At Bethel they prospered; and there four hundred of these Communists still live. I shall give an account of them later. Keil's ideas grew with the increasing wealth of the people; and his unrestful spirit longed for a new and broader field of labor. He imagined that on the Pacific coast he might found a larger communistic society upon a broader domain; and he did not find it difficult to persuade his people that the attempt ought to be made. In 1855, accordingly, Dr. Keil set out with ten or twelve families, eighty persons in all, across the plains, carrying along household utensils and some cattle. A few families started later, and crossed the Isthmus; and all gathered at Shoalwater Bay, north of the mouth of the Columbia River, and in Washington Territory. There a few families belonging to Aurora still live, managing farms of the community; but in June, 1856, the main body of the society removed to Aurora, and began there, with tedious and severe labor, a clearing among the firs. The upper part of the Willamette Valley is a broad, open plain, easy to till, and inviting to the farmer. Dr. Keil and his companions avoided this plain: they chose to settle in a region pretty densely grown over with timber. I asked him why he did so. He replied that, meaning to establish a sawmill, they wished to use the trees cut down in clearing the land to make into lumber for houses and fences. There was at that time no railroad, and lumber in the open prairie was expensive. "The end proved that we were right," said he; "for, though we had hard work at first, and got ahead slowly, we were soon able to buy out the prairie farmers, who had got into debt and were shiftless, while we prudent Germans were building our place." He added a characteristic story of their early days--that when they first settled at Aurora, having no fruit of their own, he used to buy summer apples for his people from the nearest farmers for a dollar a bushel. These were eaten in the families; but he taught them to save the apple-parings, and make them into vinegar, which he then sold to the wives of his American farming neighbors at a dollar and a half per gallon. In order to make intelligible the means as well as the ways of their success, I must here explain what are the social principles to which they agree, and in accordance with which they have worked since 1844. They are remarkable chiefly for their simplicity. Dr. Keil teaches, and they hold that-- 1st. All government should be parental, to imitate, as they say, the parental government of God. 2d. That therefore societies should be formed upon the model of the family, having all interests and all property absolutely in common; all the members laboring faithfully for the general welfare and support, and drawing the means of living from the general treasury.