Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/35



Hall Jackson Kelley 19

Therefore, whatever advantage may be derived from steam boat transportation of heavy articles, by the way of the Missouri, into the interior, it must certainly be abandoned as the mail route to the coast of the Pacific, and, also, I am inclined to believe, as the route for the transportation of any article across the continent, farther than the Yellow Stone River. . . ." He therefore proposed the establishment of communications by the most direct route and the use of the Bactrian camel, whose good qualities he proceeded to set forth at great length, and concluded with the question, "Why not add the majestic, long lived, placid, and valuable Bactrian Camel to the number of the auxiliary laborers & carriers for the active citizens of the nation?""

This question was answered by Robert Mills, in a Treatise on Inland Navigation, published in Baltimore in 1820, in which he proposed the application of steam as the "moving power to carriages, upon rail roads across the mountains" between the Yellowstone and the Coliunbia. In this book Mills followed the article in the American Farmer so ^closely as to suggest common authorship, were it not for his reference to a "late writer" in connection with an extensive quotation from that article.*^ This book went through two editions. Like the article upon which it was based, it served to spread abroad the idea that at our very doors lay an undeveloped territory of great possibilities, and that means should be devised to make it more accessible to emigrants.

When we come to inquire as to the source from which the unknown sponsor of the Bactrian camel obtained his informa- tion as to the Northwest, the name of Benton suggests itself. When we inquire as to the person responsible for arousing Floyd's interest in that country, we find that again it was Benton.

At the opening of the second session of the sixteenth con-

11 I, XI3-5' 'Hie descriptive part of this article was reprinted in the Ntw Bngland Palladium and Commercial Adverttger of Boston, July 14* i8jo.

12 Pp. 53-9- Sec also Qeveland and Powell, Railroad Promotion, 259-64.