Part 31 (1/2)

Great Britain and the United States had jointly occupied Oregon for twenty years, under the agreement that the occupancy could be ended by either country under a year's notice to the other. Many angry debates took place in Congress over the question whether such notice should be given. The United States claimed a strip of territory reaching to Alaska, lat.i.tude 54 40', while Great Britain claimed the territory south of the line to the Columbia River. Congress as usual had plenty of wordy patriots who raised the cry of ”Fifty-four forty or fight,” and it was repeated throughout the country. Cooler and wiser counsels prevailed, each party yielded a part of its claims, and made a middle line the boundary. A minor dispute over the course of the boundary line after it reached the Pacific islets was amicably adjusted by another treaty in 1871.

STATES ADMITTED.

It has been stated that the bill for the admission of Iowa did not become operative until 1846. It was the fourth State formed from the Louisiana purchase, and was first settled by the French at Dubuque; but the post died, and no further settlements were made until the close of the Black Hawk War of 1832, after which the population increased with great rapidity.

Wisconsin was the last State formed from the old Northwest Territory. A few weak settlements were made by the French as early as 1668, but, as in the case of Iowa, its real settlement began after the Black Hawk War.

THE SMITHSONIAN INSt.i.tUTE.

James Smithson of England, when he died in 1829, bequeathed his large estate for the purpose of founding the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution at Was.h.i.+ngton ”for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” In 1838, his estate, amounting to more than half a million dollars, was secured by a government agent and deposited in the mint. John Quincy Adams prepared a plan of organization, which was adopted.

The Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, so named in honor of its founder, was placed under the immediate control of a board of regents, composed of the President, Vice-President, judges of the supreme court, and other princ.i.p.al officers of the government. It was provided that the entire sum, amounting with accrued interest to $625,000, should be loaned forever to the United States government at six per cent.; that from the proceeds, together with congressional appropriations and private gifts, proper buildings should be erected for containing a museum of natural history, a cabinet of minerals, a chemical laboratory, a gallery of art, and a library. The plan of organization was carried out, and Professor Joseph Henry of Princeton College, the real inventor of the electro-magnetic telegraph, was chosen secretary.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SMITHSONIAN INSt.i.tUTION.]

THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA.

For many years hardy hunters and trappers had penetrated the vast wilderness of the West and Northwest in their hunt for game and peltries. Some of these were in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company, whose grounds extended as far toward the Arctic Circle as the rugged men and toughened Indians could penetrate on their snowshoes.

At points hundreds of miles apart in the gloomy solitudes were erected trading posts to which the red men brought furs to exchange for trinkets, blankets, firearms, and firewater, and whither the white trappers made their way, after an absence of months in the dismal solitudes. Further south, among the rugged mountains and beside the almost unknown streams, other men set their traps for the beaver, fox, and various fur-bearing animals. Pa.s.sing the Rocky Mountains and Cascade Range they pursued their perilous avocation along the headwaters of the rivers flowing through California. They toiled amid the snows and storms of the Sierras, facing perils from the Indians, savage beasts, and the weather, for pay that often did not amount to the wages received by an ordinary day laborer.

Little did those men suspect they were walking, sleeping, and toiling over a treasure bed; that instead of tramping through snow and over ice and facing the arctic blasts and vengeful red men, if they had dug into the ground, they would have found wealth beyond estimate.

The priests lived in the adobe haciendas that the Spanish had erected centuries before, and, as they counted their beads and dozed in calm happiness, they became rich in flocks and the tributes received from the simple-minded red men. Sometimes they wondered in a mild way at the golden trinkets and ornaments brought in by the Indians and were puzzled to know where they came from, but it seemed never to have occurred to the good men that they could obtain the same precious metal by using the pick and shovel. The years came and pa.s.sed, and red men and white men continued to walk over California without dreaming of the immeasurable riches that had been nestling for ages under their feet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOLD WAs.h.i.+NG--THE SLUICE.]

One day in February, 1848, James W. Marshall, who had come to California from New Jersey some years before, and had been doing only moderately well with such odd jobs as he could pick up, was working with a companion at building a sawmill for Colonel John A. Sutter, who had immigrated to this country from Baden in 1834. Going westward, he founded a settlement on the present site of Sacramento in 1841. He built Fort Sutter on the Sacramento, where he was visited by Fremont on his exploring expedition in 1846.

Marshall and his companion were engaged in deepening the mill-race, the former being just in front of the other. Happening to look around, he asked:

”What is that s.h.i.+ning near your boot?”

His friend reached his hand down into the clear water and picked up a bright, yellow fragment and held it between his fingers.

”It is bra.s.s,” he said; ”but how bright it is!”

”It can't be bra.s.s,” replied Marshall, ”for there isn't a piece of bra.s.s within fifty miles of us.”

The other turned it over again and again in his hand, put it in his mouth and bit it, and then held it up once more to the light. Suddenly he exclaimed:

”I believe it's gold!”

”I wonder if that's possible,” said Marshall, beginning to think his companion was right; ”how can we find out?”

”My wife can tell; she has made some lye from wood-ashes and will test it.”