a lifetime.

For a year or two after the European pacification of 1763 Indian
disturbances held back the flood of settlers preparing to enter,
through the Alleghany passes, the upper valleys of the westward
flowing rivers. Neither Indian depredations nor proclamations of
kings, however, could long interpose an effectual restraint. The
supreme object of the settlers was to obtain land. Formerly there
was land enough for all along the coasts or in the nearer
uplands. But population, as Franklin computed, was doubling in
twenty-five years; vacant areas had already been occupied; and
desirable lands had been gathered into great speculative
holdings. Newcomers were consequently forced to cross the
mountains--and not only newcomers, but all residents who were
still land-hungry and ambitious to better their condition.

To such the appeal of the great West was irresistible. The
English Government might indeed regard the region as a "barren
waste" or a "profitless wilderness," but not so the Scotch-Irish,
Huguenot, and Palatine homeseekers who poured by the thousands
through the Chesapeake and Delaware ports. Pushing past the
settled seaboard country, these rugged men of adventure plunged
joyously into the forest depths and became no less the founders
of the coming nation than were the Pilgrims and the Cavaliers.

Ahead of the home-builder, however, went the speculator. It has
been remarked that "from the time when Joliet and La Salle first
found their way into the heart of the great West up to the
present day when far-off Alaska is in the throes of development,
'big business' has been engaged in western speculation."* In