SEMITE VALLEY, CALIFORNIA.]

[Footnote 5: Western boundary line: the people of Texas held that
their state extended west as far as the Rio Grande River, but Mexico
insisted that the boundary line was at the Nueces River, which is
much further east.]

[Footnote 6: Namely: California, Nevada, Utah, and part of Wyoming,
Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.]

[Footnote 7: Wretch: here a very unhappy and miserable person.]

240. How we bought more land; our growth since the Revolution.--Long
before Captain Sutter died, the United States bought from Mexico
another great piece of land (1853), marked on the map by the name
of the Gadsden Purchase.[8] A number of years later (1867) we bought
the territory of Alaska[9] from Russia.

[Illustration: This map shows the extent of the United States in 1853
after we had added the land called the Gadsden Purchase, bought from
Mexico; the land is marked on the map, 1853.]

The Revolution ended something over a hundred years ago; if you look
on the map in paragraph 187, and compare it with the maps which follow,
you will see how we have grown during that time. Then we had just
thirteen states[10] which stretched along the Atlantic, and, with
the country west of them, extended as far as the Mississippi River.

Next (1803) we bought the great territory of Louisiana (see map in
paragraph 188), which has since been divided into many states; then
(1819) we bought Florida (see map in paragraph 218); then (1845) we
added Texas (see map in paragraph 230); the next year (1846) we added
Oregon territory, since cut up into two great states (see map in
paragraph 234); then (1848) we obtained California and New Mexico
(see map in paragraph 239). Five years after that (1853) we bought
the land then known as the Gadsden Purchase (see first map in this
paragraph); last of all (1867) we bought Alaska (see second map in
this paragraph).

[Illustration: This map shows the territorial growth of the United
States from the time of the Revolution to the present day.]

[Illustration: SCENE ON THE COAST OF ALASKA.]

[Footnote 8: See maps in this paragraph. It was called the Gadsden
Purchase, because General James Gadsden of South Carolina bought it
from Mexico for the United States, in 1853. It included what is now
part of Southern Arizona and N. Mexico.]

[Footnote 9: Alaska: see second map in this paragraph.]

[Footnote 10: Thirteen states: see footnote 4 in paragraph 102.]

241. "Brother Jona