A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES. 233 
The children in our schools today are asked, among other 
things, to set forth the advantages for commerce possessed by 
the Western States. This is the answer to that question which 
Mr. Adams furnished to their grandparents. As to these 
Western States, which comprise all west of the Alleghany 
mountains, he says: 
“The remote situation of this country from the seaboard renders it 
unfavorable to commerce. This inconvenience, however, is in some de¬ 
gree remedied by its numerous large and navigable rivers, the principal 
of which is the Mississippi, the great outlet of the exports of these States; 
but such is the difficulty of ascending this river that most of the foreign 
goods imported into this country have been brought from Philadelphia 
and Baltimore in wagons over the mountains, until the invention of 
steamboats, by which the country now begins to be supplied with foreign 
goods from New Orleans.” 
The following passage, also from Adams, throws strong 
light on the knowledge current in 1827 as to the great prai¬ 
ries of the west. 
‘ ‘ Pilkava prairie or plain is a high, level ground in this state (he is 
speaking of Indiana), seven miles long and three broad, of a rich soil, on 
which there was never a tree since the memory of man. Two hundred 
acres of wheat were seen growing here at one time a few years since yield¬ 
ing fifty bushels on an acre.” 
Missouri Territory at this time, so wrote Adams— 
“ Extends from the Mississippi on the E. to the Pacific ocean on the 
W., and from the British Possessions on the N. to the Spanish possessions 
on the south. 
In all this great region the only features mentioned by 
Adams are the Mississippi, Missouri, and Columbia rivers, 
the Rocky mountains, and Astoria. St. Louis, with a popu¬ 
lation of 4,600, was the center of the fur trade. Similarly De¬ 
troit, in Michigan Territory, with a population of 1,400, was a 
fur-trading station, while western Georgia was still in posses¬ 
sion of the Indians called Creeks, “ the most warlike tribe 
this side the Mississippi.” 
“ The White mountains,” he tells us, “ are the highest not only in New 
Hampshire, but in the United States. Mt. Washington, the most elevated 
summit, has been estimated at about 7,000 feet above the level of the sea.” 
