Nor is _this_ all. It lays no claim to prophetic honor to venture the prediction, that the youth of our country who shall survive the next half century, will witness that which many will not believe, “though a man declare it unto them.” But reasoning from the past, or from well-established principles of political economy, it is morally certain that our present population of twenty-three millions will then have swelled to near one hundred millions. “Agriculture, commerce, and manufactures will have expanded their resources and powers of production to an inconceivable extent. The various portions of our country will be linked together by railroads, canals,” telegraphic wires, and by some other--God knows what!--as yet undiscovered means of connection. Already, the cities of our Atlantic coast converse freely, by means of “lightning post-boys,” with their next-door neighbors--the cities of the great Mississippi valley! “Flourishing cities are now lifting their spires in the hitherto pathless wilds of Iowa, Oregon,” and California, and will soon be in telegraphic connection with those of the East. Who can doubt that in less than ten years the prediction of an eminent son of Virginia, J. E. Heath, Esq., will be verified: “American steamships from the cities of our Western coast shall strike off in the path of the setting sun, and following that burning luminary where he dips his glowing axle in the waters of the Pacific, return in the short space of thirty or forty days, laden with the commerce and population of China, and the isles of the remotest West!”[7] [7] Literary Messenger.