ters of the globe, traversed the most dangerous seas, surveyed the most impenetrable coasts, and encountered the vicissitudes of every climate with so little difficulty or loss.
The secretary also remarked on the immense treasures in natural science which the officers of the expedition had collected and transmitted to the government in such admirable order, and which now formed the basis of the museum of the national institute.
He commented, also, on Captain Wilkes' report upon the Oregon Territory, and declared that this report was alone an ample compensation to the country for the whole cost of the expedition. He expressed the opinion, in fine, that the results of the expedition were highly valuable and honorable, not to this country alone, but to the cause of civilization in the world.
[From the Tribune (New York), August 10, 1842.]
Correspondence from Washington.
Points of the treaty. * * * The boundary line agreed upon runs to the Rocky Mountains, and leaves unsettled the question of the Oregon Territory. There is nothing lost by this, for our emigrants are daily settling this question. We grow stronger there by time, and become nearer, too.
In the same paper of the same date as the above:
THE OREGON FUR TRADE.
This valuable traffic, which is at once the instrument of exploration and the nursery of seamen, was by the convention of 1818 suffered to be pursued promiscuously by British and Americans, and in consequence of that suicidal provision is fast being diverted from the latter to the former. Our exports of furs to Canton amounted in 1821, to $480,000; in 1832, to about $200,000, and in 1839, to $56,000, showing a gradual decrease between the years 1821 and 1839 of more than seveneighths, in the amount and value of this trade. A better practical commentary is not needed upon the effect of our legislation, and while Americans are thus annually withdrawing from this trade, Great
