Alexander the Great.' The sect was founded in 1827, by a shrewd young man named Joseph Smith, a native of central New York, who professed to have received a special revelation from Heaven, giving him knowledge of a book which had been buried many centuries before, in a hill near the village of Palmyra, whose leaves were of gold, upon which were engraved the records of the ancient people of America, and a new gospel for man. He found dupes, believers, and followers; and now [1856] there are Mormon missionaries in every quarter of the globe, and the communion numbers, probably, not less than two hundred thousand souls. There is about a sufficient number in Utah (60,000) to entitle them to a State constitution, and admission into the Union. Their permission of polygamy, or men having more than one wife, will be a serious bar to their admission, for Christianity and sound morality forbid the custom. The Mormons have poetically called their country Deseret -the land of the Honey Bee-but Congress has entitled it Utah, and by that name it must be known in history.

JOSEPH SMITH.

The country inhabited by the Mormons is one of the most remarkable on the face of the globe. It consists of a series of extensive valleys and rocky margins, spread out into an immense basin, surrounded by rugged mountains, out of which no waters flow. It is midway between the States on the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean, perfectly isolated from habitable regions, and embracing a domain covering sixteen degrees of longitude in the Utah latitude. On the cast are the sterile spurs of the Rocky Mountains, stretching down to the vast plains traversed by the Platte river; on the west, extending nearly a thousand miles toward the Pacific, are arid salt deserts, broken by barren mountains; and north and south are immense mountain districts. The valleys afford pe

The Mormon exodus was one of the most wonderful events on record, when considered in all its phases. In September, 1846, the last lingering Mormons at Nauvoo, Illinois, where they had built a splendid temple, were driven away at the point of the bayonet, by 1,600 troops. In February preceding, some sixteen hundred men, women, and children, fearful of the wrath of the people around them, had crossed the Mississippi on the ice, and traveling with ox-teams and on foot, they penetrated the wilderness to the Indian country, near Council Bluffs, on the Missouri. The remnant who started in autumn, many of whom were sick men, feeble women, and delicate girls, were compelled to traverse the same dreary region. The united host, under the guidance of Brigham Young, who is yet their temporal and spiritual leader, halted on the broad prairies of Missouri the following summer, turned up the virgin soil, and planted. Here leaving a few to cultivate and gather for wanderers who might come after them, the host moved on, making the wilderness vocal with preaching and singing. Order marked every step of their progress, for the voice of Young, whom they regarded as a seer, was to them as the voice of God. On they went, forming Taberna le Camps, or temporary resting-places in the wilderness. No obstacles impeded their progress. They forded swift-running streams, and bridged the deeper floods; crept up the great eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and from the lofty summits of the Wasatch range, they beheld, on the 20th of nly, 1847, the valley where they were to rest and build a city, and the placid waters of the Great Salt Lake, glittering in the beams of the setting sun. To those weary wanderers, this moutain top was a Pisgah. From it they saw the Promised Land-to them a scene of wondrous interest. Westward, lofty peaks, bathed in purple air, pierced the sky; and as far as the eye could reach. north and south, stretched the fertile Valley of Promise, and here and there the vapors of let springs, gushing from rocky coverts, curled above the hills, like smoke from the hearth-fires of home. The Pilgrims entered the valley on the 21st of July, and on the 24th the President and High Council arrived. There they planted a city, the Jerusalem-the Holy City-of the Mormon peopl

rennial pasturage, and the soil is exceedingly fertile. Wild game abounds in the mountains; the streams are filled with excellent fish; the climate is delightful at all seasons of the year; and "breathing is a real luxury." Southward, over the rim of the great basin, is a fine cotton-growing region, into which the Mormons are penetrating. The vast hills and mountain slopes present the finest pasturage in the world for sheep, alpacas, and goats. The water-power of the whole region is immense. Iron mines everywhere abound, and in the Green river basin, there are inexhaustible beds of coal. In these great natural resources and defenses, possessed by a people of such indomitable energy and perseverance as the Mormons, we see the vital elements of a powerful mountain nation in the heart of our continent, and in the direct pathway from the Atlantic to the Pacific States, that may yet play a most important part, for good or evil, in the destinies of our country and of the world.

The most important measures adopted during the early part of Fillmore's administration, was the Compromise act, already considered.' During his official career, the President firmly supported all the requirements of the act, and his judicious and conservative course kept the waters of public opinion comparatively calm, notwithstanding the workings of the Fugitive Slave Law frequently produced much local excitement, where it happened to be executed, or, as was frequently the case, resisted. At the close of his administration, in the spring of 1853, there was very little disquietude in the public mind on the subject of slavery.

In the spring of 1851, Congress made important changes in the general post-office laws, chiefly in the reduction of letter postage, fixing the rate upon a letter weighing not more than half an ounce, and pre-paid, at three cents, to any part of the United States, excepting California and the Pacific Territories. This measure was a salutary one, and has been productive of much social and commercial advantage, for interchanges of thought are proportionately more frequent than before, and friendly intercourse and business transactions by letters are far more extensive. At the same time, electro-magnetic telegraphing had become quite perfect; and by means of the subtle agency of electricity, communications were speeding over thousands of miles of iron wire, with the rapidity of lightning. The establishment of this instantaneous communication between distant points is one of the most important achievements of this age of invention and discovery; and the names of Fulton and Morse' will be

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PROFESSOR MORSE.

In 1832, Professor Samuel F. B. Morse had his attention directed to the experiments of Franklin upon a wire of a few miles in length, on the banks of the Schuylkill, in which the velocity of electricity was found to be so inappreciable that it was supposed to be instantaneous. Professor Morse, pondering upon this subject, suggested that electricity might be made the means of recording characters as signs of intelligence at a distance; and in the autumn of 1832 he constructed a portion of the instrumentalities for that purpose. In 1835 he showed the first complete instrument for telegraphic recording, at the New York city University. In 1837 he com

forever indissolubly connected in the commercial and social history of our Republic.

During the summer of 1851, there was again considerable excitement produced throughout the country because other concerted movements were made at different points, in the organization of a military force for the purpose of invading Cuba. The vigilance of the government of the United States was awakened, and orders were given to Federal marshals to seize suspected men, vessels, and munitions of war. The steamboat Cleopatra was seized at New York; and several gentlemen, of the highest respectability, were arrested on a charge of a violation of existing neutrality laws. In the mean while, the greatest excitement prevailed in Cuba, and forty thousand Spanish troops were concentrated there, while a considerable naval force watched and guarded the coasts. These hinderances caused the dispersion of the armed bands who were preparing to invade Cuba, and quiet was restored for awhile. But in July, the excitement was renewed. General Lopez' made a speech to a large crowd in New Orleans, in favor of an invading expedition. Soon afterward [August, 1851], he sailed from that port with about four hundred and eighty followers, and landed [August 11] on the northern coast of Cuba. There he left Colonel Crittenden," of Kentucky, with one hundred men, and proceeded toward the interior. Crittenden and his party were captured, carried to Havana, and on the 16th were shot. Lopez was attacked on the 13th, and his little army dispersed. He had been greatly deceived. There yet appeared no signs of revolution in Cuba, and he became a fugitive. He was arrested on the 28th, with six of his followers, taken to Havana, and on the 1st of September was executed. Since that event no successful effort to organize an invading expedition has been made. notwithstanding there is still [1856] a strong feeling in some sections favorable to it.

pleted a more perfect machinery. In 1838 he submitted the matter and the telegraphic instruments to Congress, asking their aid to construct a line of sufficient length "to test its practicability and utility." The committee to whom the subject was referred, reported favorably, and proposed an appropriation of $30,000 to construct the first line. The appropriation, however, was not made until the 3d of March, 1843. The posts for supporting the wires were erected between Washington and Baltimore, a distance of forty miles. In the spring of 1844 the line was completed, and the proceedings of the Democratic convention, then sitting in Baltimore, which nominated James K. Polk for the Presidency of the United States, was the first use, for public purposes, ever made by the telegraph, whose wires now [1856] extend a distance of almost fifty thousand miles in the United States and Canadas. Professor Morse's system of Recording Telegraphs is adopted gener ally on the continent of Europe, and has been selected by the government of Australia for the telegraphic systems of that country. A very ingenious machine for recording telegraphic communica tions with printing types, so as to avoid the necessity of copying, was constructed, a few years ago, by House, and is now extensively used. Professor Morse is the eldest son of Rev. Jedediah Morse, the first American geographer. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1791, and was graduated at Yale College in 1810. He studied painting, in England, and was very successful. He was one of the founders of the National Academy of Design in New York, and he was the first to deliver a course of lectures upon art, in America. He became a professor in the University of the city of New York, and there perfected his magnetic telegraph. Mr. Morse now [1856] resides on his beautiful estate of Locust Grove, near Po'keepsie, New York. He has received many testimonials of appreciation from eminent individuals and societies abroad; and in the summer of 1856 he departed for Russia, having received an invitation from the Emperor Alexander to be present at his coronation. He returned at the close of October. 2 Page 502.

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3 William L. Crittenden. He had been a second lieutenant in the United States infantry, by brevet, but resigned in 1849.