THE STATES AND TERRITORIES OF THE GREAT WEST; INCLUDING OHIO, INDIANA, ILLINOIS, MISSOURI, MICHIGAN, WISCONSIN, IOWA, THEIR GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, ADVANTAGES, RESOURCES, AND GIVING A TABLE OF DISTANCES, AND THE MOST DIRECT ROUTES and Modes of CONVEYANCE; ALSO, POINTING OUT THE BEST AND MINING OPERATIONS. WITH A MAP AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. BY JACOB FERRIS. NEW YORK AND AUBURN: MILLER, ORTON, AND MULLIGAN. BUFFALO: E. F. BEADLE. 1856. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, BY E. F. BEADLE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Northern District of New York. PUBLISHER'S ADVERTISEMENT. No parallel can be found in the world's history to the progress and the prospects of the GREAT WEST. Within the memory of living men, it was, for the most, an unbroken wild-the abode only of wild beasts, or of wilder men; and many of its most wealthy, prosperous, and inviting sections, scarcely twenty years since were untrodden by civilized feet. Now, in population, wealth, material progress, in the means of intercommunication, in liberal and permanent provision for the general and thorough education of its rising millions, she is without a rival. Her advancement, however, has but just begun. Her real greatness is yet in the future. The West is the common center-the grand rallying ground of the world's emigrants-of its population, its labor, and its capital. In view of what the West now is, and what each iv PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. year is demonstrating she must become, who can estimate her future population, resources, and greatness? The history of a region so vast, so rich, and so rapidly advancing, is one of the most interesting that can anywhere be found. In the work here offered to the public, the effort has been to give the rise, progress, and present condition of the States and Territories of the Great West. This book also supplies a great deficiency in our literature. Most other books upon the West are confined to some limited range of country, and are filled either with adventures across the plains and over the mountains, or with details of mere local interest. But this takes a comprehensive view of the WHOLE WEST. It describes the earlier emigrations to the West, and presents a vivid picture of the modes of traveling, and of the difficulties and dangers of the way; it takes a comprehensive survey of the vast water communications which connect the West with all other portions of the continent; it contains a reliable account of the first explorations of the Mississippi valley, compiled from the original manuscripts of the explorers themselves, affording information which has never before been placed in the hands of the gen |