ap, of the Falls of Saint
Anthony. "There you will have a fort some day, for wherever there is
water-power, there will grow up mills for grinding grain, and sawmills
as well. This place of power will have to be protected, and so you will
have there a post which will eventually be replaced by a city." Yet Fort
Snelling was nearly fifty years in the future, and Saint Paul and
Minneapolis were dreams undreamed.

Jefferson took time to think about it and then wrote Astor thus: "Your
beginning of a city on the Western Coast is a great acquisition, and I
look forward to a time when our population will spread itself up and
down along the whole Pacific frontage, unconnected with us, except by
ties of blood and common interest, and enjoying, like us, the rights of
self-government."

The Pilgrim Fathers thought land that lay inward from the sea was
valueless. The forest was an impassable barrier. Later, up to the time
of George Washington, the Alleghanies were regarded as a natural
barrier. Patrick Henry likened the Alleghany Mountains to the Alps that
separated Italy from Germany and said, "The mountain-ranges are lines
that God has set to separate one people from another."

Later, statesmen have spoken of the ocean in the same way, as proof that
a union of all countries under an international capital could never
exist.

Great as was Jefferson, he regarded the achievement of Lewis and Clark
as a feat, and not an example. He looked upon the Rocky Mountains as a
natural separation of peoples "bound by ties of blood and mutual
interest, but otherwise unconnected." To pierce these mighty mountains
with tunnels, and whisper across them with the human voice, were of
course miracles as yet unguessed. But Astor closed his eyes and saw
great pack-trains, mules laden with skins, winding across these
mountains, and down to tidewater at Astoria. There his ships would be
lying at the docks, ready to sail for the Far East. James J. Hill was
yet to come.

* * * * *

A company was formed, and two expeditions set out for the mouth of the
Columbia River, one by land and the other by sea.

The land expedition barely got through alive; it was a perilous
undertaking, with accidents by flood and field and in the imminent
deadly breach. But the route by the water was feasible.

The town was founded and soon became a center of commercial activity.
Had Astor been on the ground to take personal charge, a city like