It was in the year 1811 that the steam-engine commenced its giant labours in the Valley of the West, and the first vessel propelled by its agency glided along the soft-flowing wave of the beautiful river.[16] Many events, we are told, united to render this year a most remarkable era in the annals of Western history.[17] The spring-freshet of the rivers buried the whole valley from Pittsburgh to New-Orleans {33} in a flood; and when the waters subsided unparalleled sickness and mortality ensued. A mysterious spirit of restlessness possessed the denizens of the Northern forests, and in myriads they migrated towards the South and West. The magnificent comet of the year, seeming, indeed, to verify the terrors of superstition, and to "shake from its horrid hair pestilence and war," all that summer was beheld blazing along the midnight sky, and shedding its lurid twilight over forest and stream; and when the leaves of autumn began to rustle to the ground, the whole vast Valley of the Mississippi rocked and vibrated in earthquake-convulsion! forests bowed their heads; islands disappeared from their sites, and new one's rose; immense lakes and hills were formed; the graveyard gave up its sheeted and ghastly tenants; huge relics of the mastodon and megalonyx, which for ages had slumbered in the bosom of earth, were heaved up to the sunlight; the blue lightning streamed and the thunder muttered along the leaden sky, and, amid all the elemental war, the mighty current of the "Father of Waters" for hours rolled back its heaped-up floods towards its source! All this was the prologue to that mighty drama of _Change_ which, from that period to the present, has been sweeping over the Western Valley; it was the fearful welcome-home to that all-powerful agent which has revolutionized the character of half a continent; for at that epoch of wonders, and amid them all, the first steamboat was seen descending the great rivers, and the awe-struck Indian {34} on the banks beheld the _Pinelore_ flying through the troubled waters.[18] The rise and progress of the steam-engine is without a parallel in the history of modern improvement. Fifty years ago, and the prophetic declaration of Darwin was pardoned only as the enthusiasm of poetry; it is now little more than the detail of reality: "Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam, afar Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car; Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear The flying chariot through the fields of air; Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above, Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move, Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd, And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud."[19]