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mineral region within the United States. This boundary lies to the south
of the old limits of New Mexico, and takes in a large region that has
always belonged to the State of Chihuahua.

We have accounts from Santa Fe to the 17th of February. The winter had
been unusually mild, and the prospects of the spring trade were very
favorable. The United States Marshal had completed the census of the
Territory. The total population is 61,574, of whom only 650 are
Americans. Of the Mexicans over 21 years of age, only one in 103 is able
to read. The number of square miles in the Territory is 199,027-1/2. The
depredations of the Indians are on the increase. The tribes have become
bolder than ever, and the amount of stock driven off by them, is
enormous. Great preparations are making at Fort Laramie, on the Platte,
and all the other stations on the overland route, to accommodate the
summer emigration. A substantial bridge has been built over the North
Fork of the Platte, 100 miles above Fort Laramie. Here, also,
blacksmith's shops have been erected to accommodate those who need
repairs to their wagons.

Two mails and about $3,000,000 in gold dust have arrived from California
during the past month. The accounts from San Francisco are to the 5th of
March. The Joint Convention of the Legislature, which assembled on the
17th of February for the purpose of choosing a United States Senator,
adjourned till the first day of January next, after one hundred and
forty-four ineffectual ballots. On the last ballot, the Hon. T. Butler
King, the Whig candidate, had twenty votes, lacking four of an election;
Col. Fremont nine, and Col. Weller eighteen. Another Legislature is to
be elected before the next session. The bonds offered by Gen. Vallejo
have been accepted, so that nothing but their fulfilment remains to
secure the seat of government for the yet unbuilt city.

The weather still continued to be remarkably dry and mild, owing to
which cause, the miners were doing less than usual, and business was
consequently dull. In many localities, the miners, after waiting in vain
for showers enough to enable them to wash out their piles of dirt, set
themselves to work at constructing races to lead off the mountain
streams. In some places mountains have been tunneled to divert the water
into the desired channels. The yield of gold, wherever mining can be
diligently carried on, has in nowise diminished, and new placers of
remarkable richness are an