Such is the vast expanse of country from which Nature’s men are at this time rapidly vanishing, giving way to the _modern crusade_ which is following the thousand allurements, and stocking with myriads, this world of green fields. This splendid area, denominated the “Valley of the Mississippi,” embraced between the immutable barriers on either side, the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains; with the Gulf of Mexico on the South, and the great string of lakes on the North, and the mighty Mississippi rolling its turbid waters through it, for the distance of four thousand miles, receiving its hundred tributaries, whose banks and plateaus are capable of supporting a population of one hundred millions, covered almost entirely with the richest soil in the world, with lead, iron, and coal, sufficient for its population—with twelve thousand miles of river navigation for steamers, within its embrace, besides the coast on the South, and the great expanse of lakes on the North—with a population of five millions, already sprinkled over its nether half, and a greater part of the remainder of it, inviting the world to its possession, for one dollar and 25 cents (five shillings) per acre! I ask, who can contemplate, without amazement, this _mighty river alone_, eternally rolling its boiling waters through the richest of soil, for the distance of four thousand miles; over three thousand five hundred of which, I have myself been wafted on mighty steamers, ensconced within “curtains damasked, and carpets ingrain;” and on its upper half, gazed with tireless admiration upon its thousand hills and mounds of grass and green, sloping down to the water’s edge, in all the grace and beauty of Nature’s loveliest fabrication. On its lower half, also, whose rich alluvial shores are studded with stately cotton wood and elms, which echo back the deep and hollow cough of the puffing steamers. I have contemplated the bed of this vast river, sinking from its natural surface; and the alligator driven to its bosom, abandoning his native bog and fen, which are drying and growing into beauty and loveliness under the hand of the husbandman. I have contemplated these boundless forests melting away before the fatal axe, until the expanded waters of this vast channel, and its countless tributaries, will yield their surplus to the thirsty sunbeam, to which their shorn banks will expose them; and I have contemplated, also, the never-ending transit of steamers, ploughing up the sand and deposit from its bottom, which its turbid waters are eternally hurrying on to the ocean, sinking its channel, and thereby raising its surrounding alluvions for the temptations and enjoyment of man.