10 GENERAL VIEW OF THE GEOGRAPHY. 



coasts of America since the beginning of the present century ; but no 

 evidence or strong ground of supposition of such admixture has been 

 discovered in the appearance of any part of the population of those 

 coasts. 



The settlements of civilized nations in the Pacific section of North 

 America are inconsiderable in extent. Those of the Russians are scat- 

 tered along the coasts and islands north of the latitude of 54 degrees 40 

 minutes; they are all under the direction of the Russian American 

 Trading Company, and are devoted entirely to the collection of the 

 furs and skins of the land and sea animals abounding in that quarter, of 

 which large quantities are transported for sale to Asia and Europe. Those 

 of the British and of citizens of the United States are intermingled 

 throughout the regions south and east of the Russian territory, to Cali- 

 fornia ; the British, in general, occupying the parts north, and the 

 Americans those south, of the Columbia River, which enters the Pacific 

 near the 46th degree of latitude. The people of both the last-mentioned 

 nations have hitherto, likewise, been employed principally in the fur trade ; 

 but, that business having become less profitable of late years, from the 

 diminution of the animals, agricultural establishments have been formed, 

 especially by the citizens of the United States, in the vicinity of the 

 Columbia. The British are all under the control of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, which possesses, in virtue of a royal grant, the privilege, in 

 exclusion of other British subjects, of trading in all the Indian countries 

 of North America belonging to, or claimed by, that power ; and they 

 are protected and restrained by British laws, under an act of Parliament 

 extending the jurisdiction of the Canada courts over those countries, so 

 far as relates to subjects of that nation. The citizens of the United States, 

 on the contrary, are deprived of all protection, and are independent of 

 all control; as they are not subject to British laws, and their own govern- 

 ment exercises no authority whatsoever over any part of America west of 

 the Rocky Mountains. In California, south of the 38th degree of lati- 

 tude, are many colonies, garrisons, and missionary stations, founded by 

 the Spaniards during the last century, and now maintained by the Mexi- 

 cans, who succeeded to the rights of Spain in 1821. They are all situ- 

 ated in the immediate vicinity of the coasts, the interior regions being, as 

 yet, almost unknown. It is worthy of remark, that California, though 

 thinly inhabited by a wretched, indolent population, is the only part of 

 the Pacific section of North America which can be considered as regularly 

 settled, — which possesses an organized civil and social system, and where 

 individuals hold a property in the soil secured to them by law. 



Each of these four nations claims the exclusive possession of a portion 

 of the territory on the Pacific side of America, north of the Californian 

 Gulf; and each of them is a party to some treaty with another, for the 

 temporary use, or definitive sovereignty, of such portion. Thus it has 

 been agreed, by treaty, in 1819, between the United States and Spain, — 

 renewed, in 1828, between the United States and Mexico, — that a line, 

 drawn from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, in the course of the 

 42d parallel of latitude, should separate the dominions of the former 

 power on the north from those of Mexico on the south. It was, in like 

 manner, agreed, in 1824, by convention between the United States and 

 Russia, that the former nation should make no establishments on the 

 coasts north of the parallel of 54 degrees 40 minutes, and that the latter 



