'It includes fifteen sovereignties, known as the 'Land States,' and
an extent of territory sufficient for thirty-two additional, each
equal to the great central land State of Ohio.
'It embraces soils capable of abundant yield of the rich
productions of the tropics, of sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, corn,
and the grape, the vintage, now a staple, particularly so of
California; of the great cereals, wheat and corn, in the Western,
Northwestern, and Pacific States, and in that vast interior region
from the valley of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains;
and thence to the chain formed by the Sierra Nevada and Cascades,
the eastern wall of the Pacific slope, every variety of soil is
found revealing its wealth.
'Instead of dreary, inarable wastes, as supposed in earlier times,
the millions of buffalo, elk, deer, mountain sheep, the primitive
inhabitants of the soil, fed by the hand of nature, attest its
capacity for the abundant support of a dense population through the
skilful toil of the agriculturist, dealing with the earth under the
guidance of the science of the present age.
'Not only is the yield of food for man in this region abundant, but
it holds in its bosom the precious metals of gold, silver, with
cinnabar, the useful metals of iron, lead, copper, interspersed
with immense belts or strata of that propulsive element, coal, the
source of riches and power, and now the indispensable agent, not
only for domestic purposes of life, but in the machine shop, the
steam car, and steam vessel, quickening the advance of civilization
and the permanent settlement of the country, and being the agent of
active and constant intercommunication with every part of the
republic.
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