It is not, therefore, hypothetical geography. Following the 43d parallel eastward, we find it passing along the northern shore of the Mediterranean, through central Italy, and through the heart of the Turkish Empire. Nearly all of Europe lies north of it,—the whole of France, half of Italy, the whole of the Austrian Empire, and all of Russia's vast dominions.
The entire wheat-field of Europe is above that parallel. The valleys of the Alps lying between the 46th and 50th parallels swarm with an industrious people; why may not those of the Rocky Mountains at the head-waters of the Missouri and Columbia in like manner be hives of industry in the future?
If a Christiania, a Stockholm, and a St. Petersburg, with golden-domed churches, gorgeous palaces, and abodes of comfort, can be built up in lat. 60 in the Old World, why may we not expect to see their counterpart in the New, when we take into account the fact that a heated current from the tropics gives the same mildness of climate to the northwestern section of this continent that the Gulf Stream gives to northern Europe?
With this outlook towards future possibilities, we see Minnesota the central State of the Continental Republic of the future.
With the map of the continent before me, I stick a pin into Minneapolis, and stretch a string to Halifax, then, sweeping southward, find that it cuts through southern Florida, and central Mexico. It reaches almost to San Diego, the extreme southwestern boundary of the United States,—reaches to Donner Pass on the summit of the Sierra Nevadas, within a hundred miles of Sacramento. Stretching it due west, it reaches to Salem, Oregon. Carrying it northwest, I find that it reaches to the Rocky Mountain House on Peace River,—to that region whose beauty charmed Mackenzie and Father De Smet. The Peace River flows through the Rocky Mountains, and at its head-waters we find the lowest pass of the continent. The time may come when we of the East will whirl through it upon the express-train bound for Sitka! It is two hundred miles from the Rocky Mountain House to that port of southern Alaska.
The city of Mexico is nearer Minneapolis by nearly a hundred miles than Sitka. Trinity Bay on the eastern coast of Newfoundland, Puerto Principe on the island of Cuba, the Bay of Honduras in Central America, and Sitka, are equidistant from Minneapolis and St. Paul.
When Mr. Seward, in 1860, addressed the people of St. Paul from the steps of the Capitol, it was the seer, and not the politician, who said:—
"I now believe that the ultimate last seat of government on this great continent will be found somewhere within a circle or radius not far from the spot on which I stand, at the head of navigation on the Mississippi River!"