LOUISIANA 



3512 



LOUISIANA 



in its pale blue waters all the changing, elusive 

 colors of sky and clouds, dark forests and cliffs, 

 and towering glacier-robed mountains. "A jewel 

 dropped from heaven," one writer calls it, and 

 another refers to it as "a liquid sapphire set in 

 a diadem of silvered peaks." It is a quiet, 

 tranquil lake, whose serenity is the more strik- 

 ing by contrast with the grandeur of the moun- 

 tains, precipices and somber forests that en- 

 circle it. It is so shut in by mountains that 

 winds do not ruffle its surface. 



No spot of the Canadian Rockies is visited 

 by more tourists than Lake Louise. It is in 

 Alberta, thirty-four miles northwest of Banff 

 and about two miles from the Canadian Pacific 

 Railway station at Laggan, and is reached by 

 a carriage road two and one-half miles long, and 

 by an electric railway. On its shore the Cana- 

 dian Pacifif Railway has built a magnificent 

 chateau hotel, and those who visit the lake may 

 take advantage of a large number of mountain 

 trips by pony or carriage. 



THE STORY OF LOUISIANA 



lOUISIANA, loo e ze an' a, a south- 

 central state of the American Union, with the 

 Gulf of Mexico as its southern boundary. The 

 name reminds one of the early history of the 

 region, for it is named in honor of Louis XIV, 

 king of France. The name of Louisiana was 

 originally given to the whole Mississippi Valley 

 by the French explorer LaSalle, who in 1682 

 took possession of this vast region in the name 

 of his king. Louisiana is the only state in the 

 American Union where the French established 

 a permanent settlement, and for this reason 

 many of its institutions and laws are different 

 from those of other states. As its flower Loui- 

 siana has chosen the magnolia, which truly rep- 

 resents the character of its luxuriant and fra- 

 grant vegetation. Popularly Louisiana is known 

 as the CREOLE STATE, and it has also been given 

 the nickname of the PELICAN STATE. A pelican 

 appears on the state seal. 



Size and Location. With an area of 48,506 

 square miles, of which 3,097 square miles are 

 water, Louisiana ranks thirtieth among the 

 states. New York, which is about 700 square 

 miles larger, is the state nearest to it in size. 

 Louisiana covers only about a fifteenth as large 

 an area as the Canadian province of Quebec, 

 which, like itself, contains a large population of 

 French descent. The state is irregular in shape ; 

 its greatest length from north to south is 280 

 miles, and from east to west is 290 miles. It 

 has a coast line of about 1,500 miles. 



Its People. In population Louisiana, with 

 1,656,388 inhabitants in 1910, ranks twenty- 



fourth among the states. The estimated popu- 

 lation on January 1, 1917, was 1,843,042. It had 

 in 1910 an average of 36.5 persons to the square 

 mile as compared with an average density of 

 30.9 for the whole of the United States. Of 

 the population in 1910, 941,086, or 56.8 percent, 

 were white, and 713,874, or 43.1 per cent, were 

 negroes, as against 52.9 per cent whites and 47.1 

 per cent negroes in 1900. The percentage of 

 the negro population has been steadily decreas- 

 ing. In the number of its negro inhabitants it 

 ranks sixth among the states, South Carolina 

 having a slightly larger number and North 

 Carolina a smaller number than Louisiana. 



A large proportion of the native white popu- 

 lation is of French origin, being the descendants 

 of the former French settlers of this region. Of 

 the white population, in 1910, 112,777 were of 

 foreign or mixed parentage, and 51,782 were 

 foreign born. During the last years there has 

 been a strong immigration of Italians into 

 Louisiana, and forty per cent of the forei 

 born population of the state in 1910 came fr 

 Italy. Nearly 30 per cent of the people of tl 

 state live in cities and towns, and the urban 

 population is larger here than in any other 

 Southern state. This is due to the fact that 

 New Orleans contains nearly one-fifth of the 

 total population of Louisiana. Other princi] 

 cities are Baton Rouge, the capital ; Shrevej 

 Lake Charles, Alexandria, Monroe, New Iber 

 Crowley, Jennings, Opelousas, and Saint Mi 

 tinville. The most important are described 

 der their title in these volumes. 



