1850 TO 1865 475 
and next, and you will yourselves settle many questions of geo- 
graphical distribution, of breeding habits, etc., and will I trust furnish 
many an interesting page of notes. I reckon finally it will be rather 
a report of the officers of Mackenzie River District than mine. 
I have had all your notes copied off, and what you say of each 
specimen will be printed over your names. This will make the book 
very thorough and reliable. 
I suppose you read no end of croaking over our supposed down- 
fall in the English papers. We are carrying on a horrible war, but 
it is necessary. . . . In any event there will be no compromise. 
It is now fully determined that henceforth forever there shall be no 
slavery in the United States, and that the government never yields 
an inch of its territory to another. 
When this war is ended we will probably have one with France 
about her occupation of Mexico. 
If you read yarns about our supposed downfall let me call your 
attention to our daily increasing prosperity and the gigantic projects 
afoot here. We are building a railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
a ship canal from the waters of the Great Lakes to those of the Mis- 
sissippi, and some enterprising yankees have a grant from the Russian 
and British governments to make a telegraph line from European 
Russia by Bering Straits and through British Columbia to the United 
States. 
By the way, this latter will interest you perhaps, for it is thought 
that perhaps the line will be built along the Yukon river in Russian 
America. 
The parties interested came to me for information, but as I don’t 
know that the Hudson Bay Co. cares to have such an exploration of 
their territory made as would result, I was ‘‘extremely ignorant of 
the country”? and shall continue to be so unless I learn that the 
company wishes it to go through. 
Should the company choose they could doubtless build the line 
from the U. S. to Russian America at less expense than the telegraph 
company. Should the thing go off this seems the better course. 
If the H. B. Co. doesn’t wish the line to run in the interior, it 
will follow the coast down by Sitka. Even this, however, would 
necessitate stations within some 15 days’ march of the Yukon so that 
Jones could get news from home some five or ten minutes after date! 
