THROUGH WONDERLAND . 
13 
tages of situation as they possess, and with the days of booms, with all their 
unhealthy excitement and fictitious values, gone, never, it is to be hoped, to 
return, these cities must continue to increase in commercial importance, with 
the development of the rich country surrounding them. 
Fargo is, indeed, the largest city in the entire Territory of Dakota, and will 
probably retain its position as such for many years to come. 
It is needless to repeat here the oft-told story of Dakota’s marvelous 
growth. Time was when it was capable of being wrought up into a mosaic of 
wondrous interest and beauty; but, with the multiplication of agencies for giving 
it publicity, its charm, for the present generation at least, has passed away. It 
will, nevertheless, afford the historian of the nineteenth century material for one 
of the most interesting and instructive chapters of his work. 
Writing, in 1828, his “ Principles of Population,” the great historian of 
Europe said: “The gradual and continuous progress of the European race 
toward the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a providential event: it is 
like a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand of 
God.” But at that time the State of Illinois, but half way toward the Rocky 
Mountains and one-third of the way to the Pacific Ocean, was almost the limit 
of its mighty flow. Wisconsin, with no noteworthy settlements of its own, 
formed part of the Territory of Michigan ; Iowa was an altogether vacant 
region, without any form of organized-government ; while other great States of 
to-day were still either mere parts of the Louisiana purchase, with as yet no 
separate identity, or were comprised within the then far-extending territory of 
the republic of Mexico. 
The traveler to the Northwest, by the Northern Pacific Railroad, traverses 
that section of the far-extending dominion of the American people that was 
the last to be overspread by that great tide of civilization. He sees its evi¬ 
dences in the happy and prosperous homesteads that dot the fertile plains of 
Dakota, and nestle under the sheltering bluffs of the winding valleys of Mon¬ 
tana; he is able to bear witness, also, to its having penetrated the fastnesses of 
the Rocky Mountains, and converted the hillsides of Eastern Washington and 
the fair lands of Oregon into, smiling wheat fields and fruitful orchards. 
But, notwithstanding the hundreds of flourishing settlements scattered along 
the great highway of travel, with here and there a goodly town or city, he can 
not but wonder at the apparent sparseness of population when he remembers 
that one and a half millions of people have their homes between the Great Lakes 
and Puget Sound. 
But let him consider the vast extent of the country ; let him call to mind 
that Dakota, with her 415,664 inhabitants, has yet 230 acres of land to every 
man, woman and child within her borders, her population averaging less than 
three to the square mile ; that the density of population in Oregon and Wash¬ 
ington is but two and one-half and two to the square mile, respectively; while 
both Montana and Idaho have considerably more square miles than they have 
inhabitants. 
