as the records of a century ago now read to us.

And Nature herself, by the physical features she has stamped upon our
country, has seemed to lay it out as a field for national development on
the most magnificent scale. Here we have the largest lakes, the longest
rivers, the mightiest cataracts, the deepest caves, the broadest and
most fertile prairies, and the richest mines of gold and iron and coal
and copper, to be found upon the globe. "When America was discovered,
there were but sixty millions of gold in Europe. California and the
territories round her have produced one thousand millions of dollars in
gold in twenty years. Sixty-one million dollars was the largest annual
gold yield ever made in Australia. California has several times produced
ninety millions of gold in a year." (Townsend, p. 384.) "The area of
workable coal beds in all the world outside the United States is
estimated at 26,000 square miles. That of the United States, not
including Alaska, is estimated at over 200,000 square miles, or _eight
times as large as the available coal area of all the rest of the
globe!_" (American Year Book for 1869, p. 655.) "The iron product and
manufacture of the United States has increased enormously within the
last few years, and the vast beds of iron convenient to coal in various
parts of the Union, are destined to make America the chief source of
supply for the world." "Three mountains of solid iron [in Missouri],
known as Iron Mountain, Pilot Knob, and Shepherd's Mountain, are among
the most remarkable natural curiosities on our continent." (_Id._ p.
654.)

And the people have taken hold to lay out their work on the grand scale
that nature has indicated. Excepting only the Houses of Parliament in
London, our national capitol at Washington is the most spacious and
imposing national edifice in the world. By the unparalleled feat of a