MANHATTAN. 9

 

their destination, and the boat never returned. It was
kept for a dwelling place until provision could be
made for the families on shore, but before they left
the boat, and before a single dwelling place had been
erected, the spot for a school-house was selected, and
measures taken for its being built, so that they might
have at once a school for their children and a place
of worship for all. The steamer afterwards caught
fire and was burned, but I was shown the school-
house, where the bell that calls the scholars to their
duties is the identical bell of the boat that landed their
fathers at that point.

Manhattan is chiefly noted for its educational facil-
ities, having, in addition to its primary and high schools,
the Kansas State Agricultural College. This {magnifi-
cent institution has four hundred and fifteen acres under
fence and cultivation, upwards of two thousand apple
and peach trees, forty thousand trees in the nursery,
three acres of vineyard, a splendid geological and
mineralogical cabinet, and a library containing three
thousand volumes.

Some idea may be formed of the wonderful adap-
tation of the profile of the surrounding country for
agricultural and bucolical enterprises, by looking at
the picture on page 8, showing the course of the
Kansas river, as it flows east from Manhattan, the
course of the river being marked by the belt of timber
traversing the upper part of the landscape.

The cut on page 10 gives some idea of the first-
class character of the bridges which span the rivers