he _Scientific American_ of Oct. 6, 1866, says:--

"To exaggerate the importance of this transcontinental highway is
almost impossible. To a certain extent it will change the relative
positions of this country, Europe and Asia.... With the completion
of the Pacific Railroad, instead of receiving our goods from India,
China, Japan, and the 'isles of the sea,' by way of London and
Liverpool, we shall bring them direct by way of the Sandwich
Islands and the railroad, and become the carriers to a great extent
for Europe. But this is but a portion of the advantage of this
work. Our western mountains are almost literally mountains of gold
and silver. In them the Arabian fable of Aladdin is realized....
Let the road be completed, and the comforts as well as the
necessaries furnished by Asia, the manufactures of Europe, and the
productions of the States can be brought by the iron horse almost
to the miner's door; and in the production and possession of the
precious metals, the blood of commerce, we shall be the richest
nation on the globe. But the substantial wealth created by the
improvement of the soil and the development of the resources of the
country, is a still more important element in the result of this
vast work."

Thus, with the idea of becoming the carriers of the world, the highway
of the nations, and the richest power on the globe, the American heart
swells with pride, and mounts up with aspirations, to which there is no
limit.

And the extent to which we have come up is further shown by the
influence which we are exerting on other nations. Speaking of America
Mr. Townsend in the work above cited, p. 462, says:--

"Out of her discovery grew the European reformation in religion;
out of our Revolutionary War grew the revolutionary period of
Europe. And out of our rapid development among great States and
happy peoples, has come an immigration more wonderful than that
which invaded Europe from Asia in the latter centuries of the Roman
Empire. When we raised our flag on the Atlantic, Europe sent her
contributions; it appeared on the Pacific, and all orientalism felt
the signal. They are coming in two endless fleets, eastward and
westward, and the highway is swung between the ocean for them to
tread upon. We have lightened Ireland of half her weight, and
Germany is comi