became invested with a romantic interest which Whitman himself would probably have disclaimed in large measure could he have lived to see some of the later literature upon his journey.

of books and periodical literature upon the subject has developed to surprising proportions and involves a controversy often acrimonious. Of recent years O. W. Nixon, author of "How Marcus Whitman saved Oregon," and Dr. W. A. Mowry, author of "Marcus Whitman," have been among the leading popular exponents of the legend. Fortunately the subject attracted the attention of a trained historical student, Professor Edward G. Bourne of Yale, who examined the sources and subjected the evidence to a critical examination. In an address before the American Historical Association in December, 1900, he demonstrated the baselessness of the claim that "Whitman saved Oregon." Another student of the subject, Mr. W. I. Marshall, added some instructive testimony. For a final analysis of the subject the reader may consult Professor Bourne's address, which appears, revised, enlarged, and annotated, in his Essays in Historical Criticism." An article by Mr. Marshall in the School Weekly of Chicago, February 22, 1901, cites the following authors of school histories as expressing themselves convinced of the falsity of the Whitman legend: H. E. Scudder, J. B. McMaster, W. F. Gordy, A. F. Blaisdell, and Mrs. A. H. Burton. He also quotes Edward Eggleston and John Fiske as at that time disavowing belief in the legend, which Fiske had accepted earlier from Barrows.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE COMING OF INDUSTRIES

The search for mineral wealth. Louisiana ignored for California. Later developments. The day of the "pony express. The great cattle industry. Opening of the interior by the first transcontinental railroad.

The treasure seeking of the Spaniards in the Southwest and various quests of the French belong to early history, but it was less than sixty years ago that Americans began to write the story of the mine in the West. A few pioneers knew something of the mineral riches of the West-trappers, scouts, fur hunters like Bridger, Ashley, or Peter Ogden famous in the annals of the Hudson Bay Company, or, later, William Sublette, Walker, and Kit Carson. These men had penetrated the mountains and knew the Great Basin. Some of them brought back tales of placer gold, and even showed specimens.

But it was not until 1848 that the age of gold was opened to Anglo-Saxons in the West. The digging of a mill race for J. A. Sutter at New Helvetia, California, brought the discovery of gold and the opening of one of the most eventful chapters in the record of the world's pursuit of mineral wealth. The Argonauts who crowded vessels bound for the Isthmus or the Horn, or painfully traversed the well-worn trails from Independence or St. Joseph, made a history of their own. The number of men in the California gold fields rose from a handful at the time of the discovery to six thousand at the end of 1848, and thirty-five thousand by the close of the following year. Not until 1855 was a railroad opened across the Isthmus of Panama, but in the first twelve years of its existence it carried

1 Along this line [the overland trail] the 'prairie schooners' stretched for miles. . . . A traveler counted four hundred and fifty-nine wagons in ten miles along the Platte. . . . The cholera epidemic of 1849 carried off over five thousand of these immigrants gathered along the Missouri."-Sparks's "Expansion of the American People,"