"General Grant was called upon to decide this great question on the morning of April 9, 1865. The Southern military power was exhausted. He was in a position to exact the supreme rights of a conqueror, and the unconditional submission of his adversary, unless that adversary should elect to risk all on the event of a desperate battle, in which much 'American blood' would certainly be shed.

"The question was gravely considered in Confederate councils whether we should not accept the extreme risk, and cut our way through the hosts of General Grant, or perish in the attempt. This plan had many advocates, but General Lee was not one of them, as will be seen by his farewell order to his army.

"Under these circumstances General Lee and General Grant met to discuss the terms of surrender of General Lee's army, and, at the request of General Lee, General Grant wrote the terms of surrender he proposed to offer to the Confederate general. They were liberal and honorable, alike to the victor and the vanquished, and General Lee at once accepted them.

'Any one who reads General Grant's proposal cannot fail to see how careful he is to avoid any unnecessary humiliation to his adversary. As far as it was possible, General Grant took away the sting of defeat from the Confederate army. He triumphed, but he triumphed without exultation, and with a noble respect to his enemy.

"There was never a nobler knight than Grant of Appomattox-no knight more magnanimous or more generous. No statesman ever decided a vital question more wisely-more in the interest of his country and of all mankind-than General Grant decided the great

question presented to him when he and General Lee met that morning of April 9, 1865, to consider the terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. The words of his magnanimous proposal to his enemy were carried by the Confederate soldiers to the furthest borders of the South. They reached ears and hearts that had never quailed at the sound of war. They disarmed and reconciled those who knew not fear, and the noble words of General Grant's offer of peace brought peace without humiliation, peace with honor."

Last Words

Iconoclasts overshadow with their doubts and questionings the alleged dying words of eminent men, but the following appear to be authentic. George Washington, "It is well." John Adams, "Independence forever." Benjamin Franklin, in severe suffering, "A dying man can do nothing easy." Thomas Jefferson, "I resign my spirit to God, my daughter to my country." John Quincy Adams, "It is the last of earth; I am content." John C. Calhoun, "The South! the South! God knows what will become of her." William H. Harrison, "I wish you to understand the true principles of government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." Daniel Webster, "I still live." James Buchanan, "O, Lord Almighty, as Thou wilt." William McKinley, "It is God's way. His will be done, not ours." Henry Ward Beecher, great mystery."

"Now comes the

OUR WONDERLANDS

In repeated statements in the consular reports concerning the large extent of tourist travel in Switzerland, we are told that the "money-making asset" of that little republic, the greater portion of whose area is covered with mountains, is "scenery." We go to Europe to see the accumulated treasures of centuries, to review the lessons of the past in historic localities, to observe social and industrial conditions, to enjoy musical and dramatic art, to study the development of the fine arts, to note the later acquisition of scientific research. But, as our consuls at Geneva and Lucerne and Berne and Zurich tell us, we go to Switzerland for "scenery.'

Switzerland is two hundred and ten miles in length. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in northern Arizona is two hundred and nineteen miles long, twelve to thirteen miles wide, and over a mile deep. If the main ranges of the Helvetian Alps, between the centre and the southern frontiers, running from the Bernese Oberland to the Grisons, could be lifted up and dumped into the colossal chasm of Arizona, there would still be left room in which to bury the Jura of the western border. Thousands of American tourists gaze with awe upon the panoramic displays from the view-points of the passes of the Simplon, the Furca, the St. Gotthard, and the Splügen, and from the ascent of the Rigi, Pilatus, Jungfrau, or Matterhorn. Many of our adventurous fellow-citizens contest the palm for hardihood

and endurance with experienced Alpine climbers; but how few there are who are ambitious enough and venturesome enough to incur the hardships and to risk the dangers of scanning at close range, or from points of vantage, the towers, the temples, the terraces, the ramparts, the pyramids, the domes, the pillars, the buttresses, the buttes, the palisades, the white marble walls, the red sandstone steps, the green serpentine cliffs of the Grand Canyon.

Excursion parties go by way of the Williams branch of the Santa Fé to the rim of the Bright Angel trail because of its accessibility and hotel accommodation, and content themselves with descent of the zigzags to the deeply embedded river, or a drive of a few miles along the brink. But the earnest and determined explorers who follow the hazardous footsteps of the early pioneers, or of the later topographical engineers, are few and far between. There is nothing on earth that even remotely approaches this stupendous chasm in startling surprises, in grandeur and sublimity, yet our tourists ignore its indescribable wonders and go to the Alps for scenery that suffers by comparison.

When it comes to the question of orographic magnitude, our own physical geography gives a decisive answer. The great curve of the Alpine chain stretches from the shores of the Mediterranean to the plains of the Danube-a little more than six hundred miles in length. The narrowest width of the Rocky Mountains, from base to base, is three hundred miles, whereas, at their greatest width, between Cape Mendocino and Denver, the space enclosed by the two outer scarps of the plateau is nearly one thousand miles in breadth. If in measuring the area of the Rocky Mountains we

include the long Coast Range, the Sierra Nevada and its northern continuation, the Cascade Range, according to the extent of surface they cover, we have million square miles as the result, more than one-fourth of the territory of the republic.

With such immense differences in view, the vastly greater capabilities of the Rockies for scenic display are apparent. In the endless succession of views from the heights of Pike's Peak, or Mt. Shasta, or Mt. Lowe, one can forget his most inspiring and exciting experiences in the Alps. Professor J. D. Whitney declares that no such views as those from Pike's Peak, either for reach or magnificence, can be obtained in Switzerland. Even with the ever-increasing facilities of transcontinental travel, we but dimly realize the majestic proportions of the Rocky Mountain system, which, with its towering snow-capped peaks, its precipitous rock walls, its volcanic vestiges, its abysmal glens and canyons, and its splendid waterfalls, glorifies every landscape, and solves problems, as nowhere else, in chemical, physical, and dynamical geology.

As to comparative altitudes, it may be noted that Mount St. Elias, of the Alaska Coast Range, is three thousand five hundred feet higher than Mont Blanc, "the monarch of mountains," as Byron calls it, while its namesake, the Sierra Blanca, the monarch of the Rockies, is nearly as lofty with its triple peak. The Rock of Gibraltar towers to the height of twelve hundred feet; its massive counterpart in the Yosemite, El Capitan, is three times as high as Gibraltar, while the great cliff known as Cloud's Rest, admittedly the finest panoramic stand-point on earth, is more than six thousand feet high and ten thousand above sea level.