382 THE GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES 



from the Census figures with the same assumptions concerning 

 expansion during 1898. The three lines of the diagram express 

 several salient facts in American history : The territorial acqui- 

 sitions have been enormous, much more than quadrupling the 

 original area; no accession (up to 1898) has materially affected 

 the population curve, yet the population has steadily increased 

 by a normal growth of beautiful symmetry ; the density of pop- 

 ulation has also increased in a symmetric normal, interrupted by 

 each of the greater accessions in area. The only noteworthy break 

 in the population curve is that representing the teeming Filipi- 

 nos, though even this does not materially affect the density curve. 



The steady increase in density of population in the United 

 States is a striking and promising feature of national develop- 

 ment ; it is an equally striking and still more hopeful fact that, 

 so far as the Census values permit determination, each accession 

 has stimulated the increase of population and has soon been 

 followed b}' an increased population-density. 



While each accession of area has tended to hasten the in- 

 crease in population, other effects of even greater significance 

 have followed, though figures for the expression of these effects 

 are lacking for the earlier decades in the history of the United 

 States. The immediate effect of the acquisition of Louisiana 

 and Oregon was increase in navigation, both oceanic and inte- 

 rior, with a decided advance in domestic commerce; budding- 

 enterprise was directed to invention and steamboats were placed 

 on the rivers, while improvements in agriculture were diligently 

 sought. These advances were stimulated anew when Florida 

 was acquired, and American carrying trade came to be a factor 

 in the progress of the world. During' the period of concentra- 

 tion following these acquisitions, canals were projected as aux- 

 iliaries to the natural waterways, while railroading was gradually 

 introduced as a sort of auxiliary to river and canal. Then came 

 the epoch-marking accessions of the mid-century, with the neces- 

 sity for more expeditious transportation facilities than navigable 

 waterways and ocean-going vessels could possibly afford ; and 

 native genius responded by improving locomotives and railway- 

 building beyond the most sanguine dreams of progressive states- 

 men, and made America a railway nation ; and the curve repre- 

 senting railway development is one of the striking features in 

 the graphic history of the United States.* The carrying trade 



*The decline in railway building after 1890, shown in the diagram, should not be 

 misinterpreted ; it merely marks the gradual substitution of electric locomotion, bicy- 

 cles, etc., for steam locomotion. 



