persistent and united effort to achieve it. ConsequentlyKansas will undertake and successfully accomplish, the most weighty enterprizes in less time than it takes the. more sluggish and discordant clements of the older States. to arrive at a conclusion of what were best to do. Major W. F. Downs, the General Superintendent of the Central Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad, had provided for us. an extra train to take us to Waterville, the present terminus of the road, just one hundred miles west from here. We were accompanied by many of the principle citizens of Atchison, with whom we spent a most agreeable time going and returning.

For several miles the country is diversified by hill and dale; the hills rising but to a moderate height, and where. not occupied by farms, have a dense growth of young oak, hickory, walnut, and other trees indigenous to the West.. How the seeds from which they sprung got there, puzzles the citizens; for when the settlers first came these hills were covered with prairie grass with no sign of any other growth. I confess I cannot account for it, but it is an occurrence that happens everywhere; not only in Kansas, but in the West, wherever the fire is kept out of prairies contiguous to timber, a young forest growth immediately springs up. Many of the citzens of St. Genevieve, Missouri, recollect the time when the Illinois bottom opposite to their town, was a treeless prairie. Now it is a dense forest,, with sycamore, cottonwood, walnut, linden, pecan and oak trees from thirty to forty inches in diameter.

The first village, Farmington, is twelve and a half miles. west of Atchison. It is situated in a rich, undulating country, which is thickly settled, and well timbered. Three miles further is Monrovia on the south bank of Stranger Creek, surrounded by a rich country. It has a beautiful site, and is the oldest town on the road. Some three miles. farther is Effingham, a new and thriving village. I will here state that all the towns and villages along the road have good public school houses, and one or more churches..

The next town, one of the largest, is Muscoutah, handsomely located on the banks of the Grasshopper, which affords fine water-power. It is just on the edge of the Kickapoo Reserve, in one of the richest sections of the State. Senator Pomeroy lives here. He has a highly improved farm in the vicinity. Maj. Downs, the Superintendent of the railroad, also has a splendid farm near town. Both he and Mr. Pomeroy, have on their farms some of the best blooded stock in the State.

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Here we saw the Kickapoo chief Parthe, who was in 'town with his squaw and papoose. He brought the latter up to see the engine, but it became so frightened, as to scream and struggle, and he had hard work to hold it; but when the band struck up it became perfectly frantic. and his squaw were dressed in the costume of the whites. Poor fellow, he has since been murdered by a half breed. He was represented as a good man, had himself been naturalized, and was influencing his people to become both civilized and naturalized. At every session of the courts, from eight to fifteen, are invested with the rights, duties, privileges, franchises and responsibilities of American citizenship. They cultivate the soil to some extent, but are more generally engaged in stock raising. They have a system of public schools and good school houses, where all the children of the tribe are educated. They are entirely peaceable, and the whites deal honestly with them, and treat them with the greatest kindness.

Six miles beyond Muscoutah is Whiting; and five and a half miles beyond it is Netawaka, a prosperous town ofsix stores, two hotels; and a weekly paper, the Herald, is published here. Both these places are in the Kickapoo Reserve.

The next town is Wetmore, having four stores, a grain ware-house, etc., then comes Sherman, a railroad station at the fiftieth mile post from Atchison, surrounded by a most beautiful and rich agricultural country. Corning is a flourashing town seven miles farther West. Then comes Cen

tralia at the sixty-second mile post, one of the largest and most prosperous towns on the line. Vermillion comes next, and then Frankfort, a large and thriving town. The Vermillion river close by, affords fine water-power.

Next comes Barretts, a thriving village, having a saw milk and excellent water-power, with plenty of timber in the vicinity. Elizabeth, another village three miles beyond, has a fine quality of magnesian limestone for building purposes. The next is Irving, ninety miles from Atchison; it is a. most enterprising, prosperous town. A newspaper, the Recorder, is published here. Besides having the most commodious public school-house in Northern Kansas, it has the "Wetmore Institute," an excellent institution of learning. The town is situated just beyond the Big Blue.

Blue Rapids, five miles beyond, is a colonial settlement. from New York, about a year old. It has some seventyhouses, two stores, sawmill, hotel, etc. It has fine waterpower, and steps have been taken to make it available for manufacturing purposes. Waterville is situated at the present terminus of the railroad, one hundred miles west of Atchison. It is about five years old, has twenty stores, fourhotels, gristmill, wagon manufactory, etc. It is beautifully situated near grassy bluffs, some two miles south of the Little Blue, which here comes in from the northwest skirted by a. belt of timber. The citizens had prepared for us a sumptuous. banquet, to furnish which every zone and climate on the globe, were laid under contribution. It was surprising to see here, on the outskirts of civilization, whither the first waveof immigration had rolled only a few years previous, the luxuries of the Old and New World, and of both the Indies. brought together to furnish a banquet that the proudest princes cannot excel. After dinner was dispatched then came the speeches, which were fully equal to the best effort that such occasions call forth elsewhere. But this is not saying much however; for postprandium speeches every-where amongst us, show, that we as a nation are running more into gab than into thought.

After dinner we examined some beautiful blocks of magnesian limestone, and also an immense block of gypsum quarried out of the hills. Upon invitation we ascended the grassy bluff behind and south of the church. The sides,. though covered with grass, were stony, apparently for the most part fragmentary chert; and amongst the grass the beautiful rose colored flowers of the Sensitive Briar (Schrankia uncinata) and the no less beautiful and large purple blooms of the Penstemon grandiflorus. A splendid. carmine colored Phlox also abounded everywhere.

The soil on the top of the bluff is a deep rich loam, bear-ing a heavy crop of prairie grass. To the west, south and cast is a boundless prairie; while north, beyond the fine valley at your feet, through which runs the Little Blue,. the view is bounded by the timber belt along that stream.. In other directions no timber was visible, though it is said. to be abundant on a tributary of the Blue some ten miles: off to the southwest; and also beyond that in the valley of the Republican, and its affluents. There are a considerable number of new houses dotting the prairies surrounded by the newly broken sod. The bluffs are mere swells rising to moderate elevations, say none exceeding a height of fifty feet. Though sometimes pretty steep, they are smoothly rounded off, and covered by the luxuriant green prairie grass. In fact so artistically are they rounded and dressed, that they look like immense sodded bastions around a for-tification.

I will here state that the rural landscape along the entire route is not emotional as far as exciting the turbulent feelings of the wonderful and sublime are concerned; but on the contrary it inspires the quiet and soothing emotions of absolute peace, tranquility, contentment and repose. Looking at it until you imbibe its spirit, you think it almost an impossibility that men dwelling in such a quiet, peaceable Arcadia as this, would become, or ever could become ruffled, and show the stronger and rougher passions of the human heart.

Waterville is in the western part of Marshall county. Washington County lies west, and has already a considerable population, though all the settlements are of quite recent date. West of Washington is Republic county, crossed diagonally from its north-west to its south-east corner by the Republican river. This is, or was the western limits of settlement at the beginning of the present 'season. All these counties are bounded north by the state line, that is by Nebraska.

On board the cars again, we were soon on our way back, stopping at Blue Rapids, and paying a visit to the dam, constructed by the colonists across the Blue, just below the junction of the Little Blue, which has its sources to the north-west in Nebraska, and the Big Blue which heads north, also in Nebraska, near the Platte river. Blue Rapids is about a mile and a half from the railroad station. The citizens had come in wagons and other vehicles to convey us thither; but they had not calculated on quite so large a party, consequently all could not get accommodations, of which unfortunate class I happened to be one. Some however, walked; but as I thought a walk of three miles in such a sweltering day would not pay, I remained at the station. It was near sundown when the party returned. They found the citizens celebrating the completion of their iron bridge across the Blue on the abutments of the dam, by a pic-nic. The guests were invited to walk across by the colonists; on their return they were halted, a charge made along the whole line, (one dollar,) by an artist who had gone up on the train, and then photographed; a copy of which was to have been delivered to each, a condition that he has not yet been able to comply with.

These colonists have adopted the only plan of speedy success with such an enterprise, and at the same time avoiding the evils of non-employment, and consequent suffering and privation. They have selected as beautiful and as rich an agricultural location as there is in the West;