SILLIMAN'S INTRODUCTION. 13 



existing ocean, with a population not originally commercial, give a 

 decided impulse to a vast agriculture, and a few great staples form 

 the chief reliance of the landholders. It is easy to see, that this 

 state of things grows out of the newer secondary, the tertiary, and 

 the alluvial formations, which constitute the ocean-barrier from 

 Staten Island to Florida, and from Florida to Texas, extending 

 inland toward the mountains. 



Western States. — In the west, the boundless fertile prairies and 

 other tracts of productive soil conspire with remoteness from the 

 ocean, to indicate agriculture and pasturage as the main employ- 

 ment of the inhabitants ; while exhaustless beds of coal, limestone, 

 gypsum, and iron, and rich veins of lead and copper, and numerous 

 and copious salt fountains, furnish means for a manufacturing, as 

 well as an agricultural population. These pursuits occupy the 

 greater number of the people, while many find a profitable employ- 

 ment in navigating those immense inland seas, the great lakes and 

 the vast rivers, which run thousands of miles before they mingle 

 with the ocean. This state of things is the result of the immense 

 extent of the lower secondary and transition formations which cover 

 the western states, sustaining portions of tertiary strata, and 

 alluvial deposits. 



While New England produces granite, marble, and other building 

 materials of excellent quality, Pennsylvania, with the western and 

 several of the southern and south-western states, supplies inex- 

 haustible magazines of coal, which prompt and sustain the manu- 

 facturing interests of this wide country, and aid its astonishing 

 navigation by steam ; already of unexampled extent on its internal 

 waters, and destined at no distant day to compete, on the main 

 ocean, in amicable rivalry, with our parent country. 



Geological Treasures. — Our coal formations, in richness and extent, 

 are unrivalled in the whole world; our iron and lead are in the 

 greatest abundance and excellence ; Missouri has mountains of pure 

 oxide of iron, that have no compeers, and there is a fair prospect 

 that copper will also be found to abound in the West. We have 

 great deposits of limestone and marble, of gypsum, marl, and salt, 

 and of building stones of almost every kind ; our soils are so various 

 in quality, and in geographical position, that almost every agricul- 

 tural production is obtained in abundance. It is obvious, then, that 

 we have all the physical elements of national and individual pro- 

 sperity, and that the blame will be our own, if we do not follow 



