UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



5944 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



Within the territorial limits described are 

 forty-eight states, independent in many of their 

 governing functions but indissolubly joined into 

 one state, incorporated as the United States of 

 America. The continental area, exclusive of 

 Alaska, comprises 3,026,789 square miles; with 

 all outlying possessions, including the Virgin 

 Islands, formerly the Danish West Indies, pur- 

 chased in 1917, the grand total is 3,743,445 

 square miles. The British Empire is about 

 three times as large, but continental United 

 States is twenty-five times as large as England, 

 Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The forty-eight 

 states are nearly five times as large as Ger- 

 many, France and Austria-Hungary, but the 

 American states average only two-fifths as 

 many people to the square mile. The forty- 

 eight states are smaller in area than Canada, 



but including possessions, Canada is less than 

 15,000 square miles larger. 



In 1867, the United States bought Alaska 

 from Russia. Since the Spanish-American War 

 in 1898 the United States has also acquired by 

 annexation or by purchase other outlying pos- 

 sessions, including the Hawaiian archipelago, 

 Samoa, Guam, the Philippine Islands, Porto 

 Rico, the Virgin Islands (formerly Danish West 

 Indies), and the Panama Canal Zone. These, 

 with the forty-eight states lying compactly in 

 the most temperate region of the continent, 

 comprise the United States. This article will 

 be limited to the continental area ; each posses- 

 sion is fully discussed elsewhere. Attention is 

 also directed to the fact that each animal, prod- 

 uct and industry referred to is carefully treated 

 in its alphabetical place in these volumes. 



Relation to Other Countries 



North America as a whole faces toward the 

 east and south, where the larger plains are lo- 

 cated and where the principal rivers reach the 

 sea. This is even more strikingly true of the 

 portion of North America included within the 

 United States. 

 Moreover, the 

 Atlantic Ocean is 

 narrow, compared 

 to the Pacific; 

 and beyond it 

 lies Europe , 

 which for nearly 

 2,500 years has 

 contained the 

 principal centers 

 of civilization. 

 For these reasons, 

 the United States 

 has from the be- LOCATION MAP 



ginning of white Continental United States, 

 settlement stood Delusive of Alaska, 

 in very close relation to Europe ; but until the 

 last half century it has had relatively little to 

 do with the countries west of the Pacific. This 

 relation to Europe caused the earliest ' white 

 settlements to be made on the eastern side, 

 and has resulted in the greater density of popu- 

 lation and development of industry on the At- 

 lantic slope. Since the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century Europe has been peopling the 

 United States, but for only a decade or two 

 have Asiatics been attracted across the Pacific 

 Ocean, and even then in no such vast numbers 

 as Europeans have come. 



Relations with Canada. The relation of the 

 United States to Canada is closer now than 

 ever before. During colonial days, the English 

 settlements along the Atlantic were separated 

 from the French on the Saint Lawrence by the 

 rugged, forest-clad district now included in 

 Northern New England. As soon, however, as 

 the English settlers began to cross the Appa- 

 lachian Mountains they unavoidably came in 

 contact with the French; the latter, carrying 

 their light canoes over various portages from 

 streams tributary to the Great Lakes into 

 others flowing into the Mississippi, Hudson Bay 

 or the Arctic Ocean, readily traversed the entire 

 interior of the continent as far as the Rocky 

 Mountains. In other words, the unbroken 

 plains in the interior of the continent closely 

 connect Canada and the United States, with 

 the result that there is now intimate personal 

 and commercial relationship throughout this 

 region, regardless of the political boundary be- 

 tween the two countries ; so, naturally, the Saint 

 Lawrence route has always been an important 

 outlet for the trade of the northern portion of 

 the United States. It has, indeed, been less 

 used by American commerce since the railroads 

 to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and 

 other Atlantic ports have been able to haul 

 freight at low cost; but much foreign trade 

 from the northern Mississippi Valley still goes 

 by way of Montreal during the summer. On 

 the other hand, the natural outlets of Montreal 

 to the sea, when the Saint Lawrence is ice- 

 bound, are not Halifax or even Saint John, 

 N. B., which involve unnecessarily long hauls, 



