people annually pass. Kansas City will become, in twenty years, one of the great manufacturing centers of the country. The influence and mark of Southern manners have vanished from the northwestern sections of Missouri. A new type has arisen, and swept out of sight those who prevailed "befo' the waw." The same remark may be made of St. Louis. Once a thoroughly southern city in all its attributes, it is now cosmopolitan. In the northern and north-western portions of the State there are vast numbers of New England people; the tone of society and manners is a curious mixture of Colorado and Maine. In some of the counties there is wild life, and the enforcement of law is rather difficult; but such counties are the exceptions. The Missouri farmers can never allow a court to try a horse-thief; they always give him short shrift. Popular justice is very healthful in many instances, and keeps down future rascality.

Population is the prime need of Missouri. The agricultural resources of the State are immense. The river bottoms along the Missouri are as rich as the Valley of the Nile. In journeying beside them on the Missouri Pacific Railroad one sees immense spaces but recently cleared from the forests, in which there are hosts of log-cabins, and barns, with the omnipresent appendages of hog-yards, filled with dozens of swine; yellow corn-fields, acres on acres, extending as far as the eye can reach among the girdled trees; men and women cantering to market on bareback horses, grimy children staring at one from the zig-zag fences. The life is like the products of the soil, dusty and coarse; there is a flavor of corn and pork about it, but it is full of vigor. The country north of the Missouri river is rich, undulating prairie, watered by abundant streams. The Platte country is famous for hemp, grain, and superb stock, and, indeed, there is no section of Missouri which is not well adapted to stock raising. The climate is so mild that there is rarely any necessity of shelter for stock in the winter; the State is covered with a network of small streams; the grasses everywhere are rich, and grain-crops are unfailing. Millions of swine, sheep and cattle now roam over the vast swelling prairies. And the swine, I am sorry to say, roam with equal freedom in the streets of most of the towns. Millions of acres of good land south of the Osage river-a grand section for vineyards, sheep farms, and

fruit-can be had for from fifty cents to five dollars per acre. The bottom lands along the Mississippi river are all capable of cultivation, and are very rich. The staple products of the State, Indian corn, wheat, rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, potatoes, tobacco, hay, grapes, wool and hemp,* grow luxuriantly, and yield largely.t

The foliage of the Missouri forests is exquisitely beautiful. The timber lines along the creeks, and the great woods, covering hundreds of acres, are alike charming. Even in sections where there has been no cultivation, one finds delicious lawns shaded by trees, as graceful and luxuriant as if the product of the care of centuries. The sycamores and oaks are of marvelous height, sometimes measuring 130 or 140 feet, and on all the forest monarchs hang graceful festoons of wild grape-vines, the trumpet-flower, and many pretty winding parasites. But the woodman's axe is rapidly annihilating these beautiful sylvan retreats. In the southeast of the state are enormous groves of yellow pine, in whose aisles wild animals still stalk fearlessly.

In journeying across the state along the line of the Kansas City and Northern railroad, I found dozens of little towns of the same unsubstantial outward appearance as those I had seen in Southwestern Missouri during our journey Texas-ward. The little villages seemed like those toy ones we play with in childhood, and were all of one general plan. "Saloon-Wines and Liquors" is always a conspicuous sign; and the hum and bustle of the town centers about the depot. These towns are the outgrowth of the railway; the older ones are more substantial and interesting. Lexington, Moberly and Mexico, are flourishing communities in the midst of fertile regions. St. Joseph is perhaps the most attractive, as it is the largest, in Northwestern Missouri. It is, in aspect, a New England town, and is built on hills along the Missouri river, hills which slope gently away until they reach rich prairies extending over thousands of acres. The sum total of its wholesale and retail trade averages twenty-five millions annually; it has costly hotels, theaters, churches, residences, a

* In 1870 Missouri produced nearly four million pounds of wool; more than a million pounds of honey; sorghum to the amount of 1,731,000 gallons, and a million gallons of wine.

There are at present more than one hundred and fifty thousand farms in Missouri, and there is ample room for five times as many more.

mammoth bridge across the great river, and twenty-five thousand inhabitants. From St. Joseph a railroad stretches across the state to Hannibal, another thriving city.

But this is a digression. These cities properly belong to the North-west, whose spirit they manifest, and whose manners and energy they represent. St. Louis and the country tributary to it, however, are Southern in interest, and must so remain. St. Louis will become one of the greatest clearing houses of the South. Its interests are allied with those of Texas, Arkansas, the Indian Territory, and the Mississippi Valley. Its rolling mills must make rails with which to lay Southern railroads, and its capital must build mills in which to manufacture Southern cotton. Along the Atlantic and Pacific Railway line must come a trade which will build St. Louis marvelously fast. Pierce City, Joplin, and dozens of other small towns, will become wealthy and important. Springfield, now pioneering in cotton manufacture, will be a great spindle center, like Lowell or Law

rence.

St. Charles, the little town nestled at the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, looks charmingly picturesque seen from the high bridge over the Missouri. The houses are nearly all German in architecture, and their low, broad, sloping roofs are huddled into artistic groups. A few steamers lie at the levee, others drift lazily along the broad sheeny tide, between the rich green banks. The pretty town is really older than St. Louis, for as " Village des Cotes" it was settled two years before Laclede visited the site of St. Louis, and was once the seat of the State government, before the legislators betook themselves to the rather prosaic town of Jefferson City. Sainte Genevieve is another romantic old town, and a few venerable Frenchmen, lingering on the edge of these moving times, give many stories of the good old days when the trappers and voyageurs made the town a rendezvous, and the people of St. Louis came there to buy provisions. They cannot comprehend the grand movement which has made St. Louis a metropolis, and left their village to its primitive quiet. They see hundreds of steamers and barges slip down the broad current, and it seems to them all a dream.

There are many pretty, and some prosperous towns along the Mississippi, on the Missouri shore, between St. Louis and the

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St.

section opposite the Ohio's mouth. Mary's, Wittenberg, Cape Girardeau, are thriving settlements, indicating a vigorous growth in the back country, whence come dozens of rough farmers, mounted on tough horses, to see the boats come in, to get the mails and, mayhap, a little whisky. Southward of Cape Girardeau begins the "Great Swamp," a magnificent wilderness, extending southward to the mouth of the St. Francis river, a region picturesque enough in its wildness and desolation, as I saw it, when the giant stream had overflowed all the lowlands, and left nothing visible but a half-submerged forest. Cape Girardeau lies on a solid bed of marble, and is called the Marble City. New Madrid, a small and unimposing town in the south-eastern portion of the state, and on the river, is the scene of the colossal earthquake in 1811, when the whole land was moved and swayed like the ocean, and the tallest oaks were bent like reeds.

There are but four States in the Union which outrank Missouri in the amount of manufacturing done within their limits. Those States are New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio. It is true that Missouri and Illinois are so closely abreast that the supremacy is savagely disputed. The rate per cent. of increase in Missouri has, however, been 394 since the war, while that in Illinois has been but 257. There is an earnestness in the manner in which the Missourian declares his determination to place his State at the head of all others, which almost convinces one that he will do it. The cash value of the farm lands in the State is fully four hundred millions of dollars, and is steadily increasing. In 1872 the State produced almost one hundred million bushels of corn, nearly eight million bushels of wheat, and 17,000,000 bushels of oats. So uniting agriculture and the rapid development of manufactures, Missouri has a wonderful future before her. It is almost impossible to say exactly what the growth of any one section within her limits is. St. Louis certainly has considerably more than four hundred thousand inhabitants; the citizens claim 450,000 and, indeed, it is not improbable, judging from the rapidity with which the currents of immigration pour into it and through it. The people of Missouri have wisely left their capital in a small town, never entrusting it to the influences of a large metropolis, and at Jefferson City a legislature assembles, which is

usually, though not always, up to the level of the State's progress. Jefferson City itself is a prosperous town of seven thousand inhabitants, pleasantly situated on the south bank of the Missouri river, 125 miles west of St. Louis. It has been the capital since 1828, the seat of government having previously been rather peripatetic, making visits to St. Louis, St. Charles and Marion. The State House occupies a bluff, over-hanging the river; the handsome residence of the Governor, a crowded penitentiary, the Lincoln Institute, and the Court House are the other public buildings. There is abundant and admirable lime-stone in the vicinity, and this alone, so well adapted to the construction of serviceable public buildings, may induce the Missourians to locate the capital permanently at "Jefferson." The Democrats

have been for some time in power, and have distinguished themselves rather by a lack of progressive legislation than by any tendency to undo the advance already made. The State witheld itself from the cause of secession, and the memorable phrase of Gov. Stewart, in his valedictory in 1861, shows the independence and good sense of the masses in the commonwealth: "Missouri will hold to the Union so long as it is worth the effort to preserve it. She cannot be frightened by the past unfriendly legislation of the North, nor dragooned into secession by the restrictive legislation of the extreme South." To-day the best spirit prevails; old enemies work side by side in the upbuilding, and the animosities of the past are buried under the impressive and fascinating opportunities of the present.

GIDEON SPILETT was standing motionless on the shore, his arms crossed, gazing over the sea, the horizon of which was lost in the east with a thick black cloud which was spreading rapidly toward the zenith. The wind was already strong, and increased with the decline of day. All the sky was of a threatening aspect, and the first symptoms of a violent storm were clearly visible.

Harbert entered the Chimneys, and Pencroff went towards the reporter: The latter, deeply absorbed, did not see him approach.

"We are going to have a dirty night, Mr. Spilett!" said the sailor: "Petrels delight in wind and rain."

The reporter, turning at the moment, saw Pencroff, and his first words were:"At what distance, from the coast, would you say the car was, when the waves carried off our companion?"

The sailor had not expected this question. He reflected an instant, and replied,

"Two cables' lengths, at the most.”

"But what is a cable's length? asked Gideon Spilett.

About a hundred and twenty fathoms, or 600 feet."

"Then," said the reporter, "Cyrus Smith must have disappeared twelve hundred feet at the most from the shore?" "About that," replied Pencroff.