The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-09 00:00:00

EMIGRA7ION CENTRES.

(I.lvm (he Ang!o-American Tinzee.)

The question must suggest itself to intending
emigrants into whose hands fall the circular pub-
lished by the American Emigrants' Aid Society—
Why are the three points, St. Paul, Omaha, and
Kansas City so prominently put forward? St. Paul,
Omaha, and Kansas City are each, in truth, the centre
of the most desirable districts for emigration now open
iu the United States for the energetic. They offer not
only wide but diversified fields, with climates rang-
ing from almost the too cold to almost the ton hot.
file emigrant who turns his attention to the United
:Mates—the most accessible, open, and extensive of
all the regions inviting the settlement of the poor
should receive a general impression of the geography
of the country, and he will quickly comprehend why
these three growing cities have become the chief
emigration centres. Broady, the United States
consist of three great divisions, and these three are
formed by two chains of mountains. To the east
are the Alleghenies, to the west the Rocky Moun-
tains. The first division is the country sloping
from --the Alleghenies to the Atlantic Ocean ;
the second is the great valley between the
Alleghenies and the Rocky Mountains, called the
Valley of the Mississippi, and the third is the coun-
try sloping from the Rocky Mountains to the Pa-
cific Ocean. If he keeps this broad fact in his
mind, the rest will more easily fall into their places,
and be better understood. Although the Allegha•
nies are known as a chain of mountains, they are
really a succession of peaks on an elevated plateau
with wide valleys and offshoots. Even more so are
the Rocky Mountains, being on a gigantic scale to
the West, what the Alleghenies are on a very much
smaller scale to the East. The course of the rivers
may be readily learned from what we have stated._
They flow from the Alleghenies, on the eastern
slope, eastward towards the Atlantic; on the wes-
tern slope, westward into the Mississippi, which
flows almost due South between the parallel chains
of the Alleghenies and Rocky Mountains. So also
on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains the
streams flow eastward into the Mississippi. West-
ward of that range, on the grand plateau, as far as
the Sierra Nevada, the country
.is peculiar, and is
only beginning to be explored and known. Al-
though it was natural for the eastern slope of the
Alleghenies to be first settled by those who landed
along the Atlantic shores, the very cream of Ame-
rican territory lay behind tatt range, extending to
the Rocky Mountains. It is a proved fact in emi-
gration that position is of the highest value ; that is,
a sterile tract will be colonized before a fertile tract
if the former be better situated than the latter.
It was nothing to the early settlers in America
that there were boundless plains westward of
Pennsylvania of rich, open, level land, if it was in-
accessible. There were no means of communicating
with the sea, and the country was held by hestile
Indians. Hence it was by slow degrees that the
country became settled backwards, that the flow
westward top, ed and rolled over the Alleghenies
into the States of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
When this was accomplishe 1, and steam enabled
the settlers to utilise the Mississippi, the Lakes
awl the St. Lawrence, Cie States of Indiana an I of
Illinois were thrown open. The introduction of
the railroad built up the two magnificent cities of
Chicago and St. Louis withiu the lifetime of the
present generation, the one to the north of Illi
uois on Lake Michigan, the other to the south of
the State on the right bank of the Mississippi.
When the Valley of that river was fairly opened
the flow of emigration was into it, in pursuance of
another established principle of emigration. Set-
tlers choose au inferior soil, free from forests and
obstructions to cultivation, in preference to a supe-
rior thus encumbered. A treeless plain will fill up
sooner than a forest district, though the forest land
be much the more fertile, because the farm can be
fully established on the one long before the stumps
of the trees ou a few acres can be extracted from
the other. As the broad characteristic of the Mis-
t sissippi Valley is wide treeless prairies, it became
the favourite place of location, not only for the
emigrants of Europe, but for the emigrants of Ame-
rica. By the way, we desire the English emigrant
to be aware that the pioneer emigrants to these new
districts are and have been Americans—mainly
Yankees ; that is, men from the New England
States. It was they who founded and made Chi-
cago and St. Louis, and who are at present in
a similar way making St. Paul, Omaha, and Kansas
City. The three rich States of Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois rapidly filled up. an I in them have ceetred
the chief power of the United States. But, when
we say filled up, an English emigrant must not mis-
take our meaning. There is scarcely any portion
of the United States filled up according to the Eng-
lish meaning. The land along the railroads, around
towns, and skirting made roads, is occupied, and
farms, thickly clustered, extend over wide ranges,
and there, as far as the eye can see, the country
waves with crois, but off these lines vast tracts,
even in such a State as New York, remain as nature
formed them. The question an intending emi-
grant then asks is, Why not occupy these in-
stead of proceeding further back? We answer by
referring to a preceding remark, that position
is the paramount consideration to the emigrant.
Though Chicago be a thousand miles from the sea
it may be more easy, cheaper, and quicker to transfer
a cartload of grain thence to New York than over a
distance of thirty miles, aye, or even over ten miles,
of country without roads. Distance is but au item
in the consideration, and the main object has been
to secure the location through which must pass the
great lines of travel. Chicago became a great city,
because it was the outlet by the Lakes and the St.
Lawrence for the rich Prairie States of Indiana and
Illinois. St. Louis became a great city because it was
the depot on the Mississippi for Southern Illinois and
the State of Missouri' and it is near the junction of
the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. All the choice
spots having been taken in Indiana and Illinois the
tideflowed westward intolowaand Missouri, and the
country between the rivers Mississippi and the
Missouri was next occupied. Now the tide has
crossed to the right bank of the Missouri into
Nebraska and Kansas, and the lands along the
rivers Platte and Kansas are being rapidly settled.
By each runs a railroad directed towards the Pacific,
of which the one up the Platte has been finished and
is open, while the other is constructed far west-
ward, with the design of reaching San Francisco.
Omaha, on the right bank of the Missouri, is the
centre to which emigration should converge in-
tended for location along the line of the Union
Pacific Railroad, and Kansas City at the junction
of the Kansas River and the Missouri, is the
central point for the settlements along the Kan-
sas route. The English emigrant will then per-
ceive that the tide has flowed all down the
Alleghenies to the Mississippi, has crossed that
stream to its great branch, the Missouri, and hav-
ing crossed that is proceeding westward up the
great rivers which flow eastward from the Rocky
Mountains, and for that the chief depots of emi-
gration are the city of Omaha to the north, and
Kansas city to the south. But while we have been
following the broad course of this emigration across
the continent, we have passed unheeded the great
States to the North as well as to the South. The
English emigrant ought to be aware that the
grandest series of lakes iu the world border on but
are to the north of the States of Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois. Projecting into these lakes, like a great
cane, is Michigan, forming the eastern shore of Lake
Michigan, and the western shores of Lakes Huron
and Erie. Of course, into a district similar to, ad-
joining on, and much larger than the best portion
of Upper Canada a considerable part of the emi-
gration could not fail to be diverted. Oppo-
site it, on the other side of Lake Michigan, is
the State of Wisconsin, bordered on its western side
by the Mississippi. Adjoining that is Minnesota,
through the centre of which the Mississippi flows, and
on that river in Minnesota, and not far from Wiscon-
sin, stands the city of St. Paul. Both Wisconsin and
Minnesota touch on Lake Superior, and the great
river, whose name means "The Father of Waters,"
approaches nearest thegreatlakc which, with itssister
lakes, form the finest range of inland waters in the
world. St. Paul, the head of the navigation of the
Mississippi, is an easy communication with Duluth,
of which we last week gave an account, the head of
the navigation of the St. Lawrence and of the lakes.
By the Mississippi the traveller can be carried
with the stream into the Gulf of Mexico ; by
Lake Superior he can be taken by water so as
to enter the ocean at Newfoundland. Hence the
intending emigrant can readily judge of the ad-
vantage such a point as St. Paul offers as a
centre whence a locality can be selected. We do
not mean to say that there is any neeessity for him
to proceed so far ; on the contrary, we have shewu
that one of the best fields now open is Virginia,
one of the States first settled, indeed keown by the
name of " The Old Dominion." But what we as-
, sert is that those who desire to be early iu the tisld
to see great cities and States grow up around them
should go boldly westward and select one of the three.
Some years hence the emigration wave will recoil
from the Rocky Mountains, for, as we have pointed
out, it has crossed the valley, and is now going up
the slope towards these mountains. In futurearticles
we will endeavour to give a brief description, which
may convey a general idea of the country around
St. Paul, around Omaha, and around Kansas City.