since 1798, according to the census
of the several decades, has been as follows: In 1800, the total number
of inhabitants in the United States was 5,305,925; in 1810, 7,239,814;
in 1820, 9,638,191; in 1830, 12,866,020; in 1840, 17,069,453; in 1850,
23,191,876; in 1860, 31,445,089; in 1870, 38,555,983. These figures are
almost too large for the mind to readily grasp. Perhaps a better idea
can be formed of the rapid increase of population by looking at a few
representative cities. Boston, in 1792, had 18,000 inhabitants; now,
250,000. New York, in 1792, 30,000; now, nearly 1,000,000. Chicago,
about thirty years ago, was a little trading post, with a few huts; but
yet it contained at the time of the great conflagration in October,
1871, nearly 350,000 souls. San Francisco, twenty years ago, was a
barren waste, but contains to-day 170,000 inhabitants.

Our industrial growth has been equally remarkable. In 1792, the United
States had no cotton mill. In 1850, there were 1074, employing 100,000
hands. Only forty-one years ago the first section of the first railroad
in this country, the Baltimore and Ohio, was opened to a distance of
twenty-three miles. We have now 52,000 miles in operation. It was only
thirty-four years ago that the magnetic telegraph was invented. Now the
estimated length of telegraph wire in operation is over 100,000 miles.
In 1833, the first reaper and mower was constructed, and in 1846, the
first sewing machine was completed. Think of the hundreds of thousands
of both of these classes of machines now in use. And there are now more
lines of telegraph and railroad projected and in process of construction
than ever before, and greater facilities and larger plans for
manufactories of all kinds than at any previous point of time. And
should these industries increase in the same geometrical ratio, and time
continue ten years, the figures we now chronicle would then read about
as the records of a century ago now read to us.

And Nature herself, by the physical features she has stamped upon our
country, has seemed to lay it out as a field for national development on
the most magnificent scale. Here we have the largest lakes, the longest
rivers, the mightiest cataracts, the deepest caves, the broadest and
most fertile prairies, and the richest mines of gold and iron and coal
and copper, to be found upon the globe. "When America was discovered,
there were but sixty millions of gold in Europe. California and the
ter