intercourse which
these two classes of cities hold with each other; and it may be safely
anticipated that no long period will elapse before this intercourse
will become more important to them than all their commerce with the
world beside.

In comparing the interior cities of the great plain, situated on the
navigable rivers, with those located on the borders of the lakes, two
considerations bearing on their relative growth should be kept in
view. The river cities were of earlier growth, the settlement from the
Atlantic States having taken the Ohio river as the high-road to their
new homes, many years before the upper lakes were resorted to as a
channel of active emigration.

This gave an earlier development to country bordering the central
rivers, the Ohio, Wabash, Illinois, and Lower Missouri. The States of
Kentucky and Tennessee, also, had been pretty well settled, in their
more inviting portions, before any considerable inroad had been made
on the wilderness bordering on the upper lakes. Owing to these and
other circumstances, the river cities, Pittsburg, Cincinnati,
Louisville, and others of less note, were well advanced in growth,
before the towns on the lakes had begun, in any considerable degree,
to be developed. Another advantage the river cities possessed in their
early stage, and which they still hold; that of manufacturing for the
planting States bordering the great rivers. For many years, in a
great variety of articles of necessity, they possessed almost a
monopoly of this business. Of late, transportation has become so
cheap, that the planters avail themselves of a greater range of choice
for the purchase of manufactured articles, and the lake cities have
commenced a direct trade with the plantation States, which will
doubtless increase with the usual rapidity of industrial development
in the fertile West.

If we claim for the upper lake country some superiority of climate for
city growth over the great river region, we do not doubt that the
future will justify the claim. More labor will be performed for the
same compensation, in a cool, bracing atmosphere, such as
distinguishes the upper lake region, than on the more sultry banks of
the central affluents of the Mississippi, where are the best positions
for the chief river cities.

Refraining from further comment, let us bring the actual development
of the interior cities--on the navigable rivers and on the lakes--into
juxtaposition for easy comparis