Puget's Sound finds its friends, the Gila is not destitute of advocates, and the merits of each possible terminus and route are canvassed with an earnestness befitting the importance of the subject. For the purpose of acquainting the many thousand readers of these valuable and instructive pages, of the precise situation of these controverted matters, and of informing them of the numberless facts, ideas, and expedients brought forward in the numerous works treating of these topics, we have a scheme which must strike all minds favorably for its candor, and its certain avoidance of error and misrepresentation. We will refer them for every thing which they wish to know to the original sources of information, giving them thus opportunity to quench their thirst at the fountain itself, instead of conveying the water to their mouths through unwholesome pipes.

If they wish to know topography, let them go to Col. Fremont-if they desire discussions of the bearing of the enterprise on the world's commerce, let them go to Mr. Whitney—if they want to hear something of ways and means, let them apply to the Editors and the Memphis Convention-if they wish a gauge of the qualifications of the buffalo-bull for a commission in the corps of topographical Engineers, Col. Benton is their man-Lieutenant Maury will furnish a set of interesting facts relating to the tides, currents, and winds of the Pacific Ocean, as bearing upon the subject, and the Congressional reports, the newspapers and magazines, will supply a vast amount of information, which, when found, will gratify our friends vastly more than any resumé which we might have the skill or patience to prepare. Our pathway leads along the high road of cosmical speculation, where readers of strong minds and philosophical spirit, will prefer to follow, rather than scramble through the rocks and sandbanks of the safer, but more terrestrial path from which we have just turned aside.

There is an old saw, which drily advises producers of poultry to postpone the census of their juvenile fowls till the period of incubation has fully terminated. The wisdom of the counsel must be apparent to all who have observed the variety of disasters which may befall the embryo hen, before the appearance of its bill through the spherical wall which incloses it, gladdens the maternal breast. In short, 'tis an unimpeachable old saw, which will outlast the Iliad. To disregard, however, its injunctions for once, permit

us here to count a few of our chickens, even before the eggs are laid. The temptation to look forward to the time when the iron trail shall traverse the prairies of the Upper Missouri and Oregon, and to enjoy by anticipation, a few of the manifold comforts whch will then be possessed by the citizens of our country, is so seductive, that Humboldt himself, before entering on the promised course of “ COSmical speculation," would, I believe, wet his whistle at this fountain as a preparation for enduring the rarefied air of the altitudes before him.

It is calculated that when we get our track through to San Francisco or Puget's Sound, and have our line of mail steamers to the Asiatic coast, we in the cis-Missourian States will get our China mail in some forty-five days. Now is it not evident that when one can put a girdle around the earth," at that rate, we want no Ariels? It will then be well worth one's while to live. I get my crate of long-legged fowls from Shanghai, or my package of parrots from Pekin, or my bale of tigers from Bengal, in the calendar month succeeding the day of their shipment. The ape, chattering æsthetics in the groves of Japan in June, finds himself in dog-days transferred to the top of my barrel-organ in the Bowery, and the Tartar Khan from the outer-shadow of the Great-Wall, on the fiftieth day after he bids adieu to the little Tartars in the door of his own tent, sips his bowl of mare's-milk beside my mahogany at Chicago! Think of these things.

Consider further, with what delight I fly from the scorching dog-star to the shadows of the North Pass, or sit under the dripping summits of St. Helen's. To escape the clamor of the town and the gubble of dunces, I leave the train at a way-station in the middle of the mountains, and thence wind through gorge and canon to the inmost glen, where now the grizzly matron caches her incapable cubs what time she prowls in search of man or beast to feed them withal. But as I there sit wrapped in cosmical speculation, the red man doth not make my jacket a mark for his arrow, neither does the ursine mother take me in her mouth to her rocky kitchen, for Bruin and Red Ishmael have been crushed to death by the Iron Herald -a sad thing to think of, indeed. Yet, what help was there for it? What asylum could we entice them into? And yet, to leave them here was a thing not to be thought of; for think, philanthropist, what culture or what study could make a tolerable hotel-proprietor out of a "grizzly" even with the latitudinarian allowance of "good intentions." Even, sup

pose that your precepts had pierced his shaggy ear, and that Caliban with the best of intentions should "seek to merit a share of the public patronage"-alas, would he not be a bear, after all, and when you bespoke a tit-bit as a lunch for your fair companion, would he not quite probably deposit on her lap a whole quarter freshly torn from a wild horse? No, education, march of mind, and all that, will go a great way toward refining the untutored nature, but as for this original American, this scion of the undisputedly first family, he is savage hopelessly, and unless muzzled will eat the second families bodily and uncooked.

Or to leave these pretty reveries, behold the steamer bearing his black plume through the Archipelago-red islanders meanwhile watching from the promontories, and pagan priests gazing from the watch-towers of their idols. Around yonder bays, now shaded by forests of fir and pine, hear the steady roar of commerce, the coughing of engines, and the clamor of anvils. Behold innumerable herds grazing on the ancient pastures of the buffalo. Listen to the halloo of the herdsmen in the mountain-girt basins of Oregon. Hear the blasts of miners on the hills, the chorus of bargemen on the rivers, and, rising above all, the infernal horn of the locomotive, quavering in the gorges like the gathering-cry of a Prince of Pandemonium!

Perhaps as we watch, rumors of wars are in the winds. War-ships are standing across the Pacific toward our shores-not sluggard men-of-war wallowing the brine beneath their hills of canvas, but long leviathans, fire-winged, with armies hidden in their trunks. Scouting vessels behold them afar off after nightfall, emerging like torch-bearing apparitions from the thunder-clouds that wall the horizon. Swifter than sea-gulls the scouts fly landward, and signal the coming enemy. In an hour the intelligence is at the War-Office: in another it has sped to all quarters of the land. Next day, hosts of minute-men are moving across the prairies in cars swifter than the wild horses that erst galloped there before the pursuing fire, and when the enemy's ships are ready to disgorge their armies, the fire-eaters of the Republic stand ranged on the shore, with matches alight, guns trained, cartridges rammed home, and the next Presidency looming before the eyes of the Commander-inChief and all his Brigadiers. Admiral Sir Ajax Dunderguns, seeing from the deck of His Majesty's Steamer Leviathan, that preparations have been made to give him a public reception on his landing, is

for a moment nonplussed, and orders the fleet to come to anchor just out of gunshot from the shore, while he considers in what manner to do honor to the hospitality of the "authorities." Before the vessels have been half an hour at anchor, enterprising patentees from Connecticut are screwing torpedoes to their keels. By and by-pop!-goes one of His Majesty's frigates-Pop! pop!—in a minute go a couple more like the corks of champagne bottles-then another pop! and by and by, while all gaze in consternation-bang! with a crash of thunder, the twin-brother of Leviathan, anchored a cable's length from the Admiral, bounds out of the water, bursts asunder with a flash and a roar, and falls back-food for divingbells! Admiral Sir Ajax Dunderguns, K.C.B., sweating dreadfully, signals the residue of the fleet to back water, and puts to sea with precipitation, not knowing whose patent may be screwed to his own keel, and feeling very much like a man who suspects that a hornet has got under his clothes, and may sting him at any moment. Thus the Unicorn of Albion turns tail, and seeks safety in a headlong scamper, like the elephants of Pyrrhus, made frantic by the fireballs of the Romans. Thus the clouds of war, which anon rose grumbling above the western sky, are rolled backward in ragged heaps, as when a herd of cattle is suddenly confronted by a lion, the bullocks in the van wheel back upon the others, and great confusion of horns and hoofs ensue.

"Perhaps the objector may urge," (as clergymen say when about to go into the ring with some poor shabby scoundrel of a man-of-straw, that has not sense enough left in his noddle after the pummelling of five generations of divines, even to show which way the wind blows), that these anticipations of advantage in a military point of view, will be disappointed by the prevalence of peace and harmony in the human brotherhood by the time that our railway communication with the Pacific shall be perfected.

Possibly this may spoil the egg, but we count upon this chicken with much confidence. That the human race is a brotherhood, is a truth not to be denied by the sons of Adam; but that it is a family which sets a very good example to the neighbors, may well be questioned. It is absolutely necessary for every government on the earth to go armed like a desperado. There are, at this moment, at least a half a dozen of our older brothers who envy us the possession of our manycolored coat, and would be glad to sell us to the Egyptians any day. No man of discernment has the remotest hope that

either Paul or Apollos will be able to work a change in their propensities, between the date of these presents and the evening which we have set down for the public reception of friend Dunderguns some years hence. The objector need not be alarmed. The desperate ugliness of the human disposition is a sufficient guarantee that an epidemic of harmony will not carry off the war-establishments of the world for a long time to come. We must go on fortifying, drilling, and talking big for a century, at the very least calculation. There will be wars and rumors of wars. Castles will be blown up-walls will be battered down-cities will be fired -capitals bombarded-bastions stormed -strong-holds escaladed. Empires will be smitten to the earth-armies will be trodden under foot-fleets meeting in the middle of the ocean will be torn to pieces by cannon balls, and the great brotherhood joining in internecine strife, will glory in destruction like a den of wild beasts. Art and science have not yet quieted the savage temper of man. Christ's Gospel has not yet cast out the legion of devils by which he is driven amongst the tombs ; but covetousness of rule, greed of conquest, and all those mighty passions which sway nations, are yet as strong and as cruel as

in the days of those old pagan dynasties that dragged the earth captive at their chariot wheels.

One living in a cage of lions cannot do a wiser thing than to become a porcupine.

If Joseph's brothers will sell him to Potiphar, Joseph's discretion will illustrate itself, by making it apparent to Simeon and Gad that they will make more money by keeping their hands off him, and selling Reuben instead. Our fathers persisted in their fancy that at some day the robber powers of the old world would band together to crush Freedom in her new-found home. That association of banditti seem likely to have so much employment at home, that their anticipated professional tour will hardly be expected at present. Still a fortunate turn of circumstances may enable the manager to announce his troupe much earlier than we anticipate. Our elders were by no means blind men, and we have often before found their hints well worth attending to. In this case it will do no harm, at least, to bear the warning in mind, notwithstanding we are so exceeding wise, and so exceedingly sharp, and so much superior in all respects to the "old folks."

the scientific naturalist, and to the mere amateur explorer of the secret charms and mysteries of nature, there are few more attractive points in the beautiful study which they both pursue, than the observation of the exquisite nicety with which the whole system is constructed; no link wanting in the wondrous chain of creation, no abrupt transition, no check or pause in the interminable succession and gradation of kindred or allied species, each following the last, and seeming naturally to spring from it, with points of similarity, varying step by step, small by degrees and beautifully less, until every allotted station has its appropriate occupant, and no function can be imagined which has not its appointed exercise and office.

It is not always easy for the human intellect, with its limited range and finite capacity, to discover the purposes, or duly appreciate the boundless utility and perfect excellence of all and every one of the phases of infinite creation. More especially has it disturbed and perplexed many inquiring spirits of the truest and most earnest believers, how to account, in a world arising from the fiat of the All

Good, for the existence of natural evil, as it would appear, on a limited and unphilosophical view, to exist in the instincts, habitudes, and dispositions of many genera of the brute creation; the carnivorous more particularly, which are found in every phase of the animal world, from the mighty mammalia, and swift-winged rapacious birds of prey, to the stealthy reptilia, the voracious fishes, veritable Tritons among the minnows, and even to the insect tribes, some of which, in every order, family, and genus, subsist by the destruction of their fellow creatures.

Without entering on a discussion as to how far we can, in our present condition, seeing only now "as through a glass darkly," discover and decide the real comparisons of suffering, whether of men or animals; and pronounce when, and by how much, this escape from the sea and storm of life is more lamentable or more desirable than that-which, considering that we cannot envisage the contingencies, perhaps, consequent on a different result in the present, must be at least uncertain -and certainly without daring to arrogate to ourselves the power of explaining

or bringing into clear light what He of purpose has left unexplained and dark, we may at least venture, without offence, to suggest a reason as patent, for the existence of destructive agents, subsisting themselves on the life of others, that it can scarcely fail to be recognized at once, as a sufficient cause, whether it be the true cause or not, for this seeming anomaly, but most real harmony and consistency in the terrestrial works of the Creator. That is, in one word, the insufficiency of the whole vegetable world, to support a tithe even of the existing links of earth, air, and water, as they are now seen. thinned and reduced one and all by their continually and implacably pursuing enemies, much less as they would have been seen at this day, had they all been vegetarians, all gone on, since the order was given, at creation's dawn, to increase and multiply, without other limitation than that of natural disease and death.

What are the degrees of sensibility in various creatures from plants, grasses, trees, to the mollusc, the oyster, the selfreproducing cold-blooded reptile, the mute fish, the half-reasoning dog, and semi-human elephant, up to the Bushman, the Esquimaux, and last as highest, the nervous, sanguine, intellectual man of the Caucasian breed, none can conjecture, or presume to say. But it is nearly clear, and agreed on by greatest physiologists, that the higher the nervous and cerebral organization of the creature, in like degree the higher his sensibilities and susceptibilities, whether to pain or pleasure.

Almost self evident is one thing, that the mere physical pang ending in sudden death, whether inflicted by the cannonshot, the tiger's paw, the eagle's beak, or the serpent's fang, as unconnected with any thing of preparedness for death, which in the lower animals is a point not to be considered, bears no comparison whatever, in regard of suffering, to the protracted struggles of mortal disease, the miseries of paralyzed old age, much less to the agonies of thirst and famine, which are the natural termination of the lives of animals, whether of field or forest, air or ocean, in their wild condition.

Most violent deaths are unquestionably far less painful to him who dies, than the feverish bed of slow, natural disease; besides that the suddenness of the bloody and rash end precludes the possibility of mental anguish. And this last consideration it is, which renders "battle, murder, and sudden death" things especially fearful to the man who would have time to think lest his soul perish also; while to the animal, which has no consciousness of sin, or hope of life beyond the grave, the ab

sence of time wherein to suffer is matter of the highest mercy.

Be these things as they may, however, certain it is that the increase of every animal race, civilized man alone excepted, is checked, limited, prevented, above an established standard, by the regular destruction of its surplus, or excess, through the agency of its natural, appointed enemies; which become scarce or plentiful themselves, in exact proportion with the increase or decrease of their prey. Thus, in the province of New Brunswick, not many years ago, the farmers were afflicted and panic-stricken by the sudden appearance of hordes of travelling squirrels, which, like one of the plagues of Egypt, entered the cultivated regions from the northern wilderness, and literally laid the country bare, devastating one field before entering another, and leaving little better than a desert behind them.

No means that were suggested had the smallest success in thinning, much less overpowering these pests of agriculture; and, their numbers defying all hope of eradicating them, a famine began, at the last, to be seriously apprehended; when, suddenly, where foxes had been compara- · tively unknown before, foxes appeared by thousands and tens of thousands, no one knew whence nor how, and devouring the swarms of field squirrels, became so fat and lazy, before autumn, that they were run down by men on foot and knocked on the head with sticks, in such numbers that, as I have been credibly informed, their peltries, and the fur and meat of the bears, which in turn came in pursuit of the glutted foxes and fattened on the corpses of the slain, went far to remunerate the farmer for the destruction of his crops.

In like manner, as every hunter can tell, when deer become, from any cause, superabundant in any region of the country, where wolves have been apparently almost extinct for ages, those savage beasts of prey will reappear, and prevent the wild cattle of the waste from encroaching too far on the lands set apart for the subsistence of man, and of the domestic animals necessary to his well-being.

The converse of this proposition is well proved; namely, that by the undue and wanton destruction of the races of destroyers, at the hands of man, the races which would otherwise have been held in check, if not destroyed by them, may be augmented to such a degree, as to become, however individually insignificant, of serious detriment to a country, insomuch that the aid of legislation has been invoked for their protection. Especially has this been the case in the instance of

the small birds and warblers, which have within a few years been nearly annihilated in many districts by wanton potshooters, so that insects, caterpillars, and grubs, of all the most destructive species, were becoming incalculably troublesome and numerous, and actually threatened an Egyptian plague of flies and locusts.

Hence it becomes, at once, apparent how nicely adapted to their ends are the means employed by Providence, and how justly balanced and defined are the instruments employed to preserve the harmony and consistency of nature, and to further the utility of the whole.

If, bearing this scheme ever in mind,for it seems too well established to admit so vague a term as theory-we apply ourselves closely to the observation of the various races of destroyed and destroyed, we shall find that precisely where one species of the rapaces ceases from its depredations, another species commences its sphere of havoc. So that, while no order of the carnivora lacks its peculiar and appropriate prey, no order of the smaller and nominally gentler animals is without its particular, and, as it were, predestined enemies, by whom its increase is limited, and its numbers kept within bounds. I say nominally gentler, because our application of terms indicative of human passions and propensities, to brute animals and their habitudes and instincts, is naturally incorrect and ill-defined; as, indeed, the very deductions, which we draw from the application of those instincts, are inapplicable, one-sided, and unjust.

In the first place, we abhor in animals, and stigmatize with opprobrious names, habits and practices entirely analogous to our own, and differing from them only in degree, and in the nature of the victims to their appetites, or exigencies.

Thus we call the tiger and the lion cruel, ferocious, savage, and the like; merely because, endowed with the like carnivorous propensities to our own, they indulge them on different objects, and for the most part on creatures with which we hold some relation either of kindred or of sympathy, or perhaps merely of admiration for their grace, innocence, or beauty.

The appetite of the felines for human flesh, or, when that cannot be obtained, for the venison of the graceful antelope, the gentle doe, or the timid weeping cameleopard, is, though certainly more obnoxious to our own fears or feelings, no whit more cruel or ferocious than our own taste for succulent beef-steaks, or frolicksome young lambs, or delicate spring chickens. Nor is their mode of slaughtering one particle more cruel than our own, nor even more painful to the sufferer.

All testimony shows that in nature there is no such thing as intentional cruelty, no infliction of needless or wanton torture, unless in perverted man's nature; who, alone of animals, has invented racks and engines, especially constructed for inflicting anguish on the frame of his brother man. Each living thing, that kills others for its own support, kills with the best application of the weapons nature has given it, at the least expense of time and trouble; and, in every victim to the huge paw of the felines, or the cleaving beak of the accipitrines, the merciful wish is realized, which was expressed by the Scottish host to Marmion's bold esquires:

"Strong be the arm, and sure the blow,

And short the pang that lays thee low." Again, we nickname the lordly eagle merciless and savage, who rides the wings of the hurricane, rejoices in the blue glare of the lightning flash, and gazes undazzled at the noonday sun, because he grips in his murderous talons the bleating fawn, or the complaining wood dove, which we compassionate because they shrink, and shudder, and complain, with something that reminds us of human capacity to suffer and lament; while we name the familiar robin-red breast, the most gentle and affectionate, the moon-serenading nightingale, the most delicate and gracious of the birds of heaven, utterly regardless of the agonies of the mute worm or caterpillar, that writhes out its last anguish in the warbler's beak.

There is no end to the injustice done by man's judgment to the characters, if we may so term them, of animals; as there is no limit to the cruelties, which he inflicts, either in wantonness or thoughtlessness, on those of the inferior races, which are neither competent to resist, or to complain, under their sufferings.

This last fact is perhaps not unworthy of a moment's reflection. Would eels have been skinned alive, from time immemorial to this present day, if they could shed tears in their anguish, and complain so as to melt, or howl so as to terrify, the hearts of all bystanders? Would the patient and enduring ass have been barbarously beaten from the days of Balaam, when for once he opened his mouth and spake, if he could either lament like a man, or resist like his conquerors, the desert barb, and forest zebra?

We admit, and rejoice to admit, that the fanciful absurdities of closet naturalists, laboring to round eloquent periods and frame fictitious woes of the brute creation, such as Buffon, the Plutarch and the Kotzebue combined of the animal kingdom, are fast falling into disrepute; and that students of natural history now study,