But that was before the coming of the east-and-west canal and the east- and-west railroads, which virtually upheaved a new watershed and changed the whole physiographic, social, and economic relationships of the west. The old French river Colbert, the Eternal River, was virtually cut into two great rivers, one of which was to empty into the gulf (just as it did in La Salle's day and in Iberville's day), while the other was to run through the valley of the Great Lakes, down through the valley of the hostile Iroquois, into the harbor of New York. This is not observable on the topographical maps simply because of our unimaginative definition of a watershed. A watershed is changed, according to that definition, only by an actual elevation or depression of the surface of the earth, whereas a railroad or canal that bridges ravines and tunnels or climbs elevations, or a freight rate that diverts traffic into a new course, as suddenly raises or lowers and as certainly removes watersheds as if mountains were miraculously lifted and carried into the midst of the sea. So there came to be not only two rivers but two valleys, the one of the lake and prairie plainsmen and the other of the gulf plainsmen. The steam shuttles flying east and west by land and water wove a pattern in the former different from the latter but on the same warp. Two widely unlike industrial and social systems gradually developed, and they, in turn, struggling for the mastery of lands beyond the Mississippi, divided the nearer west--once a homogeneous state of mind--into two wests and all but disrupted the Union. Then the direct European immigration began, millions coming from single states of Europe, sifting into the neo-American settlements, but for the most part passing on, in mighty armies, to possess whole tracts farther west, along and beyond the Mississippi. In some parts of the northwest to- day the parents of three men out of four were born in Europe--in Scandinavia, in Germany, in Russia, in Italy. So France, keeping near her those whom she loves best, her own children, has yet seen her Nouvelle France draw to it the children of all other nations. As from Hagar exiled in the wilderness has a new race sprung--has the wilderness been peopled. In my boyhood the last division of that great exodus, largely made up of migrants from the eastern half of the valley, was still passing westward. One of the banners which some of the wagons covered with canvas ("prairie- schooners," as they were called) used to fly was "Pike's Peak or Bust," an Americanism indicating the intention of the pilgrims to reach the mountain at the western terminus of the great valley or die in the attempt. Occasionally one came back with the inglorious substitute legend upon his wagon, "Busted"--a laconic intimation of failure. But this was the exception. The west kept, till it had made them her own, most of those who ventured their all for a home in the wilderness.