*d The valley of the Mississippi is, upon the whole, the most magnificent dwelling-place prepared by God for man's abode; and yet it may be said that at present it is but a mighty desert.
[Footnote d: See Appendix, A.] On the eastern side of the Alleghanies, between the base of these mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, there lies a long ridge of rocks and sand, which the sea appears to have left behind as it retired.

The mean breadth of this territory does not exceed one hundred miles; but it is about nine hundred miles in length.

This part of the American continent has a soil which offers every obstacle to the husbandman, and its vegetation is scanty and unvaried.
Upon this inhospitable coast the first united efforts of human industry were made.

The tongue of arid land was the cradle of those English colonies which were destined one day to become the United States of America.

The centre of power still remains here; whilst in the backwoods the true elements of the great people to whom the future control of the continent belongs are gathering almost in secrecy together.
When the Europeans first landed on the shores of the West Indies, and afterwards on the coast of South America, they thought themselves transported into those fabulous regions of which poets had sung.