him immediately, put him in at least a fit place--in the leaves of a large book, among the flowers we had collected on our way. The barometer stood at 18.293, the attached thermometer at 44°; giving for the elevation of this summit 13,570 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, which may be called the highest flight of the bee. It is certainly the highest known flight of that insect.

On one side we overlooked innumerable lakes and streams, the spring of the Colorado of the Gulf of California; and on the other was the Wind River valley, where were the heads of the Yellowstone branch of the Missouri; far to the north, we just could discover the snowy heads of the Trois Tetons, where were the source of the Missouri and Columbia rivers; and at the southern extremity of the ridge, the peaks were plainly visible, among which were some of the springs of the Nebraska or Platte river. Around us, the whole scene had one main striking feature, which was that of terrible convulsion. Parallel to its length the ridge was split into chasms and fissures; between which rose the thin lofty walls, terminated with slender minarets and columns. According to the barometer, the little crest of the wall on which we stood was three thousand five hundred and seventy feet above that place, and two thousand seven hundred and eighty above the little lakes at the bottom, immediately at our feet. Our camp at the Two Hills (an astronomical station) bore south 3 deg. east, which, with a bearing afterwards obtained from a fixed position, enabled us to locate the peak. The bearing of the Trois Tetons was north 50 deg. west, and the direction of the central ridge of the Wind River mountains south 39 deg. east. Having now made what observations our means afforded, we proceeded to descend. We had accomplished an object of laudable ambition, and beyond the strict order of our instructions. We had climbed the loftiest peak of the Rocky Mountains, and looked down upon the snow a thousand feet below, and, standing where never human foot had stood before, felt the exultation of first explorers. It was about two o'clock when we left the summit; and when we reached the bottom, the sun had already sunk behind the wall and the day was drawing to a close. It would have been

pleasant to have lingered here and on the summit longer; but we hurried away as rapidly as the ground would permit, for it was an object to regain our party as soon as possible, not knowing what accident the next hour might bring forth.

"We reached our deposit of provisions at nightfall. Here was not the inn which awaits the tired traveller on his return from Mont Blanc, or the orange groves of South America, with their refreshing juices and soft fragrant air; but we found our little cache of dried meat and coffee undisturbed. Though the moon was bright, the road was full of precipices, and the fatigue of the day had been great. We, therefore, abandoned the idea of rejoining our friends, and lay down on the rock, and in spite of the cold, slept soundly."

The main object of the expedition was now accomplished. On the 17th of August, they turned their faces homeward; and on the 17th of October, they were at St. Louis. Of Colonel Fremont's attempted visit to Goat Island, we cannot give even a condensed account; and can only add that it was as full of perils and hair-brealth escapes as any similar undertaking upon record!

CHAPTER V.

SECOND EXPEDITION.

IN our last chapter, we followed Mr. Fremont to the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and there we beheld him open to the breeze the flag of his native country. We accompanied him in his descent to St. Louis, and, finally, to Washington, where he placed his report in the hands of the War Department. What his feelings of joy were, when, standing upon that icy pinnacle, his imagination penetrated into the future, and surveyed the streams of civilization passing and repassing down the slopes and flowery valleys that lead to the Pacific Ocean, and away, away over the vast space that divided him

from the ship-dotted bays of the Atlantic cities; all uniting beneath, and deriving protection and freedom from that flag under whose folds he stood !—we are not told. But let the reader consider himself, for a moment, in the position of that young and gallant explorer, who was the first to sever the gordian knot of supposed overland impossibilities, that had hitherto divided both seas, and say what would have been his own emotions under such circumstances.

A portion of the great work, however, was only accomplished. The report of his first expedition was dated March 1st, 1843. On the 17th day of May, in the same year, he departed upon the second. What the object of this expedition was, and the nature of the instructions which he had received, may be gleaned from the report made by him in 1845, to Col. Abert:

"SIR:-In pursuance of your instructions to connect the reconnaissance of 1842, which I had the honor to conduct, with the surveys of Commander Wilkes on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, so as to give a connected survey of the interior of our continent, I proceeded to the Great West early in the spring of 1843, and arrived on the 17th of May, at the little town of Kansas, on the Missouri frontier, near the junction of the Kansas river, with the Missouri river, where I was detained near two weeks in completing the necessary preparations for the extended explorations which my instructions contemplated.

"My party consisted principally of Creole and Canadian French, and Americans, amounting in all to thirtynine men, among whom you will recognize several of those who were with me in my first expedition, and who have been favorably brought to your notice in a former report. Mr. Thomas Fitzpatrick, whom many years of hardship and exposure, in the western territories, had rendered familiar with a portion of the country it was designed to explore, had been selected as our guide; and Mr. Charles Preuss, who had been my assistant in a previous journey, was again associated with me in the same capacity, on the present expedition."

Having then set forth the respective names of the men composing his party, and recounting the scientific instruments with which he was provided, he proceeds:

"To make the exploration as useful as possible, I determined, in conformity to your general instructions, to vary the route to the Rocky Mountains from that followed in the year 1842. The route was then up the valley of the Great Platte river to the South Pass, in north lat. 42 deg.; the route now determined on was up the valley of the Kansas river, and to the head of the Arkansas river, and to some pass in the mountains, if any could be found, at the sources of that river.

"By making this deviation from the former route, the problem of a new road to Oregon and California, in a climate more genial, might be solved; and a better knowledge obtained of an important river, and the country it drained, while the great object of the expedition would find its point of commencement at the termination of the former, which was at that great gate in the ridge of the Rocky Mountains called the South Pass, and on the lofty peak of the mountain which overlooks it, deemed the highest peak in the ridge, and from the opposite sides of which four great rivers take their rise, and flow to the Pacific or the Mississippi."

It is an historical fact but recently developed, that, although it availed itself of the honors accruing from this expedition of Col. Fremont, the government not only denied him all encouragement, but threw every imaginable obstacle in his way, calculated to dampen his ardor and thwart his purposes. Indeed-as will appear from the following forcible and graphic passage, which we give from Benton's Thirty Years' View in the United States Senate-it is only to the address, singular boldness, and accomplishments, of Mrs. Fremont, that the nation is indebted for the glorious results of her husband's second expedition.

"The government," says Mr. Benton, " deserves credit for the zeal with which it has pursued geographical discovery.' Such is a remark which a leading paper

made upon the discoveries of Fremont, on his return from his second expedition to the Great West; and such is the remark which writers will make upon all his discoveries who write history from public documents and outside views. With all such writers, the expeditions of Fremont will be credited to the zeal of the government for the promotion of science; as if the government under which he acted had conceived and planned these expeditions, as Mr. Jefferson did that of Lewis and Clark, and then selected this young officer to carry into effect the instructions delivered to him. How far such history would be true in relation to the first expedition, which terminated in the Rocky Mountains, has been seen in the account which has been given of the origin of that undertaking, and which leaves the government innocent of its conception; and, therefore, not entitled to the credit of its authorship, but only to the merit of permitting it. In the second and greater expedition, from which great political as well as scientific results have flowed, their merit is still less; for, while equally innocent of its conception, they were not equally passive to its performance

countermanding the expedition after it had begun; and lavishing censure upon the adventurous young explorer for his manner of undertaking it. The fact was, that his first expedition barely finished, Mr. Fremont sought and obtained orders for a second one, and was on the frontier of Missouri with his command, when orders arrived at St. Louis, to stop him, n the ground that he had made a military equipment, which the peaceful nature of his geographical pursuit did not require! as if Indians did not kill and rob scientific men as well as others if not in a condition to defend themselves. The particular point of complaint was, that he had taken a small mountain howitzer, in addition to his rifles; and which, he was informed, was charged to him, although it had been furnished upon a regular requisition on the commandant of the arsenal at St. Louis, approved by the commander of the military department (Colonel, afterwards General Kearney). Mr. Fremont had left St. Louis, and was at the frontier, Mrs. Fremont being requested to examine the letters that came after him, and forward those which he ought to receive.

She