Wealth-producing land wesft of the Mississippi, not 

 including Alaska or mineral lands, 1,830,000 square 

 miles. 



Wealth-producing land, including mineral land 

 of the Mississippi, 800,000 square miles. 



CHAPTER III. 



WESTERN SUPREMACY. 



** I NEVER felt as if I were out of doors before!" ex- 

 claimed a New Englander, as he stepped off the cars 

 west of the Mississippi, for the first time. 



The West is characterized by largeness. Mountains, 

 rivers, railways, ranches, herds, crops, business trans- 

 actions, ideas ; even men's virtues and vices are cyclopean. 

 All seem to have taken a touch of vastness from the 

 mighty horizon. Western stories are on the same large 

 scale, so large, indeed, that it often takes a dozen east- 

 ern men to" believe one' of them. They have a secret 

 suspicion that even the best attested are inflated exag- 



