1820.] STERILITY OF THE CENTRAL REGIONS OF AMERICA. 323 



means sufficient, at not less than eight thousand five hundred feet 

 above the ocean level ; and then, striking the head-waters of the 

 Arkansas, which also flows from the same mountain, they de- 

 scended the valley of that river to its junction with the Mississippi. 

 Much information was obtained, through this expedition, respect- 

 ing the geography, natural history, and aboriginal inhabitants, of 

 the countries traversed, all of which was communicated to the 

 world in an exact and perspicuous narrative, published by Dr. 

 James in 1823. One most important fact, in a political point of 

 view, was completely established by the observations of the party ; 

 namely, that the whole division of North America, drained by the 

 Missouri and the Arkansas, and their tributaries, between the 

 meridian of the mouth of the Platte and the Rocky Mountains, is 

 almost entirely unfit for cultivation, and therefore uninhabitable by 

 a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence. The 

 portion of this territory within five hundred miles of the Rocky 

 Mountains, on the east, extending from the 39th to the 49th paral- 

 lels of latitude, was indeed found to be a desert of sand and 

 stones ; and subsequent observations have shown the adjoining 

 regions, to a great distance west of those mountains, to be still 

 more arid and sterile. These circumstances, as they became known 

 through the United States, rendered the people and their repre- 

 sentatives in the federal legislature more and more indifferent with 

 regard to the territories on the north-western side of the continent. 

 It became always difficult, and generally impossible, to engage the 

 attention of Congress to any matters connected with those countries : 

 emigrants from the populous states of the Union would not banish 

 themselves to the distant shores of the Pacific, whilst they could 

 obtain the best lands on the Mississippi and its branches at mod- 

 erate prices ; and capitalists would not vest their funds in establish- 

 ments for the administration and continued possession of which 

 they could have no guarantee. From 1813 until 1823, few, if 

 any, American citizens were employed in the countries west of the 

 Rocky Mountains ; and ten years more elapsed before any settle- 

 ment was formed, or even attempted, by them in that part of the 

 world. 



Changes were, about the same time, made in the system of the 

 British trade in the northern parts of America, which led to the 

 most important political and commercial results. 



Frequent allusions have been already made to the enmity subsist- 

 ing between the Hudson's Bay and the North-West Companies. 



