the rocks as it bounded away; of the evergreens, | length, and fifty-five feet in width; with a wide which seemed to love their dangerous eminence, advancing to the very brink of the shelf, and contrasting their bright hues with the milky foam into which the dusky-colored water had been fretted; of the creeping plants, which hung their festoons over the face of the jagged rock, and fringed with living green the otherwise naked bank;-but who shall delineate the rush of memory from its secret, viewless depths, the tide of retrospection, the gush of feeling,

"When thoughts on thoughts a countless throng, Came chasing countless thoughts along!"

when the fountains of the mind are broken up, and its waters mingle and blend in richest confusion? Words are sometimes impotent; never more so than when employed to give an idea of reverie. After lingering some time in silent admiration and thought, we bent our way backward along the shore of the river; delaying a little to hear the dash of the wave upon the rocks, and anon stopping upon some gentle ascent to mark the hectic beauty of the leaves, brightening under the hand of decay. Correspondent of the N. Y. Mirror.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE AT WASHINGTON, D. C. THE building occupied by the Secretary of State and his clerks, and called the State Department, is a large edifice, two stories in height, and each story very high, of one hundred and sixty feet in

In the Department of State are deposited the treaties with foreign nations; the original of the Declaration of Independence, the commission to General Washington, &c. The library attached to the Department is large and appropriate. The laws of the several States are also to be found here, and a copy of every book for which a copyright is taken out.

MISSOURI.

THE following article, detailing the history, geography, and natural resources of Missouri, we copy from the North American Review, April 1839, Art. xi. The excellence of the matter is our apology for inserting it at length, thus occupying more space than we usually allot to a single article.

Few of our readers, we suppose, are prepared to be told, that Missouri is not only the largest State in the Union, but that it is unsurpassed and perhaps unequalled by any other in natural resources. Yet such is the fact; taking into view agricultural productions, and mineral wealth, we its advantages of climate, soil, rivers, variety of do not know of any State which is entitled to take precedence of this.

The history of Missouri, as a home of civilized man, begins with the cession by France to En

her last hold upon America. By a treaty, which was made with Spain in 1762, but was not fully carried into execution until 1769, she had ceded to that power all her teritories west of the Mississippi, together with the island and city of New Orleans.

gland, of her possessions east of the Mississippi, and rulers, which had brought the settlers toat the peace of 1763. The French, then relin-gether, was speedily disappointed. The weakness quishing their possessions on the east of the river, of France had already compelled her to relinquish began to make progress in colonizing its western banks. The first town founded in Missouri was St. Geneviève, which was laid out by a party of French from Kaskaskia, in Illinois, in the course of the year of the cession to Great Britain. Other settlements, west of the Mississippi, were about the same time formed. In the year 1764, the city "The fate of the Louisianians," says Stoddard, of St. Louis was founded, by M. Laclède, a partner was made known to them by a letter signed by in a company which was extensively engaged in the French king, dated April twenty-first, 1764, the fur trade, a business at that time already very addressed to M. d'Abadie, whom he calls Direclucrative. It was selected as the dépôt for Upper tor-General and Commandant of Louisiana, inLouisiana, in which term was included all the forming him of the treaty of cession, and diState of Missouri and the territory west and recting him to give up, to the officers of Spain, northwest of the same. In this wide tract of the country and colony of Louisiana, together country, a monopoly of the trade with the Indian with the city of New Orleans and the military tribes had been granted, by M. d'Abadie, Direct-posts. He expressed a desire for the prosperity or-General of Louisiana, to the company just and peace of the inhabitants of the colony, and alluded to. It was wealthy, and clothed with his confidence in the friendship and the affection very valuable privileges, so that the settlement of the king of Spain. He, at the same time, deat St. Louis almost immediately assumed consid-clared his expectation, that the ecclesiastics and erable importance. The selection of a place, religious houses, which had the care of the parishmoreover, was so judicious, that, independently es and missions, would continue to exercise their of any other circumstances, it could not fail to at- functions; that the superior council and ordinary tract early attention, being so evidently destined judges would continue to administer justice acto become, what we now live to see it, the me-cording to the laws, forms, and usages of the tropolis of a wide-spread and fertile region. It is one of those points which seem formed by nature for the sites of large cities, uniting all the advantages that are essential, on the one hand, for the comfort and health of their immediate inhabitants, and, on the other, for the convenient exportation of the produce of the country, and the importation of whatever is needed for the supply of its wants. Nothing can permanently keep back a place possessing such advantages. Thirty years ago, the towns of St. Charles, St. Geneviève, and Cape Girardeau, were competitors of St. Louis in point of population and wealth. The difference of natural advantages has already made a marked distinction among them; and it is safe to foretell, that in St. Louis will prove to have been laid the foundations of one of the largest cities of the West, perhaps of the largest inland city of the United States. It has only just begun to attract the attention which it deserves. In four years, reckoned from the winter of 1833-4, its population and business doubled; and it is reasonable to expect that, ten years hence, it will contain fifty thousand inhabitants.

The fur trade, and the exportation of lead, constituted the chief business of the early settlers of Upper Louisiana, as indeed they made the occupation of the majority of its inhabitants down to the period of its coming into the possession of the United States. Of the emigrants into this region, in the years immediately succeeding its first occupation by the French, some began to form new settlements, as Vuide Poche, afterward called Carondolet, Florisant, and Les Petites Pôtes, now St. Charles; others joined the infant settlement at St. Louis, which, on coming to be considered the capital of Upper Louisiana, became the residence of the French and afterwards of the Spanish governors.

But the hope of living under their own laws

colony; that the inhabitants would be preserved and maintained in their estates, which had been granted to them by the governor and director of the colony; and that, finally, all these grants, though not confirmed by the French authorities, would be confirmed by his Catholic Majesty. The treaty of cession, dated the third of November, 1762, was never published, and the terms of it remain a secret to this day; but there is good reason to believe that the sentiments, expressed by the French king, corresponded with the stipu lations it contained."-Sketches of Louisiana.

Four years elapsed before any attempts were made on the part of Spain to take possession of her newly-acquired territory. Even then the attempt was unsuccessful. The Spanish governor, who arrived in 1766, with a military force, found it prudent to abandon his design and return to Havana, so great was the excitement among the colonists, because the transfer had been made without their consent.

"Things remained in this situation," says Stoddard, "till the seventeenth of August, 1769, when O'Reilly arrived, and took peaceable possession of the colony. He immediately selected twelve of the most distinguished leaders of the opposition, as the victims of resentment. Six of them were devoted to the halter, to gratify the malice of arbitrary power, and to strike terror into the other malecontents. The other six, deemed less guilty, and surely they were much less fortunate, were doomed to the dungeons of Cuba, This scene of blood and outrage made a deep impression of horror on the minds of the people, and will never be forgotten. In 1770, the Spanish authorities were established in Upper Louisiana.

"O'Reilly was the first governor and intendantgeneral, who exercised the Spanish power in Louisiana. As governor-general he was vested with the supreme power of the province, both

civil and military; and, as intendant-general he | tinuance of French authority, nothing important granted lands, prescribed the conditions, and con- occurred. No alteration was made in the juris firmed the concessions made by his subordinates; prudence of either Upper or Lower Louisiana, superintended the fiscal department, and the affairs and the Spanish laws remained in full force, as of the Indians."-Ibid.

On the twenty-sixth of November, 1769, he issued a proclamation changing the form of government in Louisiana, abolishing the authority of the French laws, and substituting those of Spain in their stead. From the time of its promulgation, the French laws ceased to have any authority, and all controversies were tried and decided conformably to the Spanish laws. To the credit of Spain, however, it should be recorded, that her governors conducted themselves with almost uniform moderation and impartiality toward the French inhabitants. This is abundantly proved by the fact, that the spirit of society in Louisiana does not seem to have been materially changed by the transfer to Spanish authority. New laws were of course introduced; but, except at the very first, no opposition was made to their administration, and no outbreaks of public feeling took place. The manners and customs of the people continued French; and, at the present day, we can hardly find any trace of the Spanish dynasty. It is, moreover, a remarkable fact, that when Louisiana again came under French dominion, in the year 1800, the French inhabitants were dissatisfied with the change.

In 1670, the Spanish governor, M. Rious, began to exercise authority in Upper Louisiana. The house in which he resided yet stands, in St. Louis. It is built in an old-fashioned, substantial manner, with a portico all around, and will probably long remain, a memorial of the past.

the laws of the whole province; a fact which is very important to those who would understand the legal history, and some of the present laws, of Missouri.*

By the treaty of April thirtieth, 1803, Louisiana was purchased by the United States from the French crown; and, six months after, the Presi dent was authorized to take formal possession. W. C. C. Claiborne was appointed Governor and Intendant-General of Louisiana, and Amos Stod dard was commissioned to exercise the powers and prerogatives of the Spanish Lieutenant-Governor of that province. The province of Louisi ana was subsequently divided into two parts, the territory of Orleans and the district of Louisiana; the latter comprehended the present State of Missouri, and, as a matter of convenience, was placed under the jurisdiction of the governor of Indiana, in whom all necessary powers had been vested. The governor at that time was General William H. Harrison, and by him the government was organized and put in motion, in a manner most creditable to him and satisfactory to Con gress. In 1805, the district was organized as a territory, the legislative power being vested in a governor and three judges. In 1812, an act of Congress gave it its present name, and transferred the legislative function to a General Assembly. In 1820, a State government was formed, a constitution being established on the nineteenth day of July, of that year. An act of Congress, passed after a well-known protracted debate, gave From this date, to the year 1800, the colonies Missouri admission to the Union on the second in Upper Louisiana experienced scarcely any day of March, 1821. From the period of the thing of great interest. The most remarkable transfer of Louisiana to the jurisdiction of the events were, an attack by the British and Indians United States, the country, which heretofore had upon St Louis, in 1778; an uparalleled rise of the been slowly settled, and by people of little enter Mississippi, in 1785; and the arrival, at St. Louis, prise, had begun to be very rapidly filled up. A of ten keel-boats, in 1788; each of which events new population then came in, and a new aspect gave a name to the year in which it occurred. was given to every thing. The laws began to The attack referred to was instigated by the Can- be more fixed and better understood, and their adian English, by way of retaliation against Spain, administration to be more impartial. The settlefor the part which she took in the American ments, after the lapse of a few years became Revolution. The assailing force consisted of more secure from Indian depredations, and every about fifteen hundred men, of whom the greater thing began to bear the marks of American enter part were Indians. The whole Spanish settle-prise. The original French inhabitants were, ments were in great danger, but the inhabitants deed, not much, if at all, benefited by these chan of St. Louis behaved in a most spirited manner. ges. Some of them were made, suddenly, very When the attack was first threatened, they fortified the city with a breastwork, formed of the trunks of trees, placed upright upon the ground, with their interstices filled with earth. It formed a semicircle, extending to the bank of the river at both extremities, and terminating at each in a small fort. Three gates, each defended by heavy cannon, afforded a communication with the country. The remnants of these defences yet exist, and are pointed out by the old inhabitants. The attack itself differed in nothing from the usual mode of Indian warfare. It was entirely unsuccessful, and was followed by no important result. In the year 1800, all the territory west of the Mississippi was ceded back again by Spain, to France. But during the three years of the con

in

rich; but the quiet and peaceful lives of the majority were sadly disturbed. In general, they could not sympathize with the schemes, nor com

"It is believed by many, that the whole body of the Span ish law was repealed and abolished by an act of the General Assembly, on the fourteenth of January, 1816, which adopts the common law and British statutes as the law of the territory. But the words of that act are, which common law and statutes this territory' embrace the Spanish laws, 'not inconsistent with are not contrary to the laws of this territory.' The laws of the acts of Congress in relation thereto,' altered, modified, and repealed as they had been by preceding legislatures. If, then, the Spanish laws were, previous to this act, a part of the law of the territory, it follows, that the common law and British statutes control only those cases, where the Spanish law, restricted and modified, and the acts of the legislature, had been silent."-MS. Memoir by a Citizen of St. Louis

pete with the enterprise of the new comers, and | tion, in the Western States, Missouri made com. were, therefore, soon thrown into a painful ob- paratively little progress. But, since then, she scurity. For a long time after the introduction has increased very rapidly, both in population and of American authorities, they mourned bitterly riches. The country is settled by a substantial over the innovations, which, however useful, class of people, chiefly farmers, from the more their unambitious minds could not regard as im- northern of the slave-holding States. Until reprovements. What was their loss, however, was cently, they have not exhibited the same degree the country's gain. Notwithstanding several of public spirit and enterprise, that is found in severe checks to immigration, the population some others of the Western States; but they rapidly increased. The late war, for a time, ef- have now awakened to the necessity of internal fectually repressed the progress of the country, improvements, and several important works are and many settlements, as those of Boon's Lick projected or advancing. Education, for which and Salt River, were entirely broken up. But ample provision has been made by law, is also peace was no sooner declared, than crowds of beginning to receive the attention which it deemigrants, chiefly from Kentucky, Tennessee, serves. and the Carolinas, began to cross the Mississippi; and, in the year 1817, the population of Missouri was supposed to be not less than sixty thou

sand.

The natural resources of this State are unusually varied and great. Its most remarkable feature is its mineralogical wealth. Almost every county in the State contains mines of some kind It was not the French alone, who had cause to or other, many of which are unparalleled in richlament the occupation of Missouri by the Ameri- ness. In a single county (Washington) are found cans. To the Indians it brought the most unhap- iron, lead, copper, copperas, chalk, black-lead, py consequences. That ill-fated people quickly brimstone, coal, freestone, limestone, millstones, perceived the change in the policy toward them, resembling the French buhr, and some indications introduced by the new government. So long as of silver and gold; most of them in very large they had none but the French to deal with, they quantities. The nitrate of Potash, or saltpetre, were generally pacific. They had few causes of occurs in several caverns on the Merrimac and complaint, and no wrongs to avenge, and they Current Rivers, in great abundance; also upon very seldom raised the tomahawk against their the Gasconade, a hundred miles west of St. Louis. white neighbors. With the exception of a few Salt springs are found in almost every part of the instances of inroad for the sake of plunder, the State. Compact limestone is very abundant. It settlements remained undisturbed. The French, constitutes the basis rock at St. Louis, where it it is well known, have always pursued an indul- answers a valuable purpose as a building material. gent policy toward the Indians. But, no sooner It is of a grayish blue color, and contains many do the English or Americans come near them, fossil remains. Chalk has been discovered on than war and massacres begin. So it was in the banks of the Mississippi, but in what quantiMissouri. The Americans had scarcely taken ties we do not know. Sulphate of lime, or gyppossession of that country, before causes of con- sum, exists in great abundance. It is found on tention were found; the fierce passions of the the Kansas River, the cliffs of which often consist Indians were aroused, but little pains taken to of solid strata of this mineral; also in Jackson appease them; the border warfare began, with County, and elsewhere. Alum (sulphate of aluall its horrors; and, when the war with England mine and potash) is found effloresced, in a cave commenced, many of the tribes were ready to in Bellevue, Washington County. Buhr stone, give her that assistance, which she has never said to be equal to the French, is in great abunbeen backward to ask, or scrupulous to use. The dance on the Osage and Gasconade Rivers. years from 1811 to 1814, inclusive, witnessed Potters' clay has been discovered, of the best many bloody contests, in different parts of the quality, on the right bank of the Mississippi, about State. The enterprise of Tecumseh, to excite a forty miles above the junction of the Ohio, and general Indian war, was attended with partial extending for thirty-four miles up the river. success; but some of the principal tribes held The stratum varies in thickness from one to ten back, and the determined measures of the govern- feet, rests on sandstone, and is covered by shell ment soon quelled the disturbances. Forts were limestone, containing well characterized nodules built at several important points on the Missouri and veins of flint. It is also found, ten feet beand Mississippi; and, after the year 1814 no low the surface, at Gray's Mine, Jefferson County, further contests ensued, except such as were im- where it is snow-white, unctuous, becomes plastic mediately, and without much bloodshed, decided. by mixture with water, and is infusible at a very The Indians, since that time, have been gradually, high heat. Red chalk is found in Washington but rapidly, receding before the whites. Great County. Several springs in the vicinity of Hernumbers of them are yet left in the western parts culaneum, and one near St. Louis, are highly imof the State, and the territory immediately ad- pregnated with sulphur, which is deposited on jacent, from whom trouble is, perhaps not un- the stones, over which the water runs, in a yellow reasonably, anticipated; but the day of their crust. Coal, of a good quality, is found in St. strength and prosperity is gone, and the next Louis, Howard, Cooper, Boon, Monroe, Saline, generation will probably witness their almost Lafayette, Gasconade, and almost all the counutter extinction. ties of the State. Sulphuret of zinc is found, Between the years 1817 and 1824, in conse-associated with sulphuret of lead, at the mines in quence of the commercial embarrassments, and Washington, Jefferson, and St. François Counties the sudden check given to the fever of specula- Oxyde of manganese and sulphuret of antimony

have both been discovered in Washington County | to the world. Six miles south, in Madison Counand on the Merrimac.

ty, is another mountain, larger than the one above, known in this county by the name of the 'Pilot Knob.' It is entirely covered with iron ore, in huge masses, larger and more abundant than the former."

Besides these iron mountains, all the hills of that district contain great quantities of ore. That whole tract of country is a vast bed of iron. The ore is, besides, remarkably pure. That from the "mountains" does not need to undergo any intermediate process, but may be wrought without being smelted into pigs. A pen-knife was recent

But the great mineral wealth of Missouri is in its mines of copper, lead, and iron. We are not informed of any copper mines in the State, which are in actual operation; but the existence of the mineral, in great quantities, has been ascertained beyond question. We have seen several beautiful specimens, brought from different parts of the State, one of which, found in Washington County, almost upon the surface of the ground, was the richest that we have ever seen. The lead mines of the State are better known. They are found, to the greatest extent, in the counties of Wash-ly made from the ore, with an exquisite polish and ington, St. Geneviève, St. François, Madison, and Jefferson, and also on the Osage River. Some of them have been worked for seventy years. Those in Washington County are thus described by the "Missouri Gazeteer."

a fine edge. We need not speak of the immense value of such mines as these. They are worth an hundred times more than all the gold and silver of Mexico. We should remark, however, that they are perfectly accessible, and that their treasures may be brought into the market at as small an expense as the nature of the commodity admits. They are situated only about forty miles from the Mississippi, and but seventy from St. Louis, to which city a railroad is now in contem plation. An abundance of stone-coal has lately been discovered in their vicinity, and the whole district abounds with water power. It will not be many years before their wealth is poured into St. Louis, and thence throughout the whole land. They render it certain, that Missouri must, at no very distant day, become one of the most important manufacturing States in the Union. Except in the mineral districts, which are, in general, comparatively barren, the soil is uniformgood. It is, besides, very varied in its nature, so as to be adapted to a great variety of productions. The northern counties contain large tracts of excellent land, calculated for hemp and flax. Cotton is cultivated, although not to such advantage as in Mississippi and other southern States. Tobacco is raised in large quantities, and of the best quality. All the varieties of grain and grasses yield abundant crops. Garden vegetables grow to great perfection. Fruit trees, of all the kinds which belong to temperate climates, are successfully cultivated, and the fruit is at least equal to that in the eastern States. The timber includes almost all the valuable and ornamental varieties of the temperate zone. There are extensive pine forests on the Gasconade and Merrimac rivers. The facilities for raising stock are great, and farmers direct their attention_very "The Iron Mountain, as it is commonly called, much to this branch of their business. There in the southeast corner of Washington County, is are many parts of the State, consisting of rocky one of the most remarkable curiosities in the points and broken sections of country, which world. It is about one mile broad at the base, seem peculiarly fitted for sheep-pastures, and three hundred and fifty or four hundred feet high, hold out great inducements for the operations of and three miles long, literally covered with a wool-growers. In short, the agriculturist can bright, shining ore, having every appearance of hardly go amiss, to whatever he turns his attenmetal which has been smelted. At the base of tion. There is not, perhaps, so large a body of the mountain, the ore is in pieces of a pound rich land as in some other States, but there is so weight or more, and, as you approach the apex favorable an alternation of prairie and hilly counof the hill, the pieces increase in size, to thou-try, of meadow and woodland, that it is all rensands of tons weight, until they assume the ap- dered valuable. pearance of huge rocks, presenting to the astonished beholder a spectacle which cannot be described; and those large masses are of a quality surpassing any thing of the kind heretofore known

"Potosi is situate about the centre of the mineral region; and there are upward of seventyfive lead mines now open and actually occupied within sixteen miles of the town, at which are engaged about five hundred hands in mining, though a great number have gone from this county to Fever River, Merrimac, and other mines, within the last two years. It is impossible to enumerate all the mines in Washington, for the whole county is, as it were, one vast mine. The mineral obtained here by the first process of smelting produces from sixty-five to seventy per cent., and by the second process about fifteen, making, in all, about eighty-five per cent. of clear, good lead. These five hundred hands raise about five million pounds of lead annually, which, at twenty-ly five or thirty dollars per thousand pounds, is worth about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, making about three hundred dollars to the hand."

These are probably the richest beds of ore in the State, but new discoveries of them, or of indications of their presence, are every year made, in different places, and probably not one half of them are yet known.

The iron mines are, however, the most remarkable. Some of these are so rich and so unprecedented in their character, that the descriptions of them are almost incredible, and seem like fabulous stories. Washington, St. François, and Madison Counties, which are adjacent to each other, contain enough iron to supply the world, for ages to come.

The state is throughout well watered. Millsites and water-power are found almost wherever they are needed. The Missouri River passes through the richest agricultural portion of the