6 NEW TEACKS IN NORTH- AMEEICA. 



Most of the streets are wide and beautifully paved; the 

 houses are fine, and, until tlu*ee days before my fii'st arrival, 

 the largest hotel in the States was located here. I only saw 

 its smoking ruins. As the traffic is not of necessity confined 

 to any single thoroughfare, on account of the chess-board 

 regularity of the streets, an air of quiet and repose usually 

 rests upon the city. Signs of a considerable Prench popula- 

 tion are everywhere to be recognised, and that too, not only 

 in the shops and cafes, but about the streets ; society also 

 is softened and refined by it, trade is less wild and enthu- 

 siastic, pleasure is more sought after and enjoyed. Sunday 

 also wears a characteristic garb, for half the population are 

 !Roman Catholics. 



Enough, however, has been said of St. Louis past and 

 present. Let us take a glance at the probable futui'c of tins 

 city, which for nearly half a centuiy has been trebling its 

 population every ten years. 



St. Louis is, in the first place, the commercial capital oi 

 Missouri, a State unsurpassed by any of her sisters in the 

 plentitude of her natural resources. The soil throughout 

 almost the entire area of 65,037 square miles* is most fertile 

 and well watered ; it consists of alternate tracts of heavily 

 timbered country and prairie land. Some of the finest dis- 

 tricts are picturesquely undulating ; others consist of the per- 

 fectly level bottom-lands of the Mississippi and Missouii. In 

 some counties the rocks are partly of volcanic origm, m 

 others the limestone and carboniferous strata prevail. The 

 composition of the soil being so various, the number of pro- 

 ductions is unusually great. Besides the cereals, all of wliica 

 thrive luxuriously, hemp, tobacco, the grape-vine, sorghum, 

 imphee, and cotton in the south, are among the most 



Area of England and Wales — 58,320 square miles. 



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