CONTINENTAL CONQUEST 



protection, and blessed by long years of peace, the work 

 of development went on from generation to generation. 

 In New England the raw material 011 which the workmen 

 labored in fashioning a civilization was poorer than else- 

 where. And yet it was on that sterile soil, in the midst 

 of those rocks and hills, that industrial pre-eminence was 

 first to be achieved. A citizen of Massachusetts once 

 made the just boast that "not one drop of water flows 

 from our hills to the sea until its power has been three 

 times multiplied by the mill wheels." Every stream was 

 lined with factories, nearly every town had its peculiar 

 industries and its growing crowds of skilled laborers, 

 supporting the stores and shops with their trade, and 

 filling the schools with their children. 



Not only in New England, which owed its serious en- 

 ergy to the example and character of its founders, and 

 its fierce industrial enthusiasm to a system of free labor, 

 but equally in New York, in New Jersey, in Delaware, 

 in Pennsylvania, and southward to the Floridian penin- 

 sula, the army of labor inarched on with irresistible ad- 

 vance. It scaled the crests of the Alleghanies and opened 

 yet greater valleys to the energy of men. It tunnelled 

 into the earth and brought up the hidden stores of coal 

 and iron ore. It tapped the subterranean reservoirs of 

 natural gas and oil. 



With the rapid growth of a many-sided economic life 

 the need of improved facilities for internal transportation 

 arose and grew yearly more urgent. The natural water- 

 courses, navigated by rafts and sailing craft, did not long 

 suffice. The army of labor was set at work in building 

 great highways and digging canals. Then came the 

 steamboat, and, finally, the railroad with its iron horse. 



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