daily influence. By their means was completed a long process whose place and time of beginning cannot now be defined, but as we stand on the Pacific shore and look still farther westward we behold the cradle out of which an infant race clambered to begin its wanderings. The chain of land dominion is complete, and to us was left the forging of the last link. The globe can be circled in less than forty days; every nation knows within a few hours what has happened to the other members of the earth family; the affairs of one have become the acknowledged concern of all, to be discussed and treated in a community way; a Parliament is coming whose presiding officer shall say: "Germany speaks"; "Nippon speaks"; "Switzerland speaks"; "Brazil speaks." And the nations will listen, and vote as their names are called.

The American men and women who set forth with their horses and oxen and wagons said they were starting to California or Oregon, and so they were. But beside them strode consequences which were going further still. And so as we read the story of their journeys; as we hear them tell of their toil through the desert sands; of eating the bodies of the dead who fell; of burning off their whiskers with hot grease at the camp-fire; of their concerts; of the mirage that taunted them; of hopes and struggles of every sort, we of this later day follow their narratives with a vision that does not stop at sight of yellow gold or the rolling tide of the Columbia. We behold them in two characters. In one sense we see them as men and women like ourselves, engaged in a long and hard journey undertaken for personal reasons of one kind or another, and hopeful of improving their condition. In the other and broader sense we do not look upon them as individuals, but as a strange and colossal spectacle mov

ing in response to a world impulse which summoned them to play a mighty part in the deeds of men and then left them ignorant of what they had done, just as most of us are ignorant of what we are collectively doing to-day. Our retrospective understanding still maintains its supremacy.

The westward overland movement from the Mississippi valley and eastern states was characterized by two phases. The first of these embraced nearly all of the interval previously mentioned, during which time the white men who advanced for considerable distances beyond the Mississippi without intention of return were comparatively few in number, and and were were animated principally by individual considerations or restlessness. Their westward journeying was not the result of any deep or widespread influence affecting the population as a whole. They may be likened to the far-flung spray of a ponderous wave that has been halted in its advance. The second phase of the movement was altogether different in character. It covered the two years of 1849 and 1850, and was the consequence of events and conditions affecting the entire people. It resembled the first onrush of a huge wave which has broken through a barrier, making way for the irresistible flood behind.

Those two aspects of the westward advance had one quality in common. Nearly all movement during both of them was a matter of individual exertion or clan effort. In such features the invasion and permanent occupation of the West, during the decisive years of that phenomenon, closely resembled the migrations throughout the Atlantic coast region in the latter part of the seventeenth century and the first part of the eighteenth century, during which time new districts were occupied

and new settlements were always made by means of the company-travel then necessary. But by 1851 the tide of overland travel across the plains had already become so large, and showed such certainty of still greater increase, that a new element was soon after introduced into the situation. Commercial management turned its interested gaze toward the hundreds of thousands who were struggling over the plains and mountains; lines of communication were projected on the basis of business enterprises; and the conveyance of passengers and information across the newly-occupied region in that manner was eventually brought about. All except a small part of the human tide still swept on for a dozen years as before, but individual initiative in providing means for for the long journey, and personal effort in accomplishing the pilgrimage, no longer remained necessary. Organized methods grappled with the problem in ever increasing mastery until it was finally conquered.

But though the permanent penetration of the far West -by men who journeyed there without intention of immediate return was accomplished substantially in the manner here outlined, there were nevertheless a few still earlier historical incidents so intimately connected with the region that they require to be here recalled. Three principal events of the sort were the explorationary trips of Lewis and Clark, of Zebulon Pike, and of Stephen H. Long. At the time those three extensive expeditions were made, through country then unknown, the information acquired by means of them was of no value to the mass of the people in connection with any effort to occupy the territory explored. In later years, however, the journeys

1 Still another was embraced by the early history of the Oregon country, which will be separately considered.

of those men were destined to bear rich fruit. They were among the first English speaking pathfinders, and the knowledge brought back by them served as a guide to the advance guard of the host which started to follow their almost forgotten footsteps.

Captains Lewis and Clark, of the United States army, in the years 1804-5-6, travelled up the Missouri River to its head waters, thence across the Rocky Mountains and down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and finally made their way back to civilization.1

Major Pike, also of the Federal army, journeyed from St. Louis to the head waters of the Platte, Arkansas and Rio Grande, and back again through the Southwest and northern Mexico, in 1805-6-7.

Major Long, who like his predecessors was an army officer, made a trip from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains and return in the years 1819 and 1820. His expedition moved for some distance up the Missouri River by means of a little steamboat called the Western Engineer, which was built for the purpose at Pittsburgh, and was the first steam craft west of the Mississippi. The boat was seventy-five feet long, thirteen feet wide,

1 President Jefferson did not-as is commonly stated-send Lewis and Clark to explore the region because it had been bought from France by the United States. His recommendation of the journey was made to Congress in a message dated January 18, 1803, and Congress had acted favorably and even appropriated money for the expedition before anyone in America knew we had bought the Louisiana Territory, or that we could buy it, or that our representatives in France had thought of such a thing. Jefferson had desired such an exploration since. 1783. A detailed account of the genesis of the trip, and of Jefferson's ideas on the subject, may be found in Schafer's "A History of the Pacific Northwest" (pp. 53-68), although that authority, in discussing related national conditions of 1800, says (p. 61) that "the steamboat was yet to be invented."

The results of Lewis and Clark's work were first made available in printed form in the "Message from the President of the United States, Communicating Discoveries made in Exploring the Missouri, Red River and Washita, by Captains Lewis and Clark, Doctor Sibley and Mr. Dunbar; with a Statistical Account of the Countries Adjacent. Read in Congress February 19, 1806. New York, 1806." The Lewis and Clark narrative was reprinted in Pittsburgh in 1807 as the "Journal of Lewis and Clark," and was also reprinted in London during the same year under the title "Travels in the Interior Parts of America, etc., etc. It was also reprinted in Philadelphia under the title "History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the Sources of the Missouri, Thence across the Rocky Mountains and down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. Performed During the Years 1804-5-6." Still another London reprint appeared in 1809 under the title "The Travels of Captains Lewis and Clark from St. Louis, by Way of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, to the Pacific Ocean. Performed in the Years 1804, 1805, and 1806, by Order of the Government of the United States, etc., etc."