five hundred and eighty-nine; there were forty-eight steamboat accidents, in which five hundred and eighty-seven persons were killed and two hundred and twenty-five wounded; being an increase of two hundred and sixty-eight killed, over the previous year. There were also one hundred and seventy-one lives lost, by means of eighty-three fires, and the total loss of property by fire was twenty-five millions of dollars. Of all these accidents and losses, and particularly of the two first named, the West bore a very large proportion. Crime, too, this year footed up a fearful catalogue. There were six hundred and eighty-two murders committed; and eighty-four executions took place throughout the Union.

On the year of sadness and want just described, followed one of 1855.] an equal degree of joy and plenty. The weather during the spring and summer was, mostly throughout the West, as favorable as could be desired, and with the opening harvest, grief at past misfortunes soon lost the keenness of its edge, and the smiles of teeming fields were reflected back in the faces of their cultivators. The lands that for one season had produced so little or nothing, had the more strength now for the new crops, and all was teeming with plenty. There was an excellent yield of grain, pasture was good, vegetables abundant, and the fruit-trees, in many parts, literally broke down beneath the load of their treasures. Such a season of plenty as the year 1855, had not been known since 1810.

In addition to this, the Western rivers continued in good navigable condition during the whole summer, thus affording means for bringing all this produce to market. Trade was active, and the manufactories were in full and successful operation. The season throughout was so full of happiness, as to dispel all the gloom that had been caused by the misfortunes of the previous

year.

The present year has thus far been remarkable only for the almost 1856.] unprecedented severity of its winter. During the first three months, the cold was intense and unremitting, and although there was a great deal of snow on the ground, that no doubt acted beneficially, yet, fruit of every description throughout the West, has been so severely injured by the cold, that the yield is unusually limited, and some species have been almost entirely destroyed.

The general health has up to the present time (early autumn)

been uncommonly good. There has as yet been no epidemic in any part of the West, and altogether less sickness than is usual for the season.

Very little mention has been made in these annals, of Minnesota, which became a territory in 1849, with St. Paul for its capital, and since that time its changes have been so rapid and numerous, that none of its affairs have as yet become matured for history. The same is true in regard to Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Nebraska. As the face of the country in these new regions is subject to daily changes, the wild forests and Indians' hunting grounds giving way, and becoming the busy haunts of civilization, so the affairs of men, too, are still in a state of transition, and all unsettled. Every thing is incomplete, and no reliable data can be obtained. The history of these regions is still slumbering in the lap of the future.

It was equally impossible in a work professing impartially to give reliable information, to say anything in regard to the great questions, some of which are intimately connected with the interests of Kansas territory, that are now agitating the Union. These are as yet too much questions of party politics, and from their newness, too little fraught with abiding results, to be properly introduced in a work of general historical annals. Where the well known heat of party strife and party interest affords so much inducement for exaggeration and even misrepresentation, it would be difficult to distinguish the reliable information from the one-sided accounts given by interested parties. For this reason it has been deemed most prudent to abide the time, and leave the consideration of these important matters for a future period, when they shall have become more mature.