“These profiles of yours, Professor,” said I, “are evidently the result of much learned detail work and they are of extreme interest and value to the philosophical and scientific student. But to common people the details themselves are more interesting, because they are more easy to be understood and come nearer to the common life. Could you not favor me with some of the future history of our planet and especially of the United States and of the State of Minnesota. Any of the facts that you have prognosticated and from which you have deduced the generalizations that you embody in your profiles, would be of great interest.” He seemed a little disappointed at this request, as no doubt his habits of thought had made him familiar with and attached to the comprehensive and wholesale treatment of these questions, and he looked upon the detailed story as a means to an end and containing but little interest in itself. But it is easier to generalize from details, than to construct the details. However he complied, observing that he would be compelled to get these details in part from his memory, which however would be prompted and refreshed by the general profile he held in his hands. “I will take my stand,” said he, “at about the year 2,000 of your era, and then by looking forward and backward along these lines, I think I can recover the principal factors that have entered into their make-up. This will also allow me to give you the descriptions in the past tense as events that have been accomplished up to that time and from that date we will also look forward, for the events subsequent to it.” It occurred to me that he must be tired of holding the profile so long between his outstretched hands and so I offered to hold it for him awhile, or at least hold one end of it. At that he shifted the rolls from his front to his middle pair of hands, by which maneuver he gave me to understand that he had abundant resources for resting himself without outside help. How I did envy him that extra pair of hands. He then began as follows: