GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES IN OHIO 483 



I venture the prediction that within one hundred years from this time, 

 Cincinnati will be the greatest city in America; and by the year of our Lord, 

 2000, the greatest city in the world. 3 



This thought now sounds extravagant, but at that time there was 

 ample reason for feeling sanguine about the future of Cincinnati. No 

 one dreamed that railroads to Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York 

 would in a few years handle the commodities then passing through Cin- 

 cinnati. Sir Charles Lyell visited this metropolis of Ohio in May, 

 1842 ; his explanation of the commercial basis of the city, and its cul- 

 ture is worth repeating: 



The pork aristocracy of Cincinnati does not mean those innumerable pigs 

 which walk at large about the streets, as if they owned the town, but a class of 

 rich merchants, who have made their fortunes by killing annually, salting, and 

 exporting, about 200,000 swine. There are, besides these, other wealthy pro- 

 prietors, who have speculated successfully in land, which often rises rapidly as 

 the population increases. The general civilization and refinement of the citizens 

 is far greater than might have been looked for in a state founded so recently, 

 owing to the great number of families which have come directly from the highly 

 educated part of New England, and have settled there. 4 



However great may be the commercial initiative of frontier peoples, 

 as an asset of the nation their value is largely contingent upon the 

 means of trade and social intercourse. The construction of highways 

 by governments was an old idea in Europe though not widely practised. 

 In this country its advantages to the seaboard states appeared at once 

 upon the drift of population into the trans-Appalachian region. After 

 long agitation the federal government undertook the construction of a 

 roadway westward from Cumberland on the Potomac Eiver ; the Chesa- 

 peake and Ohio canal later reached this point, and the road became a 

 traffic-feeder to the canal. On the other side of the Ohio Eiver, the 

 government continued this highway across Ohio; this is known as the 

 " national road." Its advantages were obvious, and were duly appreci- 

 ated. Commodities that had usually passed down the Ohio Eiver were 

 seen on the wharves at Baltimore. News traveled more rapidly along 

 this highway; residents along or near it were envied; the towns it 

 passed through were enlivened; the equipages of aristocracy took this 

 route through the state. Cambridge, Zanesville, Columbus and Spring- 

 field each owed something of their rating in that day to the advantages 

 of their location on the national road. 



The canal-digging fever struck Ohio shortly after its outbreak in 

 Atlantic states. In 1817 its legislature considered the matter of con- 

 structing waterways; the subject came up regularly in the following 

 years, culminating in 1825 in a law that commenced operations. In 

 this same year Clinton's " ditch " tapped Lake Erie. The Ohioans, 



3 J. W. Scott, quoted in Howe's "Historical Collections of Ohio," 1847, 

 p. 221. 



* " Travels in North America," New York, 1845, Vol. II., p. 61. 



