 Lieutenant Fremont, U. S. A., on his second expedition, reached Vancouver, thereby connecting his first reconnoissance, which had only extended to the South Pass, with the eastern terminus of Captain Wilkes's exploration. In October, 1845, Colonel M. T. Simmons, with his own and several other families, who had crossed the plains in 1844, settled near the head of Puget Sound, at Tumwater, the mouth of the Deschutes River. This marks the commencement of American settlement in what now constitutes Washington Territory. The Oregon provisional government, formed July 5, 1843, had created the District of Vancouver, embracing all the present Territory of Washington. Shortly subsequent Lewis County was cut off, and the name of Vancouver changed to Clark. On the 15th June, 1846, the treaty of limits between the United States and Great Britain made the 49th parallel, and the middle of the channel separating the continent from Vancouver Island, the northern boundary of the American Oregon. In November, 1847, within the limits of the present Washington, while yet a part of Oregon, an atrocious massacre was perpetrated at Whitman's missionary station (Waiilatpu) not far distant from the site of the present city of Walla Walla. Dr. Whitman and wife and nine others (Americans) were murdered in cold blood by a band of Cayuse Indians. This led to the Cayuse war, in which the provisional government of Oregon inflicted upon those perfidious wretches a chastisement most richly deserved, but hardly commensurate with their guilt. August 14, 1848, Congress organized the Territory west of the Rocky Mountains, naming it Oregon. The region north of the Columbia River having attained sufficient population (March 2, 1853), was set apart as a separate Territory, and denominated Washington Territory. The act of Congress establishing this Territory ascribed the following boundaries: north, by the treaty line of 1846, separating it from the British possessions; cast, by the Rocky Mountains; south, by the 46th parallel to its intersection with the Columbia River, and thence by the channel of that river to its mouth; and west, by the Pacific Ocean. [1853.]-The survey of the Northern Pacific Railroad route from the headwaters of the Mississippi to Puget Sound by the late Governor Isaac J. Stevens, the then and first governor of Washington Territory, occupied the whole summer and fall of this year. September 29th, proclamation of Governor Stevens of his entrance into the Territory and assumption of executive duties, dated at St. Mary's village. November 28th, executive proclamation, fixing time of election, defining judicial districts, and apportionment of districts for election of members of Legislative Assembly. A census of the white population was taken this year by J. Patton Anderson, first United States marshal, which exhibited 3,965 inhabitants, and 1,682 voters. [1855.]-Gold having been discovered on several of the tributaries of the Columbia, in the vicinity of Fort Colville, miners from Oregon and Puget Sound rushed to the "new diggings." The latter, mostly unarmed (for treaties had been concluded the spring before which seemed to be a guaranty of the peace able disposition of the Indians), crossed the Cascade Mountains, and passed through the Yakemi country. Several were surprised and murdered. UnitedStates Indian agent Bolon was killed, and he and his horse consumed by fire. Simultaneously, outrages of similar character were committed by Indians in various regions, from the boundary of California to the north boundary of this Territory, indicating concert of action among the Indian tribes. The Indian war of 1855-'56 ensued as a necessary consequence in Oregon and Washington, which was long maintained, almost exclusively by the people of those Territories. At its conclusion, General Wool, of the United-States Army, then in command of this military division, was as hostile to the authorities and population of this Territory as the Indians had been when it commenced, and much more than he had been against the Indians during any of his campaigns. [1859.]—February 14th, Congress admitted Oregon into the Union as a State, annexing to Washington Territory all that portion of Oregon Territory lying east of the present east boundary of Oregon, extending the south and southeastern limits of this Territory to the 42d parallel, continued eastward to the Rocky Mountains, and embracing within it the SOUTH PASS, that great gateway of American immigration to the Pacific States and Territories. This summer is also notable for the San Juan Island emeute, which terminated peaceably by General Winfield Scott entering into a temporary agreement, consenting to the joint occupancy of that island by detachments of troops of the United States and Great Britain. This humiliating condition of things yet continues, and the laws of Washington Territory are suspended in that portion of its limits. [1863.]-March 30th, the act of Congress, establishing the Territory of Idaho, curtailed its huge proportions, and reduced the Territory to its present boundaries. A reference to the map will show that this Territory embraced at one time great portions of the Territories of Idaho and Montana (as at present constituted), including those mining regions, the richness and apparently inexhaustible yield of which have attracted so much interest. The present limits of Washington Territory are suggestive of and associated with matters of historic moment, intensely interesting in a political and national point of view. It embraces the identical territory the struggle for which prolonged that memorable controversy between Great Britain and the United States known as the Oregon question-a contest continued at intervals from 1807 until June 15, 1846. While it is true that both nations asserted claim to the whole of the territory west of the Rocky Mountains, up to the farfamed 54° 49′, yet the gist of the controversy, the real bone of contention, the turning-point upon which the matter finally hinged, was the territory south of the 49th parallel, west and north of the Columbia River. The United States had offered on several occasions, as a compromise, the 49th parallel westward to the Pacific Ocean. Great Britain had likewise offered the 49th parallel westward of the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia, thence down that river to the Pacific. Great Britain coveted the region north and west of that river, with its free navigation, and exclusive ownership of the Puget Sound Basin. The negotiations develop this fact, and its open avowal by Sir R. Pakenham-in September, 1844, in reply to the able establishment of the American claim to the whole territory by Mr. Calhoun, that "he," Sir R. Pakenham, "did not feel authorized to enter into discussion respecting the territory north of the 49th parallel, which was understood by the British Government to form the basis of negotiation on the side of the United States, as the line of the Columbia formed that on the side of Great Britain "—at least attests the fact that the value of this interesting region was appreciated by the British negotiator. But the treaty of 1846 has not settled the controversy, the boundary between the two nations, and now we do not know the northwest boundary of the Territory of Washington. The title to San Juan Island and the Archi pelago de Haro is still in dispute. A second treaty (July 1, 1863) has been found necessary to ascertain the rights possessed, and the value of the benefit conferred, by the Hudson's Bay Company in enjoying its exclusive trade and occupancy from 1824 down to 1846. The immense claim now being urged under the latter treaty, $5,000,000 (a trifling proportion of which is for establishments outside of Washington Territory), together with the dispute as to the sovereignty of San Juan and other islands, which so nearly provoked collision in 1859, between the British fleet and the camp of the United-States Army on San Juan Island, justify the statement that at no time, since first pressed by the foot of white men, has its Territory been exempt from a conflict between rival nations as to rights of sovereignty or exclusive possession. That Janus faced treaty of 1846 is among its most notable features of history. It aimed to settle the boundary, but left the seeds of future controversy by its uncertainty. Twenty-one years have elapsed, and the boundary of the United States is still undetermined. A portion of Washington Territory is subjected to that anomaly of two nationalities holding armed occupation as evidence of adverse claims. That treaty also denied the claim of the British Government, as such, south of the 49th parallel, yet resolved that great nation into individuals, and conferred upon such individuals, or combinations of them, the privilege of absorbing as much territory as they saw fit to claim as possessory rights, which the UnitedStates Government bound itself to respect. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF NEVADA, INCLUDING BOUNDARIES, GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION AND AREA OF THE STATE. THE State of Nevada reaches from the 37th to the 43d meridian west from Washington (114° to 120° west from Greenwich), and, from the point where it adjoins Arizona (near the 35th), to the 42d degree of north latitude, being bounded by Oregon and Idaho on the north, by Utah and Arizona on the east, by Arizona on the south, and by California on the southwest and west. Prior to 1866 the State extended no farther east than the 38th meridian, and no farther south than the 37th degree of north latitude, Congress that year having taken from Utah and added to Nevada one degree of longitude. A tract of irregular shape, covering an area of some 12,000 square miles, lying between California and the Colorado River, and bounded on the north by the 37th degree of north latitude, was at the same time taken from Arizona and given to this State, which, with these additions, has now an area of about 112,190 square miles, or 71,800,000 acres, from which about 1,600 square miles may be deducted for the area covered by the water surface of various small lakes within its borders. In the organic act creating the Territory of Nevada, Congress designated the dividing ridge of the Sierra Nevada for the western boundary thereof, contingent on the consent of California, which by this arrangement would be required to surrender a considerable strip of country lying within her limits east of the Sierra, which, notwithstanding much importunity on the part of her neighbor, she declined to do. In the absence of any survey establishing the boundary between these two countries (a fixed geographic line), much uncertainty prevailed as to its precise location, a circumstance that afterward led to a conflict of jurisdiction, threatening to end in serious results. With a view to settling this question and preventing further difficulties, the Legislature of California passed a law in 1863, providing for a joint survey to ascertain and adjust this boundary; which, having afterward been done, set the matter at rest by giving to that State the greater part of the territory in dispute. The term Nevada, signifying in Spanish a heavy fall of snow, was adopted as a State cognomen, because of the immense bodies of snow that fall on the Sierra Nevada range of mountains lying partly within its limits, and bordering it for a long distance on the west, as well as upon many of the mountain-chains in the interior of the State. Nevada is subdivided into twelve counties, nine of which were created at the time of its first organization and three since. These counties are of very unequal dimensions; the more western, owing to their being the site of the principal mineral discoveries, their proximity to California, and other favoring circumstances, being, as a general thing, more populous, and consequently smaller than those situated farther in the interior. POPULATION. THE number of inhabitants in the State, exclusive of Indians, amounts to about 35,000, being somewhat less than it was three or four years ago, when the population was much swollen by speculators, adventurers, and other tran ! sient persons, attracted to the country by curiosity, or the hope of speedy gain. This decrease of inhabitants is attributable chiefly to the diminution of this class, and a considerable drain caused by emigration to the adjacent Territories of Idaho and Montana, much of which is now making its way back to this State. That it did not largely consist of the working population is shown by the advance of improvements, and the steady and marked increase in the product of bullion, as well as in the other staples of the country ever since; the large quantity of land taken up, and the number of permanent settlements made thereon, also pointing to a similar conclusion. Of the population accounted civilized, about three per cent. consists of Chinese, mostly confined to the cities and larger towns. The people of African lineage amount to two or three hundred in the State, some of them being among its earliest residents, and nearly all distinguished for industry and thrift. Anterior to the summer of 1859 the number of white inhabitants in the region included within the present limits of Nevada did not exceed 1,000, which, according to the census taken in August, 1861, had then been increased to 16,367, the most of whom were confined to the western margin of the State. As nearly as can be estimated the present population is distributed as follows: Douglas County 2,000, Ormsby 3,500, Washoe 1,500, Storey 14,000, Lyon 2,500, Churchill 500, Roop 500, Humboldt 1,500, Lander 6,000, Nye 2,000, Lincoln 500, and Esmeralda 2,500. Society here, as in California, being gathered from every quarter of the globe, bears a somewhat cosmopolitan impress. Owing to the frequent stoppage of overland immigrants, a rather larger proportion of the inhabitants than usual are native born and originally from the West. The Chinese reside mostly in the towns, the self-employed being chiefly engaged as woodgatherers, laundry-men, artisans, or traders with their own people-gambling being the sole occupation of a considerable number. Those in the service of the Caucasians are generally employed in the more menial capacities, working for about one-half the wages paid white men. Nearly the entire female portion of the population are debased to the last degree. So universal is the moral degradation of this class, that it is doubtful whether, of the four or five hundred Asiatic women in the State, a single one could be found of unquestioned virtue'; the men also being, for the most part, much addicted to lasciviousness and the gratification of other low desires. Though quiet and industrious, showing but little inclination to mingle with the whites, or participate in the management of public affairs, there is a prejudice entertained against this people amounting to a positive aversion. on the part of almost every other race; this repugnance being so deep-seated and universal as to place them in many respects under the ban of public sentiment, shutting them out not only from certain conventional but sometimes from even graver privileges-the Asiatic often being denied immunities freely extended to the Negro and Indian. These discriminations are not confined to social life, but affect business relations as well, the testimony of these people not being admitted in legal evidence as against the whites. In many of the mining districts of Nevada the Chinese are prohibited by the local laws from holding claims, a privilege never withheld from any other race or class of people. ABORIGINES. THE aboriginal races residing within this State consist of four principal tribes, or nations, to wit, the Washoes, Pah-Utahs, Shoshones, and Bannocks, all marked by strong similarities in their physical appearance, modes of life, social polity, religious notions, etc. Something like a division of territory, however, exists among them, the Washoes inhabiting a strip of country along the western margin of the state, the Pah-Utahs the balance of the western and the southern, while the Shoshones occupy the eastern, and the Bannocks the extreme northern portion of the State. The latter, made up in good part of outcasts and renegades from the tribes about them, are generally accounted more bloodthirsty and |