12 NEW TRACKS IN NORTH AMERICA 



spnmg up — Kansas City and LeayenTrortli. The former is 

 situated on the soutliern Lank of the Missouii, just at the 

 point where that stream makes its huge bend northward, and 

 receives the waters of the Kansas Eiver. Its population is 

 about 18;000. The latter lies also on the left bank of the 

 Missouri, about thirty miles above, and to the north. It is 

 beautifully situated, on extensive heights overlooking the 

 surrounding country, and has long been the most favoui'ite 

 military post west of the Mississippi. It claims a population 

 of from 27,000 to 30,000. 



Great rivalry exists between these young giants ; they are 

 both striving for an enormous prize, and never were two 

 horses at the Derby more evenly matched. 



The tendency of development in the inland States has been 

 to raise, at distances of from two to three hundred miles, large 

 and independent commercial centres; such for example as 

 Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. 

 Louis. The advantages of position on the great lines of 

 travel have, more than anything else, determined the points at 

 which such cities as these should eventually spring up. At 

 first they simply start as active distributing posts to the 

 countries around, selling goods manufactured elsewhere, and 

 buying for transportation the agricultural produce of the 

 neighbourhood; then as the population increases, factories 

 rise, and the raw material is manufactured on the spot. Soon 

 the mineral wealth of the country becomes developed, and as 

 the coal, the iron, the copper, or the lead flow into the busy 

 centre of capital and construction, rolling-mills and machine- 

 shops are soon hard at work, and the plough, the iron rail, 

 and the steam engine, with all other sorts of manufactures, 

 are produced on the spot, and an industrial centre, complete m 

 itself, is thus established. 



