ent parts of the country. It wrought a social revolution
by bringing all parts of the country into close communication, making
settlement easy and the cost of moving crops slight. Anthracite coal was
tested in 1837, and, because of its great advantages, was soon widely
used. McCormick's reaper was patented in 1834, and gave an enormous
impetus to the cultivation of western lands. In the early days fire was
obtained by the use of flint and steel or the sun-glass. Friction
matches appeared in 1836, and quickly supplanted the clumsy method that
had been employed for centuries.

On the night of December 16, 1835, New York City was visited by the most
destructive fire in its history. The weather was so cold that the
volunteer fire department could do little to check the conflagration,
which destroyed 648 buildings, covering seventeen blocks and thirteen
acres of ground. The value of the property lost was $20,000,000.

THE COUNTRY IN 1830.

The population of the United States in 1830 was 12,866,020, and the
postoffices, which in 1790 numbered only 75, had grown to 8,450. The
sales of the western lands had increased from $100,000 to $25,000,000 a
year, a fact which explains the rapid extinguishment of the public debt.

[Illustration: WESTERN RAILROAD IN EARLIER DAYS.]

Two States were admitted to the Union, Arkansas in 1836 and Michigan in
1837. The former was a part of the Louisiana purchase, and was
originally settled by the French at Arkansas Post, in 1635. Michigan was
the fourth State formed from the Northwest Territory, and was first
settled by the French at Detroit in 1701.

Abolitionism assumed definite form in 1831, when William Lloyd Garrison,
in his Boston paper, _The Liberator_, demanded the immediate abolition
of slavery. Anti-slavery societies were organized in different parts of
the country and the members became known as abolitionists. The South was
incensed by the agitation, which reached its culmination in the great
Civil War of 1861-65.

FRANCE AND PORTUGAL FORCED TO TERMS.

President Jackson impressed his personality upon everything with which
he came in contact. We had been pressing a suit against France for the
injuries she inflicted upon our commerce during the flurry of 1798, but
that country was so laggard in paying that the President recommended to
Congress that enough French vessels should be captured to pay the bill.
France flared up and threatened war unless Jackson apologized. A dozen