282 Kentucky and Missouri Railroad Connection. 
by which a system of internal improvements might be established, 
to redeem and develop that neglected though rich quarter of our 
State. The more this subject is investigated, the more interesting 
it becomes. If a spirit of enterprise like that which your citizens 
are now manifesting were aroused and sustained throughout South 
East Missouri, its 2,000,000 acres of Swamp Lands would soon 
be converted into gardens as inexhaustible in fertility, beautiful 
in prospect, and as abundant in productions as those of Holland ; 
and its central portion, besides abounding profusely with various 
kinds of minerals, would be freely acknowledged to embrace, in 
the words of one of our Statesmen, ‘400 miles of the richest iron 
deposits on the globe.’’ 
To display fully the information obtained of this undeveloped 
mineral and swamp region, and the system of internal improve¬ 
ments deemed most advisable for its welfare, would lead me be¬ 
yond the proper limits of this letter. 
I will take the liberty however to state that I have advocated 
the construction of a Railroad from St. Louis via the Iron Mount¬ 
ain to Chalk Bluff, as a link in the Mississippi Valley Railroad, 
The reasons for advocating this branch of the system of Internal 
Improvements for South East Missouri are founded, and, as I am 
convinced, firmly founded^ on the information above alluded to. 
New Madrid is only about 17 miles, on an air line, from Hick¬ 
man. As a portion of the system for the reclamation of the 
swamp lands, a levee might be built on or near an air line from 
New Madrid to a point on the Mississippi river opposite Hickman. 
This levee would be a bed already prepared for the rails of the 
road, and by this short and easy extension of the system hereto¬ 
fore earnestly advocated by me, the connection between Hickman 
and St. Louis via the Iron Mountain would be established. This 
little link of 17 miles would also connect Hickman with the Cairo 
and Fulton Railroad, passing by the heart and throughout the 
body of the State of Arkansas, which road has been surveyed 
through Arkansas by the Government of the United States, and 
for the construction of which a grant of public land has been made. 
But although Hickman would thus become interested in the Ar¬ 
kansas portion of the Mississippi Valley Railroad, that portion of 
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Missouri 
BOTANICAL 
Garden 
ivi ssouRi Botanical Garden 
George Engelmann Pape^ 
