na not a man was able to go. At the same time Napoleon had on
hand another scheme against England, which was even more important than
his plans for America, and which demanded men and money. Besides this,
he was shrewd enough to know that he could not hold this far-away
territory for any long time against England, which had so many more
ships than France. He suddenly changed his mind about his American
possessions, and nearly sent Mr. Monroe and Mr. Livingston into a state
of collapse by offering to sell them not only New Orleans but also the
whole Province of Louisiana.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE

UNITED STATES

SHOWING

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE

AND OTHER

ACCESSIONS OF TERRITORY.]

There was no time to write to President Jefferson and ask his advice,
and this was before the days of the cable; so Monroe and Livingston took
the matter into their own hands, and signed the contract which
transferred the Louisiana territory to the United States for a
consideration of $15,000,000. They were severely criticized by many of
their own countrymen, and they had some doubts of their own about the
wisdom of their action. You see, nobody knew then that corn and wheat
would grow so abundantly in this territory, or that beyond the
Mississippi there were such stretches of glorious pasture-lands, or that
underneath its mountainous regions were such mines of gold, silver, and
copper. Americans saw only the commercial possibilities of the river,
and all they wanted was the right of navigating it and the permission to
explore the unknown country to the westward.

But Jefferson and Monroe and Livingston builded better than they knew.
All this happened a hundred years ago; and to-day that old Louisiana
territory is, in natural resources, the wealthiest part of the whole
United States. Without that territory in our possession we should have
no Colorado and no Wyoming, no Dakotas, or Nebraska, or Minnesota, or
Montana, or Missouri, or Iowa, or Kansas, or Arkansas, or Louisiana, or
Oklahoma, or Indian Territory.

For all these reasons we owe our most sincere and hearty thanks to the
patriotic and far-sighted men who were concerned in buying this
territory for the United States.

THE CITY THAT LIVES OUTDOORS

BY W. S. HARWOOD

When the wind is howling through the days of the mad March far up in the
lands where snow and ice thick cover the earth, here in this city that
lives outdoors the roses are clambering over the "gall