12 Audubon's Western Journal 



Immediately a new state was added to the Union. 

 Ultimately the necessity of joining the new state 

 to the older ones opened the West to settlement, 

 built the trans-continental railways, reclaimed the 

 desert and peopled the continent. Fifty years ago 

 Congress was petitioned to import "thirty camels 

 and twenty dromedaries" and their use as a means 

 of crossing the Western deserts was seriously dis- 

 cussed in books and newspapers.^ Today there is 

 no part of this vast territory that is not within 

 easy reach of the railroad. Of the remarkable 

 things accomplished in the United States perhaps 

 the most remarkable is the rapid movement of pop- 

 ulation from seaboard to seaboard, and yet this 

 movement has been strangely neglected by histor- 

 ians. They follow minutely the course of Coro- 

 nado and Radisson but know little of J. S. Smith 

 and scarcely take the trouble to trace the routes of 

 even so famous an explorer as John C. Fremont. 

 They devote much space to the difficulties of set- 

 tling Jamestown and Plymouth and very little to 

 the hardships of the overland journey. They care- 

 fully trace the campaigns of the War of 1812 but 

 barely mention the wars that have won the conti- 

 nent from the Indians. As throwing a side-light 

 upon one phase of this neglected movement Audu- 

 bon's "Journal" is presented to the public. But 

 quite apart from this, the book is interesting as a 



^ An experiment with camels was tried and proved a failure. 



