The iron deposits, north of the sources of the Great River, where the fur traders wandered, when smelted by the coal further south, have yielded the richest ores of the world. Lead- and zinc- and copper-mines have done the same.
Wheat-fields in the Red River region have sent their farmers to mill at St. Anthony's Falls with the heaviest grist ever known.
Water-power has sawed the lumber of countless forests. Prairies have pastured as many domestic cattle as ever were fed in the time of migrating buffalo herds.
Corn- or cane- or cotton-fields border the river everywhere. Orchards flourish in many states.
Each region has its own city which it supplies with products for export and which in turn manufactures vast quantities of necessary and luxurious articles. These cities from source to mouth are strung like precious pearls of wampum on the glistening thong of the Great River's length.
Through the jetties and out across Lake Pontchartrain now go the loaded ships taking supplies to the nation who first planted these shores with food crops.
The semi-barbarous red tribes which once roamed the whole valley, quarreling so among themselves that they were few in number and often starving and ill housed, now live on smaller areas, cultivating prosperous farms. They are probably more numerous than they were when the continent was discovered. In civilization they grow apace, as the early fathers dreamed they might.
The black races, brought by force to the Mississippi Basin, have marched from savagery to civilization in two centuries. They have added to history the name of one genius world famous.
In an Atlantic harbor of the United States stands the Statue of Liberty, given by France to her sister Republic. The flame of her torch glowing like the spirit of the first explorers is kept forever burning to guide humanity to Freedom!