546 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 173. 



trines, but simply gave expression to an 

 abiding conviction of the American people. 



Such in brief is a word picture of the 

 geography of the United States at the be- 

 ginning. Let us now go forward a genera- 

 tion, to about 1820, and note the changes. 

 Our second and, let it be hoped, last war 

 with Great Britain is over. By the first 

 war political independence was won, by the 

 second commercial freedom. Our ships 

 might now go where and when they would, 

 freed from hateful and hated search by any 

 foreign power. Freedom from dependence 

 on foreign manufactures had taken root 

 and was making vigorous growth. It is 

 difl5cult to fully realize the burning zeal 

 with which every one was imbued to make 

 the United States dependent upon nothing 

 but itself. It was not enough to be polit- 

 ically free. Freedom was not fully won so 

 long as we were compelled to depend upon 

 foreign powers for anything whatsoever. 

 In the introduction to his little geography 

 of 1791, Morse voices these sentiments. He 

 says : 



" It is to be lamented that this part of 

 education (geography) has hitherto been so 

 much neglected in America. Our young 

 men, universally, have been much better 

 acquainted with the geography of Europe 

 and Asia than with that of their own State 

 and country. The want of suitable books 

 on this subject has been the cause, we hope 

 the sole cause, of this shameful defect in 

 our education. Till within a few j'ears we 

 have seldom pretended to write, and hardly 

 to think for ourselves. We have humbly 

 received from Great Britain our laws, our 

 manners, our books and our mode of think- 

 ing; and our youth have been educated 

 rather as the subjects of the British King 

 than as citizens of a free republic. But the 

 scene is now changing. The Revolution has 

 been favorable to science, particularly to 

 that of the geography of our own country." 



The great lexicographer, Noah Webster, 



was inspired by the same views when pre- 

 paring his dictionary ; and especially did 

 that great democrat, Jefferson, strive un- 

 ceasingljr to complete the independence of 

 which the political part was definitely 

 secured by the peace of 1783. 



He would not have us reckon our longi- 

 tude from a foreign meridian, or depend 

 upon a foreign country for an ephemeris or 

 for coast charts. Accordingly, in 1804, a 

 meridian through the Executive Mansion 

 was surveyed and marked on the ground 

 as the first meridian of the United States. 

 The name Meridian Hill survives in testi- 

 mony of this. In 1807 the Coast Survey 

 was created to accurately chart our coasts 

 for purposes of commerce and defense, and 

 in 1804 the famous expedition of Lewis and 

 Clarke to the Pacific ocean expanded our 

 political and mental horizon in matters geo- 

 graphic. A great system of national high- 

 ways, both roads and canals, was projected 

 and pushed forward. The practical intro- 

 duction of steamboats stimulated progress. 

 Lake Champlain was connected with the 

 Hudson by a canal, while work upon 

 ' Clinton's ditch,' or the Great Western 

 Canal, as the Erie Canal was then called, 

 was being pushed forward with great 

 energy. The object of this canal, as Morse 

 tells us, was ' to turn the trade of the west- 

 ern country from Montreal to ISTew York.' 



In 1791 there wei-e only 89 post-ofiices in 

 the United States. Twenty-five years later, 

 in 1817, there were 39 times as many, 3,- 

 459. Each day in the year (1791) the 

 mails were carried 10,000 miles by stages 

 and 11,000 on horseback and in sulkies. 

 Mail was carried along one continuous route 

 from Anson, in the district of Maine, via 

 Washington, D. C, to Nashville, Tennes- 

 see, 1,448 miles ; another mail route was 

 from St. Marys, Georgia, via AVashington, 

 D. C, to Highgate, in Vermont, 1,369 

 miles. These were the longest mail routes 

 in the United States. Postage stamps were 



