Immigrants to the number of 16,000,000 have come to the United States. The European immigrants landing at United-States ports during the last ten years numbered 5,246,613, besides probably 1,500,000 entering by way of Canada. They have been made up of one third Germans, one fourth Britons and Irish, one tenth each of Scandinavians and Canadians, and from four to six per cent. each of Austro-Hungarians, Russians and Italians. Minnesota and Dakota have foreign-born populations equal to one half the natives. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska have foreign-born people equal to more than one fourth of the natives. The South has attracted but little immigration, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi having less than one per cent. of foreign-born inhabitants. Texas has eight per cent. The immigration of Chinamen, other than officials, students, merchants and tourists, is stringently forbidden by Congress. An act of Congress approved in 1882 forbids the landing on American shores of foreign-born convicts, luna

tics, idiots, or persons liable to become a public charge; and thousands of immigrants have been sent back to Europe under this law. An act passed in 1885 forbids the landing of aliens under contract to labor here.

The Public Lands of the United States included all the vast areas outside the thirteen original States (except Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas). The original area of the Union, and the Northwestern Territory, included about 850,000 square miles, to which 1,850,000 were added by the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican cessions, 60,000 by the purchase of Florida from Spain, 50,000 by the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, and 266,000 by the annexation of Texas. Alaska was bought from Russia in 1867, for $7,200,000, but it may not be considered as a field for colonization. Exclusive of Alaska, the public lands amounted to 2,837,000 square miles. Over a billion acres, including nearly all that is of value, has been sold for cash, or granted for

schools, military bounties, swamp-land and railroad grants, and homesteads. Most of the available land has passed into the hands of individuals and corporations.

The Centre of Population in the United States in 1790 was 23 miles east of Baltimore; in 1800, 18 miles west of Baltimore; in 1810, 40 miles northwest by west of Washington; in 1820, 16 miles north of Woodstock (Va.); in 1830, 19 miles southwest of Moorefield

(W. Va.); in 1840, 16 miles south of Clarksburg (W. Va.); in 1850, 23 miles southeast of Parkersburg (W. Va.); in 1860, 20 miles south of Chillicothe (Ohio); in 1870, 48 miles east by north of Cincinnati; in 1880, eight miles west by south of Cincinnati; and in 1890, 20 miles east of Colum

bus, Indiana,

near the vil

lage of West

port. The centre of population of the United States has thus traveled westward

NEW YORK: THE UNITED-STATES BARGE-OFFICE.

from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where it stood in Washington's administration, to Decatur County, in southern Indiana. During all this century of "Westward the Star of Empire takes its Way," the centres of population have kept within 25 miles of the 39th

parallel of latitude, moving toward the Pacific Coast 505 miles, almost on a direct line. The annexation of Florida and the migration into the Southwest pulled the centre below 39° in 1830; and in 1890 it moved well north of the parallel, by reason of the development of the Northwest and the State of Washington, and the increase of population in New England. The Railroads of the United States have cost $9,000,000,000, and employ 1,000,000 persons. There are over 200,000 miles of track, with 30,000 locomotives, 27,000 passenger-cars, and over 1,100,000 other cars. Their capital stock is $4,640,000,000, with funded debts of $4,800,000,000, yearly traffic earnings of $1,000,000,000 (two thirds from freight), net earnings of $318,000,000, and dividends of $84,000,000 yearly. The American telegraph lines extend for 250,000 miles, with 800,000 miles of wire, 26,000 offices, and 42,000 employees, mostly pertaining to the Western Union system.

Manufactories in 1860 numbered 140,000, using $1,000,000,000 in materials, with a yearly product of $1,900,000,000. In 1880, they numbered 254,000, using $3,400,000,000 in materials, and producing $5,370,000,000 yearly. The annual product of flouring and grist mills was $500,000,000; of slaughter-houses, $300,000,

000; of iron and steel works, $300,000,000; of woolens,
$270,000,000; of lumber, $230,000,000; of foundry pro-
ducts, cotton goods, men's clothing, and boots
and shoes, about $200,000,000 each. Two
thirds of the manufactures are in New England
and New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The Cities are growing much faster than the country. In 1790 there were only six cities with more than 8,000 inhabitants. By 1840, these had increased to 44; in 1880, to 286; and in 1890, to 443. In 1790 there was no city with as many as 100,000 inhabitants; but in 1890 there were 28.

The progress of the United States has been rich in benefits to the world, and has been marked by the development of many illustrious men. In invention, she has produced Morse and Fulton, Edison and Whitney; in science, Silliman and Dana; in military science, Grant and Sherman and Sheridan; in statesmanship, Washington and Jefferson, Franklin and Lincoln; and in oratory, Webster and Clay. To the romancers of the world she has given Hawthorne and Cooper and Howells; to the poets, Longfellow and Whittier, Holmes and Bryant; to the historians, the Bancrofts and Parkman, Prescott and Motley; to the essayists, Lowell and Emerson; and to the masters of literary style, Washington Irving. The Union of States still nobly advances, marvellous in her potentialities, and at peace with all the world. And within her

own borders, the sometime returned to the doctrine of ary hero, Patrick Henry, tions between Virginians, Yorkers, and New-Engam not a Virginian, but an more than ever, there is words: "The cement of blood of every American." tionalism has passed away, a proper local and homewrote: "Every American whole country, rather than hope and pray that the new vate a pride in the whole How much more sublime

United States of America, instead of the mere State of birth. the thought that you live at the root of a tree whose branches reach the beautiful fields of western New York and the majestic cañons of the Yellowstone, and that with every draught of water you take the outflow of the pure lakes of Minnesota and drippings of the dews of the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains." Millions of Americans are growing into this broader Nationalism, the spirit of Philip Nolan, as he said to the young naval ensign: "Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind officers and Government and people, even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother."

sources.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT.-In his effort to make this Handbook of the United States a portrayal of the chief traits of the Great Republic, historic, scenic, economic, and industrial, the author has been put under many obligations. It was not enough that the description of each State should be illustrated by scores of pictures and explained by a new map engraved for the purpose. Multitudes of facts, accounts, descriptions and statistics had to be collected from all In the two years devoted to this search the author has received the kindest assistance from the public officials, both State and National. They have not only furnished hundreds of volumes of the latest official reports, but have in many instances written out special monographs to be used in the Handbook. Citizens prominent in public life and in literature, without even the slight claim upon their attention that an official position might give, have revised the manuscript and enriched it by their suggestions. To statesmen like Sherman of Ohio, Dolph of Oregon, Stewart of Nevada, Hampton of South Carolina, Bayard of Delaware, Miller of Iowa, Ingalls of Kansas, Prince of New Mexico, Fitzhugh Lee of Virginia, -and to men of letters, like Angell of Michigan, Cable of Louisiana, Petroff of Alaska, Mitchell of Connecticut, Thwaites of Wisconsin, Goodell of Massachusetts, and Bancroft of California, no thanks adequate to the services they have rendered can be given. While to the author and the publisher belongs the responsibility for the short-comings of the book, a great part of its merits is due to the generous assistance of these and many other distinguished Americans.

At the dawn of her history, Alabama contained four tribes of aborigines, the civilized and hospital Cherokees, in the northeast, in a region that they always called Chiaha; the warlike and heroic Chickasaws, in the northwest, along the Tennessee, the Tombigbee and the Upper Yazoo; the friendly Choctaws, in the west and southwest; and the Muscogees (or Creeks), called by Bancroft "the most powerful Militia (Disciplined), nation north of the Gulf of Mexico," west of the Ocmulgee. The first historical mention of Alabama deals with the marches of Hernando De Soto, the Spanish cavalier, with 620 knights and priests, crossbowmen and arquebusiers of Spain, who landed at Tampa Bay, crossed Georgia, and entered Alabama in July, 1540 (80 years before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth). The army visited Coosa, Tallasee, and other Indian towns, in search of a land of gold; and then marched by Piachee to Maubila (whence comes the name of Mobile). Here they were fiercely attacked, and during a long day's battle in and around the burning town, the Spaniards defeated the natives, losing 168 men, and slaying 2,500. Thence the European army moved through the lonely land of Pafallaya, and up the Tombigbee Valley into Mississippi, fighting many a bloody battle, and enduring and causing frightful sufferings. One hundred and sixty-two years later, the Sieur de Bienville, "the Father of Alabama," transferred his French colony from Biloxi to Dog River, on Mobile Bay, and erected Fort St. Louis de la Mobile. In 1711, he moved to the present site of Mobile. A few years later, English traders from Georgia built a stockade at Ocfuskee; and Gen. Oglethorpe made a treaty with the Muscogees, at Coweta. After the cession of the trans-Alleghany country to Great Britain, at the peace of 1763, the part of Alabama south of Selma and Montgomery was included in the district of West Florida, and the unsettled country to the