1856.] Dedication of Polytechnic Rail — Addrezs. 549 



honor — motives toucMng the destiny and glory of our great nation. 

 The cause of humanity and man demand your zeal and activity in 

 this great work ; and it gathers importance when we contemplate the 

 tremendous influence of our great country, embracing a dominion 

 of fifty-seven degrees in one direction, and twenty-four degrees in 

 another, including an area of two million three hundred thousand 

 square miles; or one million four hundred and seventy-two million 

 acres. We have as yet under cultivation, but a fragment of this 

 dominion, including thirty sovereign States, some of which are 

 larger and more powerful than whole Kingdoms in Europe, and yet 

 but about one-third of these immense tracts have as yet been re- 

 claimed from the wilderness, while the portion already settled, could 

 sustain a population ten times as dense. Our mountains are as pro- 

 ductive as they are grand ; for beneath their rugged sides lie inex- 

 haustible mines of mineral wealth, furnishing — with the variety of 

 our soil, and diversity of our climate — the raw material for every 

 kind of manufacture. 



Our facilities for inland commerce since the introduction of rail- 

 roads, are beyond compare; bringing the East and the West, the 

 North and the South — of our goodly heritage — into close compan- 

 ionship. These, with the addition of our telegraphic wires, render 

 instinct with life and motion our whole confederacy; niakino- it, 

 from center to circumference, feel the pulsations of its mighty heart. 

 Our inland cities will soon rival those of the seaboard, and Cincin- 

 nati — which twenty years since, according to our learned savans, had 

 attained a precocious growth — is but yet in its infancy — young, 

 healthy and vigorous, we know but little what will be the giant 

 proportions of its manhood. 



Look on the map ; we are near the center of a vast basin, eight 

 thousand miles in circumference — an area the most productive on 

 the globe. Nature has thrown around this spot unwonted facilities 

 to men of education, of enterprise and of wealth. Every production 

 — cotton, wool, hemp, leather, clay, wood, lead, iron, the precious 

 metals, grains, fruits, vegetables — can be produced on and around 

 this spot, with a profusion and excellence, which shall command the 

 capital and influence of the great West. Is there not found then 

 in our position a mighty motive to carry forward, in this behalf, 

 our educational enterprise ? An enterprise that looks to the liberal 

 education of the largest body, and associates the most influential^ 

 powerful^ independent and wealth}/ comUnalions on the face of the 



