transported to this wilderness.

It was a big task and yet a simple one. The movement was as obvious as
that of Niagara--Niagara is wonderful but inevitable. A great deal of
water flowing over a great deal of rock, that is all there is of it. The
destiny of America was equally obvious from the beginning. Here was a
great deal of land which was destined to be inhabited by a great many
people. It didn't matter very much what kind of people they were so that
they were healthy and industrious. The greatness of the country was
assured if only there were enough of them.

From the very first the future greatness of the land was seen by
open-eyed explorers. They all were able to appreciate it. Captain John
Smith does not compare Virginia with Great Britain; he compares it to
the whole of Europe. After mentioning the natural resources of each
country, he declares that the new land had all these and more, and
needed only men to develop them. And Captain John Smith's forecast has
proved to be correct.

In the first half of the last century, a party of twenty young men from
Cambridge, Massachusetts, started on what at that time was a great
adventure, the overland journey to Oregon. The preface to Wyeth's
"Oregon Expedition" throws light on the ideas of those who were not
statesmen or captains of industry, but only plain American citizens
sharing the vision which was common.

"The spot where our adventurer was born and grew up had many peculiar
and desirable advantages over most others in the County of Middlesex.
Besides rich pasturage, numerous dairies, and profitable orchards, it
possessed the luxuries of well-cultivated gardens of all sorts of
culinary vegetables, and all within three miles of Boston Market House,
and two miles of the largest live-cattle market in New England." Besides
these blessings there is enumerated "a body of water commonly called
Fresh Pond."

"But Mr. Wyeth said, 'All this availeth me nothing, so long as I read
books in which I find that by going only about four thousand miles
overland, from the shore of our Atlantic to the shore of the Pacific,
after we have there entrapped and killed the beavers and otters, we
shall be able, after building vessels for the purpose, to carry our most
valuable peltry to China and Cochin China, our sealskins to Japan, and
our superfluous grain to various Asiatic ports, and lumber to the
Spanish settlements on the Pacific; and to become rich by underworking
and under