74 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 



Ultima Thule. But each has found itself the stepping 

 stone to regions of greater and more varied resources, 

 demanding more expansive systems of development. 

 Chicago in a single generation has risen from an obscure 

 village to be the greatest lumber market, the greatest grain 

 market, and the greatest provision market, not in the 

 United States alone, but in the world. What is the 

 explanation ? Simply that the wealth of production already 

 developed in the regions of which she is the depot of 

 supply and distribution, is greater than is elsewhere con- 

 centrated at any one point. But those regions are but 

 thinly settled in comparison to their capacity; their pro- 

 ductive powers are not yet half developed, and their whole 

 area is insignificant in comparison with what still lies 

 beyond unappropriated and valueless till its latent powers 

 are touched by the magic wand of labor. 



The burning of Chicago is simply the destruction of the 

 depot of the railroads which concentrate there, and the 

 means at command for her reconstruction are the com- 

 bined wealth of all the regions traversed by those roads 

 The energy and enterprise with which she is again springing 

 up from her ashes, is based upon such knowledge of the 

 value of those resources as inspires the fullest confidence 

 of lucrative returns. It astonishes the world because 

 there is no precedent by which a realizing sense of the 

 measure of those resources can be obtained. And if this 

 is true of the regions now tributary to Chicago, which 

 have grown up with her and of which she is the just expo- 

 nent, how much more difficult is it to obtain an idea of 

 all that lies beyond. 



