30 WESTERN SUPKEMACY. 



gerations, which, pricked by investigation, would burst, 

 leaving behind a very small residuum of fact. It will be 

 necessary, therefore, to glance rapidly at the resources 

 of the West, in order to show that it will eventually 

 dominate the East. And by "the West" I mean that 

 portion of the country lying west of the Mississippi, not 

 including Alaska, unless so specified ; for, though that 

 territory has vast resources which will some day add 

 much to our wealth, the national destiny is to be settled 

 this side of Alaska. 



Of the twenty-two states and territories west of the 

 Mississippi only three are as small as all New England. 

 Montana would stretch from Boston on the east to Cleve- 

 land on the Avest, and extend far enough south to include 

 Eichmond, Va. Idaho, if laid down in the East, would 

 touch Toronto, Can., on the north, and Raleigh, N. C, 

 on the south, while its southern boundarj^ line is long 

 enough to stretch from W^ashington City to Columbus, 

 O. ; and California, if on our Atlantic seaboard, would 

 extend from the southern line of Massachusetts to the 

 lower part of South Carolina ; or, in Europe, it Avould ex- 

 tend from London across France and well into Spain. 

 New Mexico is larger than the United Kingdom of Great 

 Britain and Ireland. The greatest measurement of 

 Texas is nearly equal to the distance from New Orleans 

 to Chicago, or from Chicago to Boston. Lay Texas on 

 the face of Europe, and this giant, with his head resting 

 on the mountains of Norway (directly east of the Orkney 

 Islands), with one palm covering London, the other 

 Warsaw, would stretch himself down across the king- 

 dom of Denmark, across the empires of Germany and 

 Austria, across Northern Italy, and lave his feet in the 

 Mediterranean. The two Dakotas might be carved 

 into a half-dozen kingdoms of Greece ; or, if they were 

 divided into twenty-six equal counties, we might lay 

 down the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel in each. 



Place the 50,000,000 inhabitants of the United States in 

 1880 all in Texas, and the population would not be as 

 dense as that of Germany. Put them in the I>akotas, and 



