“Peaces” are made between wild tribes by the ceremony of smoking and exchanging presents of horses and other property; sometimes women. The advantages and disadvantages are well calculated on both sides before overtures for peace are made. It is a question of loss and gain and often takes years to accomplish. The Crows, a rich nation, five years ago, through the writer as the medium made peace with the Assiniboin after half a century of bloody warfare. Why? The Crows being a rich nation and the Assiniboin poor, how could the former gain? The points the Crows gained were these: First, liberty to hunt in the Assiniboin country unmolested and secure from the Blackfeet; second, two enemies less to contend with and from whom they need not guard their numerous herds of horses; third, the privilege of passing through the Assiniboin country to the Gros Ventres village in quest of corn. Now for the other party. The Crows having large herds of horses and the Assiniboin but few, the former give them a good many every year to preserve the peace. The Crows winter with the Assiniboin, run buffalo with their own horses, and give the latter plenty of meat and skins without the trouble of killing it. The Crows are superior warriors and the others have enough to contend with the Blackfeet. Again, one enemy less, and jointly the numerical force is so augmented as to make them formidable to all surrounding tribes, while separately they would prey upon each other. It is in this case evident the peace must last, there being sufficient inducements on both sides to keep it, although upon the whole any of their “peaces” are liable to sudden and violent interruptions and are not to be depended upon. MAGNITUDE AND RESOURCES OF TERRITORY A CAUSE OF THE MULTIPLICATION OF TRIBES.—There can be no doubt that magnitude and resources of territory are the principal causes of an increase of population. All roving tribes live by hunting, and scarcity of animals produces distress, famine, disease, and danger by forcing them to hunt in countries occupied by their enemies, when game is not found in their own. Such a state of things happened in this district in 1841, when during a total disappearance of buffalo and other game some of the Assiniboin and Cree were under the necessity of eating their own children, of leaving others to perish, and many men and women died from fatigue and exhaustion. Although the above position is evident, yet we do not see how it could multiply tribes, much less dialects. A large territory with much game might induce portions of other tribes not having these advantages to migrate, make peace with the residing nation, and perhaps increase in a greater ratio than they otherwise would have done, but the language would remain the same, neither would it produce a separate tribe, but only a portion of the tribe who migrated.