506 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



did area, denominated the "Valley of the Mississippi." embraced between the im- 

 mutable barriers on either side, the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains with the Gulf 

 of Mexico on the south and the great string of lakes on the north, and the mighty 

 Mississippi rolling its turbid waters through it for the distance of 4,000 miles, re- 

 ceiving its hundred tributaries, whose banks and plateaus are capable of supporting 

 a population of one hundred millions, covered almost entirely with the richest soil 

 in the world, with lead, iron, and coal sufficient for its population — with 12,000 miles 

 of river navigation for steamers within its embrace, besides the coast on the south 

 and the great expanse of lakes on the north — -with a population of five millions 

 already sprinkled over its nether half, and a greater p art of the remainder of it in. 

 viting the world to its possession for one dollar and tw enty-five cents (five shillings) 

 per acre ! 



I ask who can contemplate without amazement this mighty river alone, eternally 

 rolling its boiling waters through the richest of soil for the distance of four thousand 

 miles, over three thousand five hundred of which I have myself been wafted on 

 mighty steamers, ensconced within " curtains damasked and carpets ingrain;" and 

 on its upper half gazed with tireless admiration upon its thousand hills and mounds 

 of grass and green sloping down to the water's edge in all the grace and beauty of 

 nature's loveliest fabrication. On its lower half also, whose rich alluvial shores are 

 studded with stately cotton wood and elms, which echo back the deep and hollow cough 

 of the puffing steamers. I have contemplated the bed of this vast river sinking from 

 its natural surface, and the alligator driven to its bosom, abandoning his native bog 

 and fen, which are drying and growing into beauty and loveliness under the hand of 

 the husbandman. 



I have contemplated these boundless forests melting away before the fatal ax, until 

 the expanded waters of this vast channel and its countless tributaries will yield their 

 surplus to the thirsty sunbeam, to which their shorn banks will expose them; and I 

 have contemplated also the never-ending transit of steamers, ploughing up the sand 

 deposit from its bottom, which its turbid waters are eternally hurrying on to the 

 ocean, sinking its channel, and thereby raising its surrounding alluvions for the temp- 

 tations and enjoyment of man. 



All this is certain. Man's increase and the march of human improvements in this 

 New World are as true and irresistible as the laws of nature, and he who could rise 

 from his grave and speak, or would speak from the life some half century from this, 

 would proclaim my prophecy true and fulfilled. I said above (and I again say it) 

 that these are subjects for "sublime contemplation! " At all events they are so to 

 the traveler, who has wandered over and seen this vast subject in all its parts and 

 is able to appreciate ; who has seen the frightened herds as well as the multitudes of 

 humanity giving way and shrinking from the mountain wave of civilization which is 

 busily rolling on behind them. 



From Maine to Florida on the Atlantic coast the forefathers of those hardy sons 

 who are now stocking this fair land have from necessity, in a hard and stubborn soil, 

 inured their hands to labor and their habits and taste of life to sobriety and economy, 

 which will insure them success in the New World. 



This rich country which is now alluring the enterprising young men from the East, 

 being commensurate with the whole Atlantic States, holds out the extraordinary in- 

 ducement that every emigrant can enjoy a richer soil, and that, too, in his own native 

 latitude. The sugar planter, the rice, cotton, and tobacco growers, corn, rye, and 

 wheat producers from Louisiana to Montreal, have only to turn their faces to the 

 West, and there are waiting for them the same atmosphere to breathe, and green fields 

 already cleared and ready for the plow, too tempting to be overlooked or neglected. 



WESTERN VERNACULAR. 



As far west as the banks of the Mississippi the great wave of emigration has rolled 

 on, and already in its rear the valley is sprinkled with towns and cities, with their 

 thousand spires pointing to the skies. For several hundred miles west also have the 





