Diplomacy'' that ``General Lane, the first territorial governor
of Oregon, left his home in Indiana, August 27, 1848,
and desiring to reach his destination as soon as possible, travelling
overland to San Francisco and thence by ship, reached his
post on the first of March following--the journey occupying
six months. At the time our treaty of peace and independence
was signed in 1783, two stage-coaches were sufficient for all the
passengers and nearly all the freight between New York and
Boston.'' It is only seventy years since the Rev. John Lowrie,
with his bride and Mr. and Mrs. Reed, rode horseback from
Pittsburg through flooded rivers and over the Allegheny
Mountains to Philadelphia, whence it took them four and
a-half months to reach Calcutta.

Nor was this all, for scores of the conveniences and even
necessities of our modern life were unknown at the beginning
of the nineteenth century. To get some idea of the vastness
of the revolution in the conditions of living, we have but to
remind ourselves that ``in the year 1800 no steamer ploughed
the waters; no locomotive traversed an inch of soil; no photographic
plate had ever been kissed by sunlight; no telephone
had ever talked from town to town; steam had never driven
mighty mills and electric currents had never been harnessed
into telegraph and trolley wires.''[21] ``In all the land there was no
power loom, no power press, no large manufactory in textiles,
wood or iron, no canal. The possibilities of electricity in
light, heat and power were unknown and unsuspected. The
cotton gin had just begun its revolutionary work. Intercommunication
was difficult, the postal service slow and costly,
literature scanty and mostly of inferior quality.''[22]