of salt per day, and have a form of government similar to the Choctaws. Their dwellings are log, with frequently stone chimneys and plank floors, and furnished as well as those of settlers in the new countries; and they have good taverns for the accommodation of strangers. Their form of government is similar to the above, and their permanent school fund amounts to $200,000. In 1850, they had no less than twenty-two different schools, where over a thousand children were taught the common branches, including history. Of these, one hundred and twenty were orphans, who were boarded and clothed at the expense of the Orphan's Fund.

The Creeks number twenty-two thousand five hundred, including three hundred and ninety-three slaves; included with them are sixteen hundred Seminoles. In point of civilization and educational advantages, their situation is similar to the Choctaws and Cherokees, though their form of civil government is less perfect.

The Senecas, and Shawanees with them, number four hundred and sixty-one, and are, in a measure, civilized-speak good English, and live in as much comfort as the others spoken of. The other emigrated tribes, are the Pottawatomies; the Iowas; the Weas; the Piankashaws; the Peorias and Kaskaskias; the Ottawas; the Shawanees; the Delawares; the Kickapoos and the Wyandots; the Sacs and Foxes; none of which, with the exception of the first two named, number one thousand souls. They are all, however, more or less civilized, and receive the annuities from the general government.

It

There is scarcely anything the Indian tribes have to encounter so seriously fatal to their improvement as intemperance; of this they are conscious themselves, and most of the emigrant tribes have adopted measures for its prohibition with various degrees of success. Among the Choctaws a law was passed upon this subject, which was measurably successful; and the spirit which effected its passage was worthy of the most exalted state of civilization. scems that the tribe had generally become sensible of the pernicious influences of strong drink upon their prosperity, and had, in vain, attempted various plans for its suppression. At last, a council of the head men of the nation was convened, and they passed a law by acclamation, that each and any individual who should, henceforth, introduce ardent spirits into the nation, should be punished with a hundred lashes on his bare back. The council adjourned, but the members soon began to canvass among themselves the pernicious consequences which might result from the protracted use of whisky already in the shops, and therefore concluded the quicker it was drank up, the more promptly the evil would be over, so falling to, in less than two hours Bacchus never mustered a drunker troop than were these same temperance legislators. The consequences of their determination were of lasting importance to them. The law, with some slight improvements, has since been vigorously enforced.

There are about 22,000 Indians, of native tribes, who reside in the Indian Territory, and who receive annuities from the United States. They are the Pawnees, the Sioux, the Quapaws, the Kanzas, Ottoes, Omahoes, and the Ponsars. The Pawnees number 10,500, and the Osages, 5,500; the others are much less in number, and all are in a degraded condition.

These are the native and emigrant Indians within the Indian Territory, with their several conditions and circumstances briefly stated. It should be mentioned, however, that one or more of the emigrant tribes have a newspaper among them, and that interspersed through them are many devoted missionaries of different denominations, who, amid more or less of privation, are laboring with all zeal for the promotion of their temporal and spiritual

welfare.

The other Indians in the Great Prairie Wilderness, will be briefly noticed under two divisions-those living South, and those living North of the Great Platte River.

South of the Great Platte, are no tribes of note out of New Mexico, except the Camanches, who number about 20,000. They are a warlike tribe and unexcelled as horsemen. Like the Arabs of the desert they never reside but a few days in a place; but travel north with the buffalo in summer, and, when winter comes on, return with them to the plains of Texas.

North of the Great Platte or Nebraska River, are the remains. of fifteen or twenty tribes, who average about eight hundred each. The Sioux and the small-pox have thus reduced them. In the upper Mississippi country are the Sioux and Chippewas, both very powerful tribes.

Inhabiting the Rocky Mountains and vicinity are the Shoshonees or Snakes, the Arrapahoes, the Crows, and the Blackfeet. The two last named are very warlike. The Blackfeet, in 1828, numbered 15,000 souls, when, having stolen a blanket, that year, from the American Fur Company's steamboat on the Yellow Stone, one which had belonged to a man who had died of the small-pox on board, the infected article spread the disease among the whole tribe, and reduced their number to two-thirds.

They endeavored, for awhile, to bury the dead, but these were soon more numerous than the living. At last, those left alive fled to the mountains, mad with superstition and fear, where the pure air of the elevated vales restored the remainder of the tribe to health. But this infliction, which they believed to be an exhibition of the displeasure of the Great Spirit against them, has in nowise humanized their bloodthirsty nature.

In conclusion, we remark that none of the native tribes west of the Mississippi are as brave and warlike as those which inhabited the older States of the Union, as the Wyandots, the Shawanees, the Creeks, the Seminoles, the Cherokees, and the Iroquois. Nor, in general, do they burn their prisoners, or inflict upon them protracted tortures.

EFFECT OF SETTLEMENT ON THE CLIMATE OF THE WEST.

GREAT changes have taken place in the system of weather since the settlement of the western country, yet those changes have been so gradual, that it is no very easy task to recollect or describe them. At the first settlement of the country, the summers were much cooler than they are at present. For many years a single warm night rarely occurred during the whole summer. The evenings were cool, and the mornings frequently uncomfortably cold. The coldness of the nights was owing to the deep shade of the lofty forest trees, which everywhere covered the ground. In addition to this, the surface of the earth was still further shaded by large crops of wild grass and weeds, which prevented it from becoming heated by the rays of the sun during the day. At sundown the air began to become damp and cool, and continued to increase in coldness, until warmed by the sunshine of the succeeding day. This wild herbage afforded pasture for the cattle and horses, from spring until the onset of winter. To enable the owner to find his beasts, the leader of each flock of cattle, horses, and sheep, was furnished with a bell suspended to the neck by a leathern or iron collar. Bells, therefore, constituted a considerable article of traffic in early times.

One distressing circumstance resulted from the wild herbage of the wilderness. It produced innumerable swarms of gnats, musquitoes, and horse-flies. Those distressing insects gave such annoyance to man and beast, that they may be justly ranked among the early plagues of the country. During that part of the season in which they were prevalent, they made the cattle poor, and lessened the amount of their milk. In plowing, they were very distressing to the horses. It was customary to build large fires of old logs about the forts, the smoke of which kept the flies from the cattle, which soon learned to change their position, with every change of wind, so as to keep themselves constantly in the smoke.

The summers in early times were mostly very dry. The want of rain was compensated in some degree by heavy dews, which were then more common than of late, owing to the shaded situation of the earth, which prevented it from becoming either warm or dry by the rays of the sun, during even the warmest weather.

Frost and snow set in much earlier in former times than of late. Hunting snows usually commenced about the middle of October. November was regarded as a winter month, as the winter frequently set in with severity during that month, and sometimes at an early period of it. For a long time after the settlement of the country there was an abundance of snow, in comparison to the amount we usually have now. It was no unusual thing to have snows from one to three feet in depth, and of long continuance, in the Valley of the Ohio. The depth of the snows, the extreme cold and length of the winters, were indeed distressing to

the first settlers, who were but poorly provided with clothing, and whose cabins were mostly very open and uncomfortable. Getting wood, making fires, feeding the stock, and going to mill were conconsidered sufficient employment for any family, and truly those labors left them little time for anything else.

The springs were formerly somewhat colder, and accompanied with more snow than they are now, but the change in these respects is no way favorable to vegetation, as the latest springs are uniformly followed by the most fruitful seasons. It is a law of the vegetable world that the longer the vegetative principle is delayed, the more rapid when put in motion. Hence those northern countries which have but a short summer and no spring, are among the most fruitful countries in the world. In Russia, Sweden, and Denmark the transition from winter to summer occupies but a very few days; yet a failure of a crop in those countries is but a rare occurrence: while in these latitudes, vegetation prematurely put in motion, and then often checked "by the lagging rear of winter's frost," frequently fails of attaining its ultimate perfection.

From this history of the system of the weather of early times, it appears that the seasons have already undergone great and important changes. The summers are much warmer, the falls much milder and longer, and the winters shorter, by at least one month, and accompanied with much less snow and cold than formerly. What causes have effected these changes in the system of weather, and what may we reasonably suppose will be the ultimate extent of this revolution, already so apparent ?

In all countries, the population of a desert by a civilized and agricultural people, has had a great effect on its climate. Italy, which is now a warm country, with very mild winters, was in the time of Horace and Virgil, as cold and as subject to deep snows as the western country was at its first settlement. Philosophy has attributed the change of the seasons in that country, to the clearing of its own forests, together with those of France to the north, and those of Germany to the east and north of Italy. The same cause has produced the same effect in our country. Every acre of cultivated land must increase the heat of our summers, by augmenting the extent of the surface of the ground denuded of its timber, so as to be acted upon, and heated by the rays of the sun.

The future prospect of the weather, throughout the whole extent of the western country, is not very flattering. The thermometer in the hottest parts of the summer months already ranges from ninety to one hundred degrees. A frightful degree of heat for a country as yet but partially cleared of its native timber! When we consider the great extent of the Valley of the Mississippi, so remote from any sea to furnish its cooling breezes, without mountains to collect the vapors, augment and diversify the winds, and watered only by a few rivers, which in the summer time are diminshed to a small amount of water, we have every data for the unpleasant conclusion that the climate of the western regions will

ultimately become intensely hot and subject to distressing calms and droughts of long continuance.

Already we begin to feel the effects of the increase of the heat of summer in the noxious effluvia of the stagnant water of the ponds and low grounds along the rivers. These fruitful sources of pestilential exhalations have converted large tracts of country into regions of sickness and death; while the excessive heat and dryness of the settlements remote from the larger watercourses, have been visited by endemic dysenteries in their most mortal states. Thus the most fortunate regions of the earth have their drawbacks from their advantages which serve, in some degree, to balance the condition of their inhabitants with that of the people of countries less gifted by nature in point of soil, climate, and situation.

The conflict for equilibrium between the rarified air of the South and the dense atmosphere of the North, will continue forever the changeable state of weather in this country, as there is no mountainous barrier between us and the northern regions of our continent.