Birmingham age-herald., 1894-07-29

ter of the men and women who occu- pied this frontier. If they had been deliberately selected by some wise statesman for their peculiar task the choice could not have been better fitted to the end in view. If the occu- patton of the country has been trusted to ordinary immigrants from Europe 1t is very doubtful if the Ohio settlements could have maintained themselves dur ing their early trials. The men who made these western settlements had for a century and a half been in train ing for such arduous work. They and their ancestors had learned to fight in their struggles with the Indians, the French and the British; they had, more over, acquired the most precious educa- tion of a political sort which enabled them to act together in organizing and defending their societies. They were not only war-proof, but trained in the founding of states and fin the main- tenance of civil order"
 In several places Prof. Shaler refers to the questions of our negro popula- tion. "The most serious questions" he thinks, connected with the future of the lowlands which border the Gulf of Mexico arise from the large proportion of Africans in the population, and from the fact that the whole of this great area, as far west as central Texas, ap- pears to be peculiarly well adapted to the descendants of this tropical folk, and less well suited to the laboring population of our own race. It is true hof hn To South Carolina is, relatively to the whole number of people in the district, as large as that which is found in any other portion of the United States, but in South Carolina there is a very exten- sive upland territory which, from the conditions of its climate, is not likely to be extensively occupied by the ne- groes. On the other hand, the greater portion of Alabama, the whole of Mis- sissippi and Louisiana, and the eastern part of Texas, present conditions which peculiarly favor the rapid increase of the black people.
 ''In the lower lying and richer DOT ltions of Kentucky and Tennessee there is a considerable element of Africans, but the proportion of this blood to that of the whites in the southern section of the Ohio valley does not exceed about one to ten. Several conditions have CO operated to bring the negroes of this district to relatively high state of culture. In the first place, essentially all the folk of African blood in this part of the country came from the slaves which were brought in the earlier part of the last century to the Virginia group of colonies. Therefore the ancestors of these people, having been long upon tho soil, the race has had greater opportunity of securing the training in the ways of civilization which contact with the whites has so singularly afforded to the African say ages. As the negroes civilize with ara- pidity unknown in the case of any other savages with which our race has had to deal the difference of one or two gen. erations in the length Of their sojourn on the continent makes great change in their social and moral state. It is also a noteworthy fact that the greater portion of the blacks who were held as slaves in the Ohio valley were retained as household servants, or where used as farm hands were kept about the farmstead, in immediate contact with the families of the proprictors, and not isolated from the improving influences of the home, as was the case on the more southern plantations. In passing southward from the Ohio valley, where the. negroes have generally been in close social relations with the whites, to the plantation country of Missis- sippi and Alabama, where the relations between the races were much less int- mate, the trained observer can at once note the difference in the condition of thesblacks, the more southern negroes not{having attained as high a station"
 h discussing what nature has done for the west Prof. Shaler declares of the great lakes region that ''all the natural conditions of this district com bine to make the shores of it's inland seas the seat of great cities. The waters of these basins afford a natural path way for large part of the interior commerce of the continent; the miner al resources favor the development of varied manufacturing industries, and the climate is one which animates men to the utmost exercise of their vigor Except about Lake Superior, which is rather too far north for successful ag- riculture, the soil is usually fertile, and affords wide range of the crops and animal products which are suited to distant exports. All these condi- tions combine to insure to this part of the country exceedingly varied indus tries, and will enable it to support a denser population than any other sec tion in the northern part of the conti- nent. Next after the Ohio valley it is the most richly provided by nature with the material resources of civiliza-