they can develop themselves. But here, on these vast ramifications of navigable streams, an endless, limitless field for commercial speculation is opened.
The first steamboat arrived at St. Louis in 18ig.10 To-day the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and their tributaries are covered with steamboats and craft of all kinds, and populous cities have arisen on their banks. There are now in the centre of the American continent ports and commercial cities whereof each one by itself already does more business than many of the most celebrated ports of the Old World.
The valley of the Mississippi, one of the most astonishing marvels of nature, contains at least 1,300,000 square miles. It may some day possess a population almost as great as that of all Europe and supply all its needs abundantly. If its population becomes as dense as that of England, which already counts 207 souls to the square mile, the number of its inhabitants will amount to 179,400,ooo. But should it come to equal that of Belgium, as the fertility of the soil seems to warrant, its area will maintain a population of 200,000,000. What a subject for reflection to the philanthropist and the Christian!
I have the honor to be, etc.
Let us descend the Missouri together." You shall admire with me the length of its course, its breadth, its marvels and its dangers. Upon that portion of its banks already occupied by civilization, some 2,653 miles, you shall admire the proud cities and flourishing villages, whose grandeur and importance grow day by day; the splendid
to They have since ascended the Missouri to the foot of the Great Falls, and the Yellowstone to a point a little above the mouth of the Big Horn.
It From the French of the third Belgian edition, vol. V. Dated " On board the Yellowstone, June 4, 1864, in the Cheyenne river country, 1,;15 miles from the mouth of the Missouri."