So vast
in proportions is the yearly crop of food stuffs that more than three
hundred thousand freight cars and about two thousand vessels are
required to move the crop from farm to market. One hundred and
twenty-five thousand miles of railway, fifteen thousand miles of
navigable water, exclusive of the Great Lakes, and several thousand
miles of canals are insufficient to transport this enormous
production; thousands of miles of railway are therefore yearly built
in order to keep pace with the growth of population and the settlement
of new lands. To the natural resources of the soil add the enormous
mineral wealth hidden but a few feet below the surface, and wonder
grows to amazement. Coal fields surpassing in extent all the remaining
fields in the world; iron ore sufficient to stock the world with iron
and steel for the next thousand years; copper of the finest quality;
zinc, lead, salt, building stone and timber, all in quantities
sufficient for a population a hundred times as great. Is it strange
that wise economists point to this territory and say, "Behold the
future empire of the world"? Where in the wide world is another valley
in which climate, latitude and nature have been so liberal?
It is only a few years since the Indian and the bison divided between
them the sole possession of this region.
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