But the steady subsidence of the Atlantic littoral foreshadows changes more startling than these—more startling, at least, to some who have not the advantage to be Jersey mosquitoes. Man himself, the man of the Eastern states, _Homo smugwumpus_, will find himself face to face with a problem of supreme scientific interest and personal importance. Will he travel west and go up with the country, or, staying where he is, develop into a fish and be mighty quick about it? The ordinary process of evolution, whereby a million years are required to change a red worm into a rhinoceros or advance a cave-bat one step in biological preferment and make it a theologian, will not do for _H. smugwumpus_ when the wave is at his armpits and his ancestral acres are falling away from his webless feet. Even the fittest of his species must travel with uncommon speed along the line of development in order to survive in the new environment. They must slide nimbly up the scale of being, passing every intermediate stage between smugwumphood and fishness without pausing to enjoy its advantages. Probably, however, most of them will prefer to ascend the new watercourses up the ever-steepening slope of the great plains, settling eventually on the summit of the continent, roundabout San Francisco—where it is to be hoped they will be welcome if they behave themselves. Doubtless they will miss many of the blessings of their lowland existence, but they will find in the superior altitude an immunity from sunstroke and the mad dog, which will be partial compensation for renouncing the fascinating study of the long thermometer. Probably the turning over of the continent will in time be stayed; to the unscientific mind, at least, its complete subversion is imperfectly thinkable. But for the next few thousand years, while still the memory of the purpose and efficacy of Noah’s deluge is fresh and pleasing in Heaven, the movement will be likely to continue. By the time that it ceases the Atlantic shore will perhaps be a contour line on the eastern declivity of the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific slope comprise all that region now underlying the “great gulf” between this world and Hawaii. As a practical settlement of the annexation question on a staying basis, this unpolitical movement is worthy of the highest commendation. With the construction of the San Francisco and Honolulu Pacific Railroad by Government and at the rate of fifty million dollars a mile in hand paid to the owners of the road, and by them kept for their honesty, the status of the descendants of Kamehameha and Kalakaua will be definitely fixed—they will be payers of All That The Traffic Will Bear. The upward tendency of the Pacific side of the continent will be attended, no doubt, with certain inconveniences. Already the relentless progress of its ascension has laid “effacing fingers” on the _amour propre_ of several worthy persons who thought themselves heavy enough to hold it down. 1892.