and one that only prevails on this side of the water; the British know better, and if they held the tithe of our title they would fight the world for what we depreciate. It is not a worthless country, but one of immense value, and that under many aspects, and will be occupied by others, to our injury and annoyance, if not by ourselves for our own benefit and protection. Forty years ago it was written by Humboldt that the banks of the Columbia presented the only situation on the north west coast of America fit for the residence of a civilized people. Experience has confirmed the truth of this wise remark.

It is valuable, both as a country to be inhabited and as a position to be held and defended. I speak of it, first, as a position, commanding the North Pacific ocean, and overlooking the eastern coast of Asia. The North Pacific is a rich sea, and is already the seat of a great commerce; British, French, American, Russian, and ships of other nations frequent it. Our whaling ships cover it, our ships of war go there to protect our interest, and, great as that interest now is, it is only the beginning. Futurity will develop an

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immense and various commerce on that sea, of which the far greater part will be American. That commerce, neither in the merchant ships which carry it on, nor in the military marine which protects it, can find a port, to call its own, within twenty thousand miles of the field of its operations. double length of the two Americas has to be run, a stormy and tempestuous cape to be doubled, to find itself in a port of its own country, while here lies one in the very edge of its field, ours by right, ready for use, and ample for every purpose of refuge and repair, protection and domination. Can we turn our back upon it? and, in turning the back, deliver it up to the British? Insane and suicidal would be the fatal act!

To say nothing of the daily want of such a port in time of peace, its want in time of war becomes ruinous. If we abandon, England will retain ! And her wooden walls, bristling with cannon, and issuing from the mouth of the Columbia, will give the law to the North Pacific, permitting our ships to sneak about in time of peace-sinking, seizing, or chasing them away in time of war. As a position, then, and if nothing but a rock or desert point,

the possession of the Columbia is invaluable to us; and it becomes our duty to maintain it at all hazards.

Agriculturally the value of the country is great; and, to understand it in all its extent, this large country should be contemplated under its different divisions-the threefold natural geographical divisions under which it presents itself: the maritime, the middle, and the mountain districts.

The maritime region, the fertile part of it, is the long valley between the Cascade and the coast ranges of mountains, extending from the head of the Wah-lah-math, near the latitude of 42 degrees, to the Straits of Fuca, near latitude 49. In this valley lies the rich tide water region of the Columbia. It is nearly five hundred miles long, north and south, and above one hundred wide, rich in soil, grass and timber, sufficient of itself to constitute a respectable State, and now the seat of the British commercial and military post of Vancouver, and of their great farming establishment of Nisqually.

The middle district, from the Cascade range to near the base of the Rocky Mountains, is the

region called desert, and which, in the imaginations of many, has given character to the whole country. In some respects it is a desert; barren of wood, sprinkled with sandy plains, melancholy under the sombre aspect of the gloomy artemisia, and desolate from volcanic rocks, through the chasms of which plunge the headlong streams. But this desert has its redeeming points-much water, grass, many oases, mountains capped with snow to refresh the air, the land and the eye, blooming valleys, a clear sky, pure air and a supreme salubrity. It is the home of the horse! found there wild in all the perfection of his first nature, beautiful and fleet, fiery and docile, patient, enduring and affectionate. General Clark has told me that of the one hundred and seventy horses which he and Lewis obtained in this district he had never seen their match in any equal number, and he had seen the finest which the sporting course or the warlike parade had exhibited in Virginia. It is the home of that horse, the horse of Persia, which gallops his eighty miles a day, swimming the rivers as he comes to them; finds his own food at night, the hoof scraping away the

snow when it hides the grass; gallops his eighty miles again the next day, and so on through a long and healthy life; carrying his master in the chase or the fight; circumventing the game and pursuing the foe with the intelligence of reason and the fidelity of friendship. General Clark has informed me that it was necessary to keep a scout ahead to drive away the elk and buffalo, at the sight of which all their horses immediately formed for the chase, the loose ones dashing off to surround and pursue the game.

The mountain division has its own peculiar features, and many of them as useful as picturesque. At the base of the mountains a long, broad and high bench is seen, three hundred miles long, fifty miles wide, the deposite of abraded mountains of snow and verdure through thousands of years. Other and smaller benches of the same character are frequently seen, inviting the farmer to make his healthy habitation and fertile field upon it.

Entering the gorges of the mountains, a succession of everything is found which is seen in the alpine regions of Switzerland, glaciers only excepted. Magnificent mountain scenery, lakes,