ought to be provided with the necessary shops and mechanics, which would at the same time exhibit the several branches of civilized art to the Indians.
The outlay in the first instance would be but trifling. Forts like those of the Hudson Bay Company's surrounded by walls enclosing all the 319 buildings, and constructed almost entirely of adobe, or sun-dried bricks, with stone foundations only, can be easily and cheaply erected.
There are very eligible places for as many of these as the Government will find necessary, at suitable distances, not further than one or two hundred miles apart, at the main crossing of the principal streams that now form impediments to the journey, and consequently well supplied with water, having alluvial bottom lands of a rich quality, and generally well wooded. If I might be allowed to suggest, the best sites for said posts, my personal knowledge and observation enable me to recommend first, the main crossing of the Kansas River, where a ferry would be very convenient to the traveler, and profitable to the station having it in charge; next, and about eighty miles distant, the crossing of the Blue River, where in times of unusual freshet, a ferry would be in like manner useful; next and distant from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles from the last mentioned, the Little Blue, or Republican Fork of the Kansas; next, and from sixty
