The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-24 00:00:00

BRITISH EMIGRATION TO AMERICA.

No. VII.—KANSAS.
(Fromi the Anglo-American Tinzes)
Kansas made history before a single settler was
located on its soil ; the battle with the Indian of
those forcing their way to Sante Fe, to Utah, and
to San Francisco—lands then so wholly unknown
to the world as to be styled the great American
desert—being but the prelude of the fight between
the slaveholder and the Free-soiler, which in it-
self was but the prelude to the great civil war.
From 1851, when the towns of Atchison and Lea-
venworth were founded till the entrance into the
Union of Kansas as a State, Jan. 29, 1861, it was
the scene of a ceaseless struggle. Actions were
fought on a small scale as during the rebellion on
a large ; towns were captured, prisoners made and
men executed, as if Missouri and the Kansas set-
tlers from New England had declared war, and

were engaged in a recognized strife. From these
events the State derived its prefix of 44 Bleeding,"
and it was amidst such scenes that John Brown
imbibed the fanaticism which eventually bore such
fatal fruits for him at HArper's Ferry. He had
captured in a fair fight Captain Clay Pate's com-
mand, horse, foot, and baggage, with all the spoils
of the Free-soil city of Palmyra, just plun-
dered by the Virginian leader, and perhaps Brown
could not appreciate the sin of seizing on a Southern
arsenal in the Free-soil interest, when he had lately
seen the settlements of Kansas remorselessly plun-
dered and burnt by the slaveholders. The area of
over 52,000,000 acres occupies the western slope
of the Missouri Valley, half way up the Eastern
Cordilleras, and stands at a considerable elevation.

It is the most perfect Prairie State of the Union,
being emphatically the land of the buffalo. In the
old maps it was represented by a buffalo, Nebraska
by an antelope, a bear for Utah, and a beaver for

lowa. It stretches from east to west from 344 to

408 miles, the irregularity being due to the course
of the Missouri, its eastern boundary, but its breadth
is uniform, 208 miles; Nebraska runs to the North,
the Indian Territory to the South, and Colorado

to the West. The whole is undulating, without
mountains or swamp, for it is so perfectly drained
that there is not a pond, the country rising from the
Missouri to the Rocky Mountains in a series of
ascending billows of easy, graceful, but enormous
sweep. The Eastern half is well wooded with
sycamore, ash, oak, hickory, walnut, hackberry,
sugar-maple, sumac, and willow, equal to any home
demand, but insufficient for the export of lumber.
The extreme western portion forms part of a sterile
belt running from the 47th parallel to New Mexico,
but between that and the more timbered liltst the
prairies are beautifully grassed and flowered, more
level, the undulations being more gradual. The land
is well irrigated, fine rivers flowing to the Missouri
or emptying into the Kansas. As the woods line
the streams some of the valleys are pictures of
beauty, with tall, graceful trees, and springs of pure
cold water gushing from the rocks. The bluffs ap-
pear like terraces, the one rising over the other
as if formed by the hand of man, attaining i❑
places to summits which, seen from a distance, look
like rising grounds crowned with forts. The soil is

everywhere of a rich heavy loam, divided into two
classes, the one the alluvial of the rivers and strips
of timber, often four to six feet in depth, of which
there are 10,000,000 acres, but for growing wheat
the other; the upland or rolling prairies are preferred.
There the soil averages two to three feet, with a sub-
soil of stiff clay, in localities mixed with gravel, lime
being an ingredient everywhere. The subterranean
stores of moisture are remarkable, producing abun-
dant and unfailing springs, and wells with a copious
supply of pure water, never deeper than 40 feet.
The climate is temperate and healthful, the air
being clear, dry, with gentle and healthful breezes.
So pure is the atmosphere that distant objects are
seen with the wonderful distinctness peculiar to the
wide territory westward of the Missouri. Spring
commences in February ; the winters are mild,
though snow covers the ground, yet the cattle feed
in the prairies and river bottoms. The grass is very
luxuriant and nutritious, growing in the ravines from
four to six feet, and yielding even on the parched
prairies two tons of hay per acre. Sixty to eighty
bushels of oats, thirty-five to forty-five of wheat,
were the average crops of 1866, but abundant m grain
growing as is the power of the soil, away to the
West there is a dreaded scourge. In seasons the land
is devastated by grasshoppers and locusts, a plague
which may disappear before cultivation. In 1860
the chief staples were Indian corn, hay, and
potatoes ; the horses had increased in seven
years since that census from 18,882 to 150,000;
mules, from 1,430 to 10,000 ; cattle, from 87,000
to 1,000,000 ; and sheep from 15,000 to 100,000 ;
the value of live stock having advanced from
$3,205,522 to $40,300,000. All other agricultural
product had risen in like proportion, and fruit and
garden crops even in a greater degree, the soil and
climate developing a capacity for such products, the
dry atmosphere imparting to the fruits juices of the
finest flavour. Among the advantages which so
adapt Kansas for stock rearing are the salt springs
abounding above Fort Riley, in the valleys of the
Republican, Solomon, and the Saline Forks. Into
these rivers salt is thrown in such quantities as to
affect the water, rendering it healthful and agree-
able to the flocks and herds, and as the climate is
mild and equable, Kansas will become with Texas
the greatest of the live-stock rearing States, indeed
Nature has clearly indicated this, as the Smoky Hill
country is the home, if not the paradise of the buf-
falo. "In lines, in companies, in droves, in armies,"
said Hepworth_ Dixon when crossing this State,
" the black and shaggy beasts go thundering in our
front, sometimes from north to south, sometimes
from south to north, but always scudding in our
front and always across our line of march. The
plains are teaming with life, most of all with buf-
falo, balls and cows. For forty hours we have now
always had them iu our sight—thousands on thou-
sands, tens of thousands after tens of thousands, a
countless host of untamed animals, all of them
fit for human food." This is undeniable proof of
what we assert, and is the reason why the Indians
have made their last great stand here to save -the
hunting grounds they value so much. Coal covers
an extensive region, the upper stratum cropping out
in the eastern and middle counties. Veins have been
worked, and the quality is found to be superior, the
supply abundant. Inexhaustible beds of gypsum, and
inferior iron ore have been discovered, aswell as pla-
tinum, sand rock, lime rock, and fine magnesian lime-
stone of beautiful colour. The manufactures in 1860
were represented by 334 establishments, with a
capital of $1,084,935, working raw materials to the
value of $1,444,975, at a cost of $880,346, yielding
$4,357,408, leaving a profit of $2,032,087, just 187
per cent. on the capital ! With such inducements
to manufacturers it will be readily believed that in-
dustrial interests since 1860 have rapidly increased.
Leavenworth, on the right bank of the Missouri, is
the largest town, containing over 40,000 inhabitants;
Lawrence, about 45 miles up the Kansas, is a beau-
tiful city, beautifully situate], of some 15,000 in-
habitants. It was founded by the Free-soilers in 1854,
and soon the hundred Yankees were attacked by the
sons of the South. But they held their settlement
through all vicissitudes, and it is now a charming
place, with the cleanliness, brightness, and order of
a New England town. Atchison, called after a
Senator of Missouri, has a population of 12,000, and
is the principal station for the trade to Salt Lake
City, California, and Santa Fe. Fort Scott has
some three or four thousand, and Topeka, the State
capital, on the right bank of Kansas, 25 miles above
Lawrence, contains about 5,000 inhabitants.
We have taken this S• ate as the centre of the
Union ; indeed some writers affirm that Fort Thley
or Junction City will one day be the capital of the
United States, so completely is that the central point
of the Continent. Kansas City is in lat. 39, long.
94 35 ; .to New York the distance by one route is
1,357, but another 1,389, and via Chicago and

New York State 1,470. To Philadelphia the
shortest way gives 1,282 miles. Galveston is, 13°N"
ever, the nearest seaport, the road being almost due
south, through a country of unsurpassed fertilityand beauty 600 miles. A railroad is projected, and
for a short distance finished to connect the Pot;
with this State, and another is now being discussed
in Congress to run the Union Pacific Kansas line
from Pond Creek Station by Albuquerque, crossing
the Colorado river at Arizona City, where it almosttouches the head of the Gulf of California on its way
to San Jose, a Californian port on the Pacific. All°;
ther proposal is to cross Arizona into California 0°,41
the parallel of Albuquerque, not far from Santa Cu'
crossing ,the Colorado at Fort Mohave, maintaining
the 35th parallel. The eastern division of the LiniO3
Pacific was commenced in 1863, and early last 5'84
there were about 350 miles completed. The advan-
tages this southern road would have over the ljni°ll
Pacific from Omaha are a milder climate, a
fertile and practicable country. Much of the regi
through which th trunk line to the Pacific pies
is sterile to the last degree, and perhaps liable t 0
be interrupted by snow-drifts, while the 1311 a
through which the other will pass is rich .0
soil and minerals, and the climate equable'
Till lately, Kansas was afflicted with a ter'
rible scourge—the Indians of the Plains. The S diets
and the Solomon valleys were the scenes of the late
outrages, which have now cost those tribes so dear'
Never before were the Indians pursued throng,;
a winter campaign, although it is at this sear
only that they furnish points for attack. At other
times the prairie feeds their cattle, and the buffalo,o
furnishes their larder. But they are compelled '
store as a provision for winter when these resources
,
are not open ; and the war now waged was direete;
against their supplies with so crushing an effect that
we will probably hear little of Indian depredations in
the future. The seasons are peculiar, the winters f
being dry, rain beginning towards the latter part,4°
March and continuing into June, falling in
showers, a drizzling day being unknown in Jana"'
At midsummer the sun is powerful, but the dri;
clear heat is mitigated by constant breezes, and th
weather is bright, warm, and dry till the rain again
begins, though in the months of January, February'
and part of March the winds are often high, thes
cold sharp and severe, more especially duritlit
"norther." In 1860 a drought was severely
by the farmers, but there has since been no recnio
rence of such a season. The most fertile tract
tbe
the Neosho Valley, the largest is that of fit
Kansas. Junction City is so situated as to beneas
by both these lovely territories, as it COmtnall
the more extensive valley of the Republican
river, being at the end of the one and the nc/T"„;
mencement of the other. In the State of Kansas „`'
osho valley extends about 200 miles, with a consluer,
able breadth, Humboldt, 100 miles south of is
rence, being its chief town, which is now flonrisbis
ins., though early burnt during the late war. rf.,st
Valley is held by good judges to be the best
wheat land in the United States. In 1866 jr. ice'
not far from Fort Riley, stored 820 bushels er
wheat, the produce of 16 acres, aril another fames,
in the same valley took 1,600 bushels from 40 aeres
This productiveness is attributable to the washings t
lis
of the immense deposits of gypsum existing at
tit.
head waters of the stream. There is an agticibe
tural college as well as a university in Kansas'it
first session of the latter being held in 1866•
er,
a handsome stone building on an eminence %cosi
looking the beautiful city of Lawrence. The seers
system is good, and in addition to free schools t"
are three academies and institutes, nine colleges'
with other seminaries. At the close of 1866 the
714,
State liabilities were. $660,8.96, resources $556: iron
leaving a deficit of $104,182. But there were cl3;h6
likely to be allowed for property destroyed b,Yo, to
Confederate General Price in 1864, amotintlit
half a million. The eastern portion of Kansafted
a favourite field for settlement in the Unite t
In 1866 immigration received a git:o,o
impetus, and the fine valleys to which we ont
alluded are now rapidly filling. In one of
tad
large articles on British emigration we alluded ,ll)sci
large colony of Swedes from Illinois, whothis
bought a tract in Kansas, on which to settle
il'
spring. The reason may not be obvious wills-rig.
lies should leave a rich and advanced State like -00
nois to settle in a new country, but it is the sade.
in the States as in England, only in a much less
the
gree. The Swedes could get for a very small sun./
uld all
choices:; land of Kansas, on which they co oig
settle in a body, while the choicest land of °Tao.
is already occupied; a few years in priority of se' toi
ment, making all the difference. The giss°oo
gives the State a water communication Wit'li
sea ; numerous lines of railway connect it „O h
the Atlantic ports ; it will soon have a d'rect e°
the
rnunication of its own with the Pacific, and
Union Pacific line by a branch of the real' 0,
forming to Denver, and it has the geographical f
e
vantage of being the centre of the Union' of
have selected these States to describe, not fromo
predilection for them, but simply because 00 for
est..
the most northern, most southern, most eastern, ws its
ern, and central States of the Republic. Each tO
marked characteristics ; and we would find t,".rtr
be the case if we went through the whole tuldis,
seven. It but remains for us now, however, t° fot
field
cuss the most eastern of the Union as a
British emigration, and that State, is Maine.

LAD VERTISEMENT.I-11olloway's Pills and o.ofm-- ,e4boOt/ur
Through these medicaments there is hope for all who are,—er
ing under disease, be its origin recent, remote, or altegetti I,ettig
known. Whatever their ailments none need despair evhf
cured till they have tried these inestimable remedies. It
the disease be internal or external, spontaneous, or the re;
violence, if a cure be possible, Holloway's medicatoeut to the
effect it. The severity or duration of the malady is no terratlaeor
successful influence exerted by these medicines, which es t
every organ of secretion healthy. These admirable anti heart
disease act immediately on the absorbent system, luag„3',.,e, and
and circulation, whereby they invariably give eners'Y, "
vigour to all the natural functions of life. Faters,4og
LADyERTISEMENT.]—Avoid Medicines: they always agg
;to.
. .

—.es: they
chronic complaints: but Du Barry's delicious health- ntirtso
Revalenta Arabica Food, which yields three times the„,reecti°j
ment of the best meat, saves 50 times its cost in other sou'i
and invariably restores perfect digestion, strong nervieuo%ttla
lungs, healthy liver, pure blood, refreshing &Leal, a
regularity, and energy to the most disordered or enfee" -rester:6,
extract a few out of 68,000 cures; " The Pope's health ~ 1,5
by Du Barry's Food. Cure No. 68,413. "Rome, JulYsj'y
siuea
—The health of the Holy Father is excellent, espee, it 00
abandoning all other remedies, he has confined hhuse',,`„us„-0
to Du Barry's Revalenta, Arabica Food, of which he '''br
a plateful at every meal. It has produced a surprisingos e%-1,4
flcial effect on his health, and his Holiness cannot praise 25 cet
lent food too highly." From the " Gazette du Midi, July .ry' h' us
No. 58,216, of the Marchioness do Brehan, of seven Yenero„j
complaint, wasting away, debility, nervousness, with :ess a 7.3
palpitation all over, bad digestion, constant sleepless 1; 'l,or?
the most intolerable nervous agitation.." Cure No• yo 0
Stuart de Decies, Lord Lieutenant of Waterford, of th5,,--v), fro,.
dyspepsia. No. 49,832: " Fifty years' indescribable 3rataleV,,,
dyspepsia, nervousness, asthma, cough, constipation, core
spasms, sickness, and vomiting.—Maria JolY." 30 ye..Lbo
46,270: Mr. James Roberts o; Frimley, Surrey, eat,
diseased lungs, spitting of blood, liver derangenle uolif
partial deafness. Important Caution.—Beware of ll,' withc'eci,
unsavoury and more than sloppy imitations to Will° ettalbs,
authority, Baron Liobig's name is most audaciouslfirs.. 12 co
In tins, at is. 140. ; 1 lb. 2s. od.; 2 lbs. 4s. 6d.; 5 Ms' To GS° 0
225. ; 4 lbs, 40s, --Also Du BARRY'S REVALENTA ARAB, 25., for 24
LATE PONVDER is packed in tin canisters; for 12 CUPS 576 c3s
cups at is. 60., for 48 cups at 33., for 288 cups at 305., 'or
fla 555. ;ice
at 55s.—being about one penny per cup. The 30s. a voet 01",
are sent free of carriage in England on reigeit ()f t`reet, 14°
Order. - BARRY DU BARRY and CO., No. 77,
don; and all Grocers and Chemists.

Births. if, 0f
BEECIIING —On the 22d inst , at Tunbridge/ the W
Arthur T. Beaching, Esq., a son. vort-
DASIIWOOD On the 23d inst., at 13, Granville_pia,ce, of it
'
man-square, the wife of G. L. Dashwood, -Esq."
daughter. ,01 06
EDMUNDS—On the 22d inst , at 32, Old Change/ "•
wife of Thomas W. Edmunds, of a daughter.

Marriages. roil%
WHISTLER—GREGORY.—On the 20th ins' at St' 'deo
ins'•, , ,Arti k
Islington, George Lambert, elder son of G. -Li." Jesidet3"
Esq., of Highbury-grove to Emma St. A.ubyn, rod,
daughter of Georgo B. Gie o • Esq•, of Clephan°- e
Canonbury. b g 'Y'
'-'1"
of
1 Isle ,
SMITH - TUCNEH—On the 18th inst , at Godsbn ,
upgesv
Wight, Alfre'l Smith, of Pear Tree,. to Nate, P'
daughter of Mr. John Tucker, of Bathingbourve•

Deaths.
CAMBFRS—On the 21st inst., at Surbiton, Frances'
of Mr. Henry Cambers, aged J 3.

Cl°-,alo

KINNEAR -On the 21st inst., at Great Yartnouu!l :-„it,
Kinnear, M.D., Deputy Inspector-General of -1u
and Fleets. 00'
T The
MONCRIEFF - On the 22d inst., at Edinburgb, -ill:, of 3
George Moncrieff (late Scots Fusilier Citlarusi'
L
Priory, St. Andrew's, N. 8., aged 63. la e
SAUNDERS —At Kensington, William Saunders,
v. a
of Fenchurch-street, aged 46. ,-.
SMITH— On the 2:3d inst., at
0i1,'7 an(3, liaton-square, iorres,
Smith, Esq., of Sel-d Surrey,l Beluga',
formerly M.P. for sigh Wycombe, aged 1

--------
nOssi
AND— rigt
London : Printed and P.blished by WILLIA-3. pt
of No. 112, Strand, Printer, at Tag SUN pale ossify
Strand, in the Precinct of the 8e voy, In the
MichihNioX.—Wednesday, FebtuarY 24, 1869.