KANSAS AND THE COUNTRY BEYOND.

The same is true, I believe, of the Normal School, as I know it is
of the Agricultural College at Manhattan. There I saw young men
and young women reciting together in the same classes, and certainly
there appeared to be quite as much vigor of apprehension and under-
standing on the part of the latter as of the former. Towards each
other their deportment was that of well-trained brothers and sisters
in the home circle. Kansas is sufficiently civilized to mingle the sexes
in the higher schools without danger of folly or impropriety.

 

LETTER XV.— Return of the Pond Creek Party—The line to Denver—
Pine, Timber, and Coal— The Mountain Snows must be avoided —
The Route and Distance to New Mexico— Superiority of the more
Southern Route — Surveying Party.

St. Louis, June 29, 1867.

THE gentlemen who went on to Pond Creek from Fort Harker have
returned safe and well. John D. Perry, Esq., the President of the
Company, accompanied them. They all speak in glowing terms of
the interest of the trip and of the beauty of the country through which
they passed. The savages did not molest them. Gen. Hancock, with
a small military force, as I said before, accompanied them up. The
return trip was made in stage-coaches.

Pond Creek is within eight or ten miles of the western boundary of
the State of Kansas; yet for the entire distance from Fort Harker to
that place the prairies are clothed with luxuriant grass, and the soil
is rich and deep. Timber is scarce, but there seems to be no lack of
water. The soil is better than that I have already described between
Salina and Fort Harker, a deep brown sandy loam, well adapted to
the culture of both corn and wheat. All these gentlemen concur in
representing the country beyond Fort Harker as still better than that
over which we passed on this side of that point. They speak of the
prairies of the Buffalo grass region as exceediugly beautiful and pic-
turesque, and that the country is sure to settle up as fast as the rail-
road progresses.

At Fort Wallace the excursionists organized a meeting for the pur.
pose of giving expression to the effect which all that they had seen
and experienced had upon their minds. The resolutions adopted
strongly and earnestly commend this great enterprise to the favorable
consideration of Congress and the country, and urged its immediate
prosecution,

Pond Creek (Fort Wallace) is an important point on this line; for
there or in that vicinity it is that the line to New Mexico leaves the