The States and Territories of the Great West; including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska
The United States Democratic Review. / Volume 38, Issue 2
| The value of this volume, as a practical guide to the emigrant, can scarcely be over-estimated. It sets forth, in the clearest and most condensed form, the various resources, advantages and drawbacks of the unpeopled empires which we group together under the common title of the Great West; it points out the most direct routes and modes of conveyance, and describes the districts best adapted for agricultural, commercial, and mining operations. Its account of the mines of Lake Superior can not fail to arouse the attention of men of enterprise and capital to the inexhaustible treasures of copper, silver, and iron which are there comparatively neglected. The map and explanations which accompany it afford a comprehensive survey of the vast water communications—as yet but partially developed—which connect the “Great West” with the cities of the Atlantic seaboard, and all other portions of the continent. We can well believe that the author has “visited almost every portion” of the vast regions he describes, for he writes as one “having knowledge of the eye”; and as far as the practical part of the book is concerned, we cheerfully endorse it as a valuable guide and reference. But in those chapters where the author permits himself to he drawn from the solid ground of fact, into the abstractions of history and politics, we have rarely seen a more pitiable object than he makes of himself by his flounderings and self-contradictions. Indeed the contrast is violent between the plain, strong, common-sense of his description of Kansas as a home for the emigrant, and the highfalutin bombast of what he puts forth as the true history of that much-talked-of Territory. The facts of the book deserve the highest praise; the speculations and theories may pass for what they are worth. |