A Sportsman 167 



"The great interior unexplored region lying north 

 of the Mexican States will remain for centuries practi- 

 cally unknown to civilization, and will present to the 

 world the spectacle of the last stronghold of savagery 

 and barbarism to be found upon the face of the earth." 



This prophecy was given some eighty years ago — 

 not so long but living men can remember the period. 

 But how great was the error of Ward, and how 

 little he appreciated the bold and advancing spirit 

 of man, stimulated as it was to be by the wonder- 

 fvil progressiveness of new agencies. How aston- 

 ished he would have been, could he have but seen 

 a slight reflection of the present condition through 

 the region which he then accounted as hopelessly 

 given up to desolation for centuries. 



Then the population of the United States was less 

 than one sixth of the present amount, and the settle- 

 ments of the country had but commenced to creep 

 away from the Eastern States. Not until a decade 

 after did the first steamer struggle across the briny 

 waves of the Atlantic, and the first locomotive had 

 just been built. Steam in its application to mechanics 

 had hardly been dreamed of, and the first principles 

 of electricity had hardly been conceived. A belief 

 then in the possibilities of ten billions of dollars of 

 investment in the railroads existing in this country at 

 the present day would have been as preposterous as 

 the opinion now that one hundred thousand millions of 

 dollars may be invested in electrical applications in a 

 century from this date, and the latter opinion will find 

 more believers now than the first proposition could 

 have had then. 



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