478 



NEVADA. 



and, except for its possible yield of tlie precious 

 metals, is not a desirable region. The whole 

 State has an altitude of 4,000 feet or more 

 above the sea-level, but most of it forms a part of 

 the great Utah Basin. Except the Virgin Kiver 

 and a few other inconsiderable streams in the 

 South, which flow into the Colorado and thus 

 into the Gulf of California, and some mere rivu- 

 lets which fall into the Owyhee in the north, 

 all the streams of the State fall into lakes or 

 sinks within the boundaries of the Basin. 

 Some of these are very remarkable Lake Mo- 

 no, one of them, fourteen miles long and nine 

 miles wide, is another Dead Sea, whose waters 

 are so acrid and nauseating as to be unfit for 

 drinking, and deadly to all animal life. None 

 but the strongest winds can move its heavy 

 waters, and it is surrounded by a region com- 

 pletely sterile and desolate. The Pyramid Lake, 

 so finely described by Fremont and afterward 

 by the explorers for a Pacific Eailroad site, 

 is also in the State. Large tracts of land in the 

 State are covered to a considerable depth with 

 a pure salt, and still larger ones with the alka- 

 line salts, so annoying and distressing to the 

 traveller. It has been ascertained however, 

 within the past year, that by irrigation, 

 whether from Artesian wells or from the 

 mountain-streams, these alkaline lands can 

 be made to produce excellent crops of wheat 

 and other grains. Hitherto not much atten- 

 tion has been paid to agriculture ; but much 

 of the land is well adapted to grazing, and the 

 nutritious bunch-grass will grow even where 

 the land seems most sterile. The valleys of the 

 streams are skirted with considerable quanti- 

 ties of valuable timber, and are very fertile. 

 Most of the fruits of the Eastern States do well, 

 especially in the river valleys. Though Nevada 

 can hardly become an exporter of agricultural 

 products to any great extent, it is not im- 

 probable that within a few years she may raise 

 a sufficiency for the supply of her own rap- 

 idly-increasing population. The climate of 

 Nevada is generally healthful, and is spe- 

 cially commended, for its dry and bracing prop- 

 erties, to invalids of consumptive tendencies. 

 The more mountainous sections are cold, and 

 snow lies long upon them, but for the most 

 part the winter is mild, and the summer not 

 so hot as in the same latitudes in California. 



During the year 1869 there were no 

 elections in the State either for Legislature, 

 State, or national officers. The Legislature, 

 which consisted, in the Senate, of 16 Republi- 

 cans and 3 Democrats, and in the House of 35 

 Republicans and 3 Democrats, met on the 

 first Monday in January, 1869. Its legislation 

 was not of special interest. The State debt 

 is about $390,000, and includes bonds issued 

 for the erection of a State Insane Asylum. 

 The Legislature ratified the fifteenth amend- 

 ment to the Constitution of the United States 

 on the 1st of March, 1869. 



For a new and sparsely-populated State, Ne- 

 vada has made very creditable provision for 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



education. Its public-school system is well 

 organized and very efficient. It has received 

 from the United States Government 3,661,680 

 acres of land for educational purposes, and 

 these are carefully husbanded and sold only to 

 actual settlers, on such terms as will eventu- 

 ally give her a very large school fund. 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. The first nominating 

 State conventions of the year were held in New 

 Hampshire. The Republican delegates from 

 various parts of the State assembled in re- 

 sponse to a call of the General Committee of 

 the party, in Concord, on the Yth of January. 

 The Governor of the State, Walter Harriman, 

 presided, and opened the convention with a 

 speech, in which he congratulated the party 

 for the triumphs of the past, and urged it to 

 earnest effort for the future. Onslow Stearns, 

 of Concord, was unanimously nominated for 

 Governor, and Mr. Samuel D. Quarles, of Os- 

 sipee, for Railroad Commissioner. Congres- 

 sional conventions were held the same day, and 

 Jacob H. Ela was nominated for representative 

 from the first district, Aaron F. Stevens from 

 the second district, and Jacob Benton from the 

 third. The State Republican Committee for 

 the year was organized by the choice of E. H. 

 Rollins as chairman, and Wyman Pattie, of 

 Enfield, as secretary. The platform of the 

 party, as adopted at the Concord Convention, 

 was contained in the following resolutions : 



Resolved, That the ^Republicans of New Hampshire, 

 through their delegates in convention assembled, 

 congratulate the loyal people of the country upon the 

 recent glorious triumpn of liberty, loyalty, ana peace, 

 in the election of Grant and Colfax. On the one side 

 stand arrayed those who had been in armed rebellion 

 against the Union, their Northern sympathizers, who, 

 as far as they dared, had promoted the rebellion, and 

 every man who wished to glorify the lost cause, to 

 force again into political power the worst enemies of 

 the country, and to revive anew the spirit of the re- 

 bellion and fan its flames into another civil war. On 

 the other side were marshalled all patriotic citizens, 

 who had sustained every measure designed to put 

 down the rebellion, and were determined that those 

 who had saved should control the nation, and thus 

 make another rebellion impossible. Nine-tenths of 

 the brave soldiers who fought under the stars and 

 stripes rallied under the Republican banner, and de- 

 clared that Union soldiers, and, not rebel leaders, 

 should stand foremost in the redeemed republic. By 

 the combined assaults of Union citizens and soldiers 

 the revolutionary platform of the New York Conven- 

 tion and all its supporters were defeated and utterly 

 destroyed ; and, as in Grant's triumph at Appomattox, 

 so, by his election as President, was achieved a vic- 

 tory of the Union, the Constitution, and American 

 liberty, over rebellion, oppression, and the worst 

 forms of despotism. 



EUWD&I That t the people expect and require, as 

 the result of the 'election, that a patriotic President 

 and a radical Congress shall put an end to the mur- 

 ders of Southern Unionists for no other offence than 

 that of being Eepublicans and laboring for General 

 Grant's election, and shall discover, arrest, and pun- 

 ish their murderers by military power, if necessary, 

 and that they shall maintain to the fullest extent the 

 right of suffrage to the loval black man, and continue 

 the disfranchisement of desperate and dangerous 

 rebels, and enact and enforce martial law throughout 

 the South until freedom of speech, of the press, and 

 of political action, shall be secured to every citizen, 



