The Port of Galveston and the State of Texas (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Port of Galveston and the State of Texas<br><br>This West then, beyond the Mississippi, embraces 826,000,000 acres or 67 percent of the Union. It has a demesne of forest broader than all the British Isles. It is the principal source of the Worlds supply of the precious metals. Colonization of it proceeds faster than anywhere else on Earth. And measured by the productive capacity of an equal area of Europe, it would support easily, if its arable lands were as thoroughly tilled, 240,000,000 souls.<br><br>With a little less population than Spain about 15,000,000, it had a surplus of the staples of husbandry in 1889, worth more than the entire revenue of that proud and ancient power. The estimate of its production of the four leading staples that year, in round numbers was: Cattle 4,990,000, cotton 2,000,000 bales, wheat 242,000,000 bushels, corn 1,001,500,000 bushels. The estimated excess of these products over consumption was 4,170,000 cattle, 1,950,000 bales of cotton, 169,000,000 bushels of wheat, and 785,500,000 bushels of corn; or reduced to tons, 28,637,722, enough to freight 9,545 vessels of 3,000 tons each.<br><br>And yet, notwithstanding this extraordinary surplus, farm mortgages accumulate the labors of Sisyphus for the cultivators of the soil in some of the most fruitful districts of the West, and they have been driven to the expedient of making a fuel of their corn. Multifarious circumstances conjoined, have produced this situation, but the opinion is concurrent that it arises largely frominadequate outlets for exportation. The ports of the Pacific are too far distant from the Worlds great markets to be generally available. Those of the Lakes are winter-bound, and those of the Gulf and Southeastern seaboard, of insufficient accommodations for the shipping required. And although the West has a quarter of the railroad mileage of the world, and nearly half of that in the country at large, transportation charges, over the distances that must be traversed to the North Atlantic Coasts, are practically an embargo upon its foreign trade.<br><br>The West, clamoring, by special convention, for removal of these disabilities has been heard at the seat of government. A commission of Engineers, ordered to find, on the Texas Coast, a site for a harbor nearest to all points inland lu yond the Mississippi, has made choice of the Port Of Galvestox. That city, slowly, accreting, like the shelf of the sea on which it is founded, has been known hitherto as the furthermost American cotton port, second in rank of those in the South. and as the foremost city of Texas. The certainty of an appropriation of $6,200,000 by Congress, to complete the improvement of its harbor, long under way, ordains it, at length, the Seaport Of The West, and unfolds it a destiny of maritime ascendancy, of grandeur and of power.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.