These, according to the table, exhibit a growth which makes them, in 1860, more than twenty-three times as populous as they were in 1830. This is double the progress of the river cities, and more than five times that of the cities of the Atlantic coast. In the face of these facts, how can intelligent men continue to hold the opinion that New York is to continue long to be, as now, the focal point of North American commerce and influence? Yet well informed men do continue to express the opinion that New York will ever hold the position of the chief city of the continent. Every one at all familiar with the location and movement of our population, knows that the central point of its numbers is moving in a constant and almost unvarying direction west by north. An able investigator, now Professor of Law in the University of Michigan, Thomas M. Cooley, five years ago, entered into an elaborate calculation to ascertain where the centre of population of the United States and Canadas was, at that time. The result showed it to be very near Pittsburg. It is generally conceded that it travels in a direction about west by north, at a rate averaging not less than seven miles a year. In 1860, it will have crossed the Ohio River, and commenced its march through the State of Ohio. As our internal commerce is more than ten times as great as our foreign commerce, and is increasing more rapidly, it is plain that it will have the chief agency in building the future and permanent capital city of the continent. If the centre of population were, likewise the centre of wealth and industrial power, other things being equal, it would be the position of the chief city, as it would be the most convenient place of exchange for dealers from all quarters of the country. But this centre of wealth and industrial power does not keep up, in its western movement, with the centre of population! nor, if its movement were coincident, would it be at or near the right point for the concentration of our domestic and foreign trade, while traversing the interior of Ohio. If we suppose our foreign commerce equal to one fifteenth of the domestic, we should add to the thirty-three millions of the States and Canadas, upward of two millions of foreigners, to represent our foreign commerce. These should be thrown into the scale represented by New York. This, with the larger proportion to population of industrial power remaining in the old States, would render it certain that the centre of industrial power of our nation has not traveled westward so far as to endanger, for the present, the supremacy of the cities central to the commerce of our Atlantic coast. Until the centre of industrial power approaches a good harbor on the lakes, New York will continue the best located city of the continent for the great operations of its commerce. That the centre of wealth and consequent industrial power is moving westward at a rate not materially slower than the centre of population, might be easily proved; but, as those who read this article with interest must be cognizant of the great flow of capital from the old world and the old States to the New States, and the rapid increase of capital on the fertile soil of the new States, no special proof seems to us to be called for. The centre of power, numerical, political, economical, and social, is then, indubitably, on its steady march from the Atlantic border toward the interior of the continent. That it will find a resting place somewhere, in its broad interior plain, seems as inevitable as the continued movement of the earth on its axis. The figures we have submitted of the growth of the principal lake cities plainly show great power in lake commerce, so great as to carry conviction to our mind that the principal city of the continent will find its proper home and resting-place on the lake border, and become the most populous capital of the earth. A full knowledge of the geography of North America will tend to confirm this conviction in the mind of the fair inquirer. The lakes penetrate the continent to its productive centre. They afford, during eight or nine months of the year, pleasant and safe navigation for steam-propelled vessels. Their waters are pure and beautifully transparent, and the air which passes over them exceedingly invigorating to the human system. Their borders are replete with materials for the exercise of human industry and skill. The soil is fertile and very productive in grains and grasses. Coal in exhaustless abundance crops out on or near their waters, to the extent of nearly one thousand miles of coast. The richest mines of iron and copper, convenient to water transport, exist, in aggregate amount, beyond the power of calculation. Stone of lime, granite, sand, and various other kinds suitable for the architect and the artist, are found almost everywhere convenient to navigation. Gypsum of the best quality crops out on the shores of three of the great lakes, and salt springs of great strength are worked to advantage, near lakes Ontario and Michigan. Timber trees in great variety and of valuable sorts, give a rich border to the shores for thousands of miles. Of these, the white oak, burr oak, white pine, whitewood or tulip tree, white ash, hickory and black walnut, are the most valuable. They are of noble dimensions, and clothe millions of acres with their rich foliage. Nowhere else on the continent are to be seen such abundance of magnificent oak, and the immense groves of white pine are not excelled. Heretofore little esteemed, the great tracts of timber convenient to lake navigation and to the wide treeless prairies of the plain, are destined soon to take an important place in the commercial operations of the interior. Already, oak timber, for ship-building and other purposes, finds a profitable market in New York and Boston. The great Russian steamship "General Admiral," was built in part from the timber of the lake border. A great trade is growing up, based on the products of the forest. Whitewood (Diriodendron tulipifera), oak staves, black and white walnut plank, and other indigenous timber, are shipped, not only to the Atlantic cities, but to foreign ports. The lumber yards of Albany, New York, Philadelphia, as well as those of Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland and Buffalo, receive large supplies from the pineries bordering the great lakes. Cincinnati and other Ohio river cities, receive an increasing proportion of pine lumber from the same source. These great waters are also, as is well known, stocked with fish in great variety, whose fine gastronomic qualities have a world-wide reputation.
As before stated, these lakes penetrate the continent toward the northwest as far as its productive centre. They now have unobstructed connection with the Atlantic vessels of nine feet draft and three hundred tons burden, by the aid of sixty-three miles of canals overcoming the falls of the St. Mary, Niagara and St. Lawrence Rivers, with a lockage of less than six hundred feet. By enlarging some of the locks and deepening the canals, at a cost of a very few millions, navigation for propellers of from one thousand to two thousand tons may be secured with the whole world of waters. The cost is much within the power of the Canadas and the States bordering the lakes, and will be but a light matter to these communities when, within the next fifteen years, they shall have doubled their population and trebled their wealth. The increase of the commerce of the lakes, during the last fifteen years, is believed to be beyond any example furnished by the history of navigation. A proportionate increase the next fifteen years, would give for the yearly value of its transported articles, thousands of millions. According to the best authorities it is now over four hundred millions. In 1855, that portion of the tonnage belonging to the United States was one fifteenth of the entire tonnage of the Union. During the same year the clearances of vessels from ports of the United States to the Canadas, and the entrance of vessels from the Canadas to ports of the United States, as exhibited in the following table, show a greater amount of tonnage entered and cleared than between the United States and any other foreign country:
Clearances from ports in the United States to ports in Canada in 1855:
| Number of American vessels | 2,369 | |
| "Canadian" | 6,638 | |
| Whole number | 9,067 | |
| Tonnage American | 890,017 | |
| "Canadian | 903,502 | |
| Total cleared from the States, | 1,793,519 | |
The registered tonnage of all the States, the same year, was 2,676,864; and the registered and enrolled together, 5,212,000.
The value of lake tonnage was, in 1855, $14,835,000. The total value of the commerce of the lakes, the same year, was estimated, by high authority, (including exports and imports) at twelve hundred and sixteen millions ($1,216,000,000.) This seems to us an exaggerated estimate, though based principally on official reports of collectors of customs. Eight hundred millions would, probably, be near to the true amount. It will surprise many persons to learn that the trade between the United States and Canadas, carried on chiefly by the lakes and their connecting waters, ranks third in value and first in tonnage, in the table of our foreign commerce; being, in value, only below that of England and the French Empire, and in tonnage above the British Empire.
| American goods to Canada | $9,950,764 | |
| Foreign goods | 8,769,580 | |
| $18,720,344 | ||
| Canadian goods to the States, | 12,182,314 | |
| $30,902,658 | ||
We here append a table showing the progress, from decade to decade, of the principal centres of population of the plain since 1820. It has been made with all the accuracy which our sources of information enable us to attain. There are in it, no doubt, many errors, but it will be found, in the main, and for general argument, substantially correct. For future reference, it will be valuable to persons who take an interest in the development of our new urban communities. Included in each city are its outlying dependencies—such as Newport and Covington with Cincinnati, and Lafayette with New Orleans.
The preceding table is instructive, showing, as it does, the steady and rapidly increasing tendency of the people of the plain to seek a home in cities and villages, notwithstanding the great temptation which fertile, cheap, and easily-improved lands hold out to become tillers of the soil and growers of cattle. Stock farming is largely remunerative, but our western people—wild and uncultivated as they are supposed to be by those unacquainted with their true character—prefer homes where the advantages of education and social intercourse is a constant enjoyment. Nowhere in the world are educational establishments on a better footing or more universally accessible than in some of the new States of the centre, as in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and other States.[(Back to Content)]