In this work the publishers offer something which is not furnished by histories or encyclopædias, namely, a succinct but comprehensive expert account of our country at the present day. The very extent of America and American industries renders it difficult to appreciate the true meaning of the United States of America. In this work the American citizen can survey the land upon which he lives, and the industrial, social, political, and other environments of himself and his fellow-citizens. The best knowledge and the best efforts of experts, editor, and publishers have gone to the preparation of a standard book dedicated to the America of the present day; and the publishers believe that these efforts will be appreciated by those who desire to inform themselves regarding the America of the end of the century. LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS. Hon. WILLIAM L. WILSON, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Fifty-third Congress. Hon. J. R. SOLEY, formerly Assistant Secretary of the Navy. EDWARD ATKINSON, Ll. D., Ph. D. Col. T. A. DODGE, U. S. A. Col. GEORGE E. WARING, Jr. J. B. McMASTER, Professor of History in the University of Pennsylvania. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, LL. D. Major J. W. POWELL, Director of the U. S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Ethnology. WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D., U. S. Commissioner of Education. LYMAN ABBOTT, D. D. H. H. BANCROFT, author of "Native Races of the Pacific Coast." HARRY PRATT JUDSON, Head Dean of the Colleges, University of Chicago. Judge THOMAS M. COOLEY, formerly Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. D. A. SARGENT, M. D., Director of the Hemenway Gymnasium, Harvard University. CHARLES HORTON COOLEY. A. E. KENNELLY, Assistant to Thomas A. Edison. D. C. GILMAN, LL. D., President of Johns Hopkins University. H. G. PROUT, Editor of the Railroad Gazette. F. D. MILLET, formerly Vice-President of the National Academy of Design. F. W. TAUSSIG, Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University. HENRY VAN BRUNT. H. P. FAIRFIELD. SAMUEL W. ABBOTT, M. D., Secretary of the State Board of Health, Massachusetts. N. S. SHALER. Sold only by subscription. Prospectus, giving detailed chapter titles and specimen illustrations, mailed free on request. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. [Transcriber's notes: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained. An entry in the index for the "Northwest passage" has been left out, being unreadable. Superscripts are enclosed in { }. In the sentence "Those Adventurers & Planters by Vertue .... ", there is a tilde on the last "c" of "Incorporacon"; and in the sentence "In this Provynce soe as they might ...", there is a tilde on the "c" of "toleracon".] End of Project Gutenberg's The Beginners of a Nation, by Edward Eggleston