And the people have taken hold to lay out their work on the grand scale that nature has indicated.  Excepting only the Houses of Parliament in London, our national capitol at Washington is the most spacious and imposing national edifice in the world.  By the unparalleled feat of a subterranean tunnel two miles out under the bottom of the lake, Chicago obtains her water.  The work of constructing a railroad tunnel across the Detroit river is already commenced, and the traveler will soon pass, in his steam palace, under the bed of that river, while the immense commerce of the lakes is floating upon its bosom over his head.  Chicago is the most extensive grain and lumber market in the world; and Philadelphia and New York contain the largest and best furnished printing establishments now in existence.  The submarine cable, running like a thread of light through the depths of the broad Atlantic from the United States to England, a conception of American genius, is the greatest achievement in the telegraphic line.  The Pacific Railroad, that iron highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, stands at the head of all monuments of engineering skill in modern times.  Following the first Atlantic cable, soon came a second almost as a matter of course; and following the Central Pacific R.R., a northern line is now in process of rapid construction.  And what results are expected to flow from these mighty enterprises?  The Scientific American of Oct. 6, 1866, says:—­

“To exaggerate the importance of this transcontinental highway is almost impossible.  To a certain extent it will change the relative positions of this country, Europe and Asia....  With the completion of the Pacific Railroad, instead of receiving our goods from India, China, Japan, and the ‘isles of the sea,’ by way of London and Liverpool, we shall bring them direct by way of the Sandwich Islands and the railroad, and become the carriers to a great extent for Europe.  But this is but a portion of the advantage of this work.  Our western mountains are almost literally mountains of gold and silver.  In them the Arabian fable of Aladdin is realized....  Let the road be completed, and the comforts as well as the necessaries furnished by Asia, the manufactures of Europe, and the productions of the States can be brought by the iron horse almost to the miner’s door; and in the production and possession of the precious metals, the blood of commerce, we shall be the richest nation on the globe.  But the substantial wealth created by the improvement of the soil and the development of the resources of the country, is a still more important element in the result of this vast work.”

Thus, with the idea of becoming the carriers of the world, the highway of the nations, and the richest power on the globe, the American heart swells with pride, and mounts up with aspirations, to which there is no limit.

And the extent to which we have come up is further shown by the influence which we are exerting on other nations.  Speaking of America Mr. Townsend in the work above cited, p. 462, says:—­