the Gulf of
Mexico extends from the 47th to the 30th degree of latitude, a distance
of more than 1,200 miles as the bird flies. The frontier of the United
States winds along the whole of this immense line, sometimes falling
within its limits, but more frequently extending far beyond it, into the
waste. It has been calculated that the whites advance every year a mean
distance of seventeen miles along the whole of his vast boundary. *j
Obstacles, such as an unproductive district, a lake or an Indian nation
unexpectedly encountered, are sometimes met with. The advancing column
then halts for a while; its two extremities fall back upon themselves,
and as soon as they are reunited they proceed onwards. This gradual and
continuous progress of the European race towards the Rocky Mountains has
the solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising
unabatedly, and daily driven onwards by the hand of God.

[Footnote j: See Legislative Documents, 20th Congress, No. 117, p. 105.]

Within this first line of conquering settlers towns are built, and
vast States founded. In 1790 there were only a few thousand pioneers
sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi; and at the present day
these valleys contain as many inhabitants as were to be found in the
whole Union in 1790. Their population amounts to nearly 4,000,000. *k
The city of Washington was founded in 1800, in the very centre of the
Union; but such are the changes which have taken place, that it now
stands at one of the extremities; and the delegates of the most remote
Western States are already obliged to perform a journey as long as that
from Vienna to Paris. *l

[Footnote k: 3,672,317--Census of 1830.]

[Footnote l: The distance from Jefferson, the capital of the State of
Missouri, to Washington is 1,019 miles. ("American Almanac," 1831, p.
48.)]

All the States are borne onwards at the same time in the path of
fortune, but of course they do not all increase and prosper in the
same proportion. To the North of the Union the detached branches of
the Alleghany chain, which extend as far as the Atlantic Ocean, form
spacious roads and ports, which are constantly accessible to vessels
of the greatest burden. But from the Potomac to the mouth of the
Mississippi the coast is sandy and flat. In this part of the Union the
mouths of almost all the rivers are obstructed; and the few harbors
which exist amongst these lagoons afford much shallower water to
vesse