Yet Kansas is to-day in the very center of the United States. This is
not a printer's error, nor a play upon words, much as the New Englander
may suspect the one or the other. There was a time when the word "West"
was used to apply to any section of the country a day's journey on
horseback from the Atlantic Coast. For years, and even generations,
everything west of the Allegheny Mountains or of the Ohio River was "Out
West." Even to-day it is probable that a majority of the residents in
the strictly Eastern States regard anything west of the Mississippi
River as strictly Western.

There is no doubt that when Horace Greeley told the young men of the
country to "Go West and grow up with the country," he used the term in
its common and not its strictly geographical sense, and many thousand
youths, who took the advice of the philosopher and statesman, stopped
close to the banks of the Mississippi River, and have grown rich in
their new homes. It cannot be too generally realized, however, that the
Mississippi River slowly wends its way down to the Gulf of Mexico well
within the eastern half of the greatest nation in the world. At several
points in the circuitous course of the Father of Waters, the distance
between the river and the Atlantic Ocean is about 1,000 miles. In an
equal number of points the distance to the Pacific Ocean is 2,000 miles,
showing that whatever may be said of the tributaries of the Mississippi
River, and especially of its gigantic tributary the Missouri, the
Mississippi is an Eastern and not a Western river.

We give an illustration of the point which competent surveyors and
engineers tell us is the exact geographical center of the United States
proper. The monument standing in the center of this great country is
surrounded by an iron railing, and is visited again and again by
tourists, who find it difficult to believe the fact that a point