And in spite of the fact that it failed, the whole affair does
credit to the prophetic brain of Astor.

``This country will see a chain of growing and prosperous
cities straight from New York to Astoria, Oregon,'' said this
man in reply to a doubting questioner.

He laid his plans before Congress, urging a line of army posts,
forty miles apart, from the western extremity of Lake
Superior to the Pacific. ``These forts or army posts will evolve
into cities,'' said Astor, when he called on Thomas Jefferson,
who was then President of the United States. Jefferson was
interested, but non-committal. Astor exhibited maps of the
Great Lakes, and the country beyond. He argued with a
prescience then not possessed by any living man that at the
western extremity of Lake Superior would grow up a great
city. Yet in Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-six, Duluth was
ridiculed by the caustic tongue of Proctor Knott, who asked,
``What will become of Duluth when the lumber crop is cut?''
Astor proceeded to say that another great city would grow
up at the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. General
Dearborn. Secretary of War under Jefferson had just
established Fort Dearborn on the present site of Chicago. Astor
commended this, and said: ``From a fort you get a trading
post, and from a trading post you will get a city.''

He pointed out to Jefferson the site, on his map, of the Falls
of St. Anthony. ``There you will have a fort some day, for
wherever there is water-power, there will grow up mills for