The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1857-07-18


OF Nations yet 10 be; -r
The nrst low wash OF waves, where soon
Shall roll human sea.
The elements Of empire here
Ace plastic yet and warm,
The chaos Of mighty weird
Is rounding into form ... H."
y Each rude and lastiIng fragment soon
Its hitting place shall ind, =.
The raw material OF State,
Its muscle and ats mind" WHITTIER.
This West of ours is great country
Look at its extent. 1t reaches almost from
the tide waters Of the Eastern Atlantic tC
the low water mark of the Western Pacific
and FROM chilly Superior to torrid Texas.
See how many proud States, each one a
country Of itself, il includes, with their diff
ferent social systems.
ohio and indiana, with their old fashion
ed civilization, the growth Of less than .
generation of toll; Wisconsin, Michigan,
and the far North West, with their small
free labor farms, displaying the nearest ap-
proach to practical democratic equality; H.
llnois with its broad fields and vast farms
to be in a few years the highest example OF
the application of capital to Agriculture;
Missouri and the South West, with their
rich plantations representing in new coun-
try the feudally of the Old World; Utah
with its practical communism and its fanat-
zeal soelability; California with its well
nigh fabulous wealth and its barbaric mag
nihcenee; and Oregon's chain of settlements
binding the forest of the Western slope to
the food of the Western ocean, as with a
brooch of human destiny.
See its grand proportions; its Lakes that
would float the navies of the world; its riv-
ers that collect the waters OF a continent; its
mountains tipped with eternal snow; and its
broad, beautiful prairies. once the gardens
OF wild yerdue and iuXuriant flora, and fast
becoming the model farms of the world.
But more noble than all this greatness of
extent and grandeur of beauty, is the rapid
ity of the civilization of this glorious re-
glcn. The tide of travel, with its spring
and autumn flow and ebb, is inunda,ing this
West with the commerce, and the civiliza-
ton, the riches and the refinement of the
Eastern and older regions of the earth
Homes are peering out from the dark rich
ness of the prairies; and nesting in the
shadows of the old forest, the fence of the
settler intercepts. The Indians trail, and
hearthstones have supplanted council fires.
Railroads are creating channels of traffic,
and directing the current of sympathies, and
the locomotive, as it follows the star of
Empire on its westward way, draws nation
in its train.
The past Of the West is rich in bold and
daring deeds, Its present is filed to the
brim with unexampled enterprise, andits fu-
ture is osertlowing with uncomfortable anti
cipations.
The West is not yet an atom of what it is
to be. Though not in the far West, the
Valley of the Mississppiis the geographical
centre of North America; and the richness
of that noble stream is yet to run like n gol-
den thread through the very centre Of the
Union.
When this great Republic is continent
wide III its extent, as it must be, the West
will be its centre; and those vigorous young
States we are building up will be the grand
centers of the Confederacy.
Every prairie will teen with inhabitants
every brook will turn Gathering mill
the minerals that lie beneath the soil will be
diligently dug forth--the country shall be
yerdant with farms, and the towns shall be
crowded with factories.
Then here, beneath fairer than Italian
skies, shall he heaped up the wealth, and
enjoyed the retinements Of the world; and
we not dream wildly when we imagine that
somewhere in this prolific valley shall be the
mammoth central Depot Of the world, where
the commerce of all nations shall commin-
gle; where, in flying trips around the globe,
shall meet travellers, speaking all the lam
guages of the babbling earth.
Who wouldn't be of the West, WESTERN
-Wauhesha Republican.