ion was an epitome of the previous factors in
western advance.

In an interesting monograph, Victor Hehn[17:2] has traced the effect of
salt upon early European development, and has pointed out how it
affected the lines of settlement and the form of administration. A
similar study might be made for the salt springs of the United States.
The early settlers were tied to the coast by the need of salt, without
which they could not preserve their meats or live in comfort. Writing in
1752, Bishop Spangenburg says of a colony for which he was seeking lands
in North Carolina, "They will require salt & other necessaries which
they can neither manufacture nor raise. Either they must go to
Charleston, which is 300 miles distant . . . Or else they must go to
Boling's Point in V{a} on a branch of the James & is also 300 miles from
here. . . Or else they must go down the Roanoke--I know not how many
miles--where salt is brought up from the Cape Fear."[17:3] This may
serve as a typical illustration. An annual pilgrimage to the coast for
salt thus became essential. Taking flocks or furs and ginseng root, the
early settlers sent their pack trains after seeding time each year to
the coast.[17:4] This proved to be an important educational influence,
since it was almost the only way in which the pioneer learned what was
going on in the East. But when discovery was made of the salt springs of
the Kanawha, and the Holston, and Kentucky, and central New York, the
West began to be freed from dependence on the coast. It was in part the
effect of finding these salt springs that enabled settlement to cross
the mountains.

From the time the mountains rose between the pioneer and the seaboard, a
new order of Americanism arose. The West and the East began to get out
of touch of each other. The settlements from the sea to the mountains
kept connection with the rear and had a certain solidarity. But the
over-mountain men grew more and more independent. The East took a narrow
view of American advance, and nearly lost these men. Kentucky and
Tennessee history bears abundant witness to the truth of this statement.
The East began to try to hedge and limit westward expansion. Though
Webster could declare that there were no Alleghanies in his politics,
yet in politics in general they were a very solid factor.

The exploitation of the beasts took hunter and trader to the west, the
exploitation of the grasses took the rancher west, and the exploitation
of