From the Weston Journal, January 25, 1845.
OREGON.
(Editorial.)
Congress may provide for the occupation of it—for the formation of a territorial government—they may establish posts and a military road across the mountains, and encourage emigration in every possible manner, and the whole will not contribute so much towards its settlement as the negotiations of a treaty with China, opening to us a market for our products in that country. If the one now before Congress has done so, Great Britain may set her claim to the Columbia—it will be a claim for but a short time. Our shipping, farmers, merchants, and tradesmen will soon find a road to a country possessing the advantages the west side of the American continent would possess, in that event, and but a short time would elapse before China would be supplied by American skill and industry, from the mouth of the Columbia, with all she would admit.
The Weston Journal, March 1, 1845, under heading, "Oregon Territory," speaks of a bill introduced into the Senate proposing that Oregon include: All the territory lying west of the Missouri River south of the forty-ninth degree of north latitude and east of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the boundary line between the United States and Texas, not included within the limits of any State, and also over the territory comprising the Rocky Mountains, and country between them and the Pacific Ocean south of fifty-fourth degree and forty-nine minutes of north latitude, and north of the forty-second degree of north latitude, etc. [!!!]
From the Weston Journal, March 1, 1845.
RAILROAD TO OREGON.
The Philadelphia Ledger's Washington correspondent says that Mr. Whitney, of New York, contemplates the construction of a railroad from the western shore of Lake Michigan, in a direct line through to the Columbia River, covering the distance of some 2,100 miles, which shall be the point of debarkation to China.
The cost of the road, when completed, is estimated at fifty millions of dollars, and twenty-five years would be required to perfect the scheme. Eight days would be about the traveling time from New York City to the terminus of the road, and if [steamship?] facilities
