St. Paul – Chapter VI – Mississippi River

(From “St. Paul Location-Development-Opportunities” by F. C. Miller, Ph. D., Webb Book Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minnesota, 1928)
Forever new and old,
Among the living and the dead,
Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled.
—Henry Wad-worth Longfellow

The greatest surface feature of St. Paul is the Mississippi River. The very location of the city is due to the river.  If there had been no river here, there would most likely be no city here. When St. Paul was founded, the easiest means of travel and transportation was the river. It brought many of the early explorers to this vicinity and. subsequently, settlers and their supplies. It is, therefore, not only a physical factor but an economic one in the history of this city.

The word "Mississippi" comes from the Chippewa language and means "great river."  There is little doubt that the name "Father of Waters" was given to the river by white explorers and pioneers, as there is no record that Indians ever used that expression.

The Sioux name for the river was Haha Wakpa, which means Falls River, the falls being those of St. Anthony. The h's were pronounced like k's, and hence the name would sound to us Kaka Wakpa.

The Mississippi River has had great contentions with Nature to maintain a channel for itself. Glaciers dumped their cargoes across its path, but its dauntless tide could not be thwarted. It made a new way and has rolled on and on. From the surface features that remain and from borings that have been made geologists have shown that it flowed originally from the north through the Minneapolis chain of lakes and, by way of Westcott, entered its present channel at Gray Cloud Island, almost five miles south of South St. Paul. The present channel between Fort Snelling and Gray Cloud Island was made by River Warren and Phalen Creek, which was evidently at one time a fairly large river.

From the Minneapolis lakes the old Mississippi channel extended at a lower level than the bed of Lake Minnetonka westward toward Delano and the north fork of Crow River. It is evident also that the original bed passed under the present bed of the Minnesota River. The old channel of the Minnesota is thought to have joined the Mississippi near Lake

Minnetonka, where, as the channels would indicate, each river must have been more than a mile wide.

The "great river" has its source in the Itasca basin, more than 566 miles north-northwest by river from St. Paul. Its length from the Itasca basin to the Gulf of Mexico is 2,553 miles. By the time it reaches our city it has traversed a little more than one fourth of its way to the Gulf.

Its headwaters are 1,535 feet above sea level. It reaches St. Anthony Falls at an altitude of 782 feet and St. Paul at G80 feet. Thus, by the time it reaches St. Anthony Falls, it has dropped over one half of its total slope.   Between the crest of St. Anthony Falls and St. Paul it falls over 100 feet.This fall is interrupted at the Ford plant by a large dam that furnishes operating power. From St. Paul to the Gulf the average fall is 4.1 inches per mile.

The region of the upper Mississippi is practically exempt from damage by floods. The reasons for this are that the rainfall is less than that farther south; as the river runs from north to south, the snow and ice melt in installments; and it has fewer tributaries to increase its volume. The problem has rather been to provide plenty of water than to dispose of too much. The Federal Government has constructed six reservoirs at the headwaters in which to store water when it is plentiful, so that, in times of need, it may be released to raise the level of the lower stream, with special reference to St. Paul. These reservoirs can furnish enough water to raise the water level in St. Paul from 5 to 40 inches, and to make navigation possible for steamers between the St. Croix River and this city.

In order to assist navigation, the river is dredged and wing dams are maintained.

On account of the development of extensive railroad facilities the city is no longer dependent on the river for transportation; but, as freight can be carried more cheaply by water than by rail, efforts are being made to make the river navigable for larger vessels and at all seasons of the year. The Government has authorized the construction of a dam at Hastings, which will insure St. Paul new possibilities of commercial importance.
The Mississippi River drains practically the whole central inter-mountain area of the United States. It flows "from lands of snow to lands of sun." It is a volume of history.

Its upper half is picturesque and beautiful. The gorge through which it flows at St. Paul, as we have said, is the most striking feature of our landscape.   An intelligent and appreciative observer, standing on any one of the lookout points that surmount the gorge, will be amazed at the magnificent panorama unfolded to his astonished eye as he looks eastward or westward.

"O river of the molted snows,
From northern pine thy current flows
To sunny lands of palm and rose.
Forever going, never gone,
Thy ceaseless waters lengthen on
From countless dawn to countless dawn.
What song and shout and storied lore
Are thine of men that live no more
To beat thy bosom with the oar!
And in our turn our years and we
Shall know thee not, hut thou shalt be
And keep thy tryst with the deep sea."

QUESTIONS
Did this river always flow through St. Paul?
Where did it and the Minnesota meet?
What changed its course?
How did it get its name?   What does it mean?
How long is the river?   How many feet does it fall?
What is the value of the river to the city?
How is its flow regulated?

St. Paul – Chapter V – River Warren

(From “St. Paul Location-Development-Opportunities” by F. C. Miller, Ph. D., Webb Book Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minnesota, 1928)
The ancient voice that, centuries ago,
Sounded between thy hills.
—William Cullen Bryant

The poet Tennyson has said in one of his poems that "Many a million of ages have gone to the making of man," and in another that "Many an aeon moulded the earth before her highest man was born."   These lines are not fanciful.  They agree with the researches and conclusions of science.  The earth is the oldest story book, and this story is an autobiography.  It is not told in words but in panorama and picture. It portrays nature's own work.

In Rome, it is said that one of its largest buildings is standing above four ancient levels where other older buildings rested but have crumbled away and have been covered in the advance of the overwhelming years. In somewhat the same way, the earth is fashioning and refashioning its ever changing surface.

"Where rolls the deep, there grew the tree.
O earth, what changes haw thou seen!
There where the long street roars hath been
The stillness of the central sea."

Aside from the effects of the great grinding glaciers, River Warren had the most transforming influence in making the landscape features of our city.   We can easily believe that the boys and girls of St. Paul, when it was young, found pleasure in coasting and tobogganing down the slopes in the vicinity of Central Park or east of Wabasha  Street.  It would, however, require an exercise of the imagination on the part of those boys and girls or for us to understand how these terraces were Conned and to realize that, here, where the laughter of play has arisen or where the din of traffic is now heard, at one time, perhaps twenty thousand years ago, a great waterfall about a mile and a half wide and forty feet high had come thundering down these slopes with a roar that must have resembled that of the great Niagara.

We stand in awe in the presence of this majestic wonder. But stars grow dim and cold, and River Warren, too, was destined to fail. As the glaciers receded, its waters grew less and less until it ceased to flow. When men came, a city arose.

But let us delve a little deeper into the history of River Warren. We have already explained that great streams were formed as the ice of the retreating glacier melted. The glacier that was the source of River Warren came from the region of Hudson Bay and followed the course of the Red River and the present Minnesota. Along this pathway, naturally flowed the great Amazon of the Northwest. At Fort Snelling, it turned eastward. A study of the land formations along the Minnesota River and in the vicinity of St. Paul shows us clearly that the River Warren was wide and deep, far exceeding the limits of the present Mississippi channels.

Down stream, a little beyond Wabasha Street bridge, there was an ancient river channel that the glacier had filled up with gravel, sand, silt, and clay, sometime before River Warren had come into being. When that river grew into its great volume, it washed out the old channel and exposed a very ancient bluff capped by limestone at the upstream end of the old channel, which bluff extended from the present Mississippi channel to Wabasha Street, along Wabasha northward to Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Streets, then east by north to Cedar, Minnesota and Robert Streets to University Avenue and beyond. The water running over this wide bluff made River Warren Falls.

In its upstream movements, the falls hollowed out the soft sandstone underneath the limestone, and big slabs fell off into the river. Such blocks of limestone may yet be seen at the north end of the High Bridge. The pathway made by the retreating River Warren Falls formed a beautiful rock-bound trench, or channel, which may be suitably called the St. Paul Gorge.

Passing Mendota, the falls invaded the present Minnesota River valley for about two miles to a point where all the limestone had previously been removed, and then came to an end, as the sandstone was too soft to allow the formation of a hard crest.

On the river flats of the St. Paul Gorge, are two lakes that are remnants of former river  channels. One is near the High Bridge and is called Pickerel Lake, and the other is close to the northern bank, about a mile farther upstream, and is called Crosby Lake.

There are four islands in the gorge. They are:

Raspberry Island, near the Wabasha Street Bridge.  The Club House of the St. Paul Boat Club is located on it.

Harriet Island, a short distance south and west of Raspberry Island. The St. Paul Municipal Bath Houses are on it.

A third near the Omaha Bridge is occupied by the power plant of the Northern States Power Company.

Pike Island, near Fort Snelling, is the largest of all and is named in honor of Lieutenant Pike who bought the Fort Snelling Reservation from the Sioux Indians, in 1805.

All these islands consist, for the most part, of sand and silt. They are simply river deposits. The  first three are enlarged sandbars, and Pike Island is the delta of the Minnesota River.

River Warren is responsible for the formation of numerous terraces in St. Paul. These consist of a series of benches beginning near the channel or water surface and rising upward and outward. These are either sand and gravel (alluvial) or rock benches. Most of the alluvial terraces have been destroyed by the grading of streets, the filling of low places, and the building of railroads along the Hood plains of the Mississippi. One of these terraces can still be seen near the shore of Pig's Eye Lake.

As the great ice sheet melted more and more to the north the main supply of water gradually became less and less.  River Warren began to diminish, and was confined to a narrower channel, the old flood plain was left some twenty feel above as an alluvial terrace. There are four terraces extending from the river flats to Summit Avenue. There are others near South Robert and George Streets.

There remains unmistakable evidence of the course and wonder work of this ancient river. As we look out over the terraces and the deeper gorge, we can plainly see the widest course that it carved for itself and again the steps it made as it grew less and less.

"On thy broad terraces of old
No more the Indian's fires
Flare upward to the sky.
Domes, temples, and their spires,
Are lined against the sunset gold
And toiling thousands vie."

QUESTIONS
How can you account for this great river?
Where has it left traces in St. Paul?
What caused this river to dry up?
How were the islands formed in its gorge?
Where can you find some striking terraces in the city?

St. Paul – Chapter IV – The Ice Age

(From “St. Paul Location-Development-Opportunities” by F. C. Miller, Ph. D., Webb Book Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minnesota, 1928)
The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is evident that, perhaps thirty or forty thousand years ago, the site of Saint Paid was covered by a great ice sheet. It may be asked how we dare to make so strong a statement. When we see rabbit tracks in the snow, we know that a rabbit has been there. We can just as easily discern the tracks—we call them traces—of the great ice sheet. It has left unmistakable evidence of its presence. It would be interesting to take a trip about the city some day in search for the footprints of this ice mountain that could boast of ability to change the whole face of nature. We should find glacial scratches, glacial hills and lakes, dry old river channels, waterfalls, and many other evidences of a mighty hand at work. Some of the effects of this glacier are so perfect that they seem to have been done by an intelligent artist. These will be explained, and you will see them, too.

This glacier has been called mountainous. It is thought to have been two thousand feet high. It was formed in the very far North and very gradually made its way down into the temperate zone where it must finally have melted away. Generally speaking, this immense ice sheet extended on the East to the Ohio River and on the West to the  Missouri. It advanced and melted and advanced repeatedly. In all there were six advances and six retreats. This process is supposed to have continued for more than 500,000 years.

The first ice invasion, although it extended farther south in Minnesota and Wisconsin, does not seem to have left any effect in Saint Paul.   The second invasion, which came from the western shore of Hudson Bay, made grooves in the limestone (top layer of the bed rock) from one to two feet deep. Such grooves can be found in quarries that have not been filled in.   It deposited, also, pebbles and boulders that came from Manitoba. Gravel deposited by this ice sheet is to be found on the bluffs of the Mississippi River south of Pickerel Lake and east toward the High Bridge.

After a long interglacial period there was another advance, called the Illinois invasion. There is likewise little, if any, definite evidence of its effects around St. Paul. Following this invasion, came the Wisconsin ice sheet. This ice sheet, as it evidently melted in the vicinity of St. Paul, left a ridge-like dump of boulders, gravel, sand, silt, and clay which were dropped from a point a little south of White Bear Lake to Minnetonka. This deposit is called a terminal moraine. This glacier brought a large mass of red-boulder clay (ground boulders) which is still seen in many parts of the city.

The later and last Wisconsin ice sheet reached only the extreme northwestern part of St. Paul (St. Anthony Park), brought a thin gray layer of glacial drift (boulders, gravel, sand, silt, and clay), and moved northeastward to the St. Croix River.


If you wonder how it is possible to know that there were many glaciers and that they produced the effects ascribed to them, a little reasoning will show you. Remember what we said about the rabbit tracks. In all parts of the city is a more or less thick layer of boulders, gravel, sand, silt, and clay that is different from the bed rock below it. Sometimes this layer is only a few inches thick, as in the vicinity of Wabasha and West Seventh Streets. In other places, it is one hundred feet or more in depth, as near the Central High School and along Snelling Avenue from about Como Avenue extending some distance beyond Randolph Street.

This material is unassorted except where flowing water may have separated it according to size. These deposits are called glacial drift. But how do we know that glaciers brought them?

So far as known, there are only two ways in which we can account for their presence.   Either they must be of the original bed rock and formed here, or they must have originated elsewhere and have been brought here. Because they arc different from the bed rock, we conclude that they must have ben transported from some other source. Then, if they were transported, how were they transported? What were the natural agencies that could bear and bring so vast and heavy a load?

Could wind have been the means? Not at all. Fine clay and sand are often carried by wind. Results of this kind are found in some of our western states and northern Africa. It would be impossible, however, for wind to move coarse gravel and large boulders.

Could flowing water produce these results? The finer materials, including sand, coarse gravel, and even boulders, might have been pushed along by a strong current, but it is inconceivable to believe that the gigantic rocks that weigh many tons could have been  carried for considerable distances even by a mighty river. Water also would have sorted  out the different materials. We must, therefore, find some other solution than flowing water.

The only other natural transporting agency is ice. Will it satisfy the requirements? A broad and deep sheet of ice could carry boulders weighing many tons. Ice alone, too, because it would melt, and as it melted, would dump its load irregularly and without any attempt at assortment, just as we find it. If we accept this theory, it is easy, then, to conjecture how tremendous and powerful these glaciers must have been. From other facts, too, we can tell in what directions they moved and prove that the agency was ice.

An examination of boulders in the vicinity discloses the fact that they usually have one or more flat surfaces. Motion under a heavy glacial load made them flat-sided. If water had been the agency, it would have turned them over and over and tended to make them round. It can easily be seen that rocks would be likely to sink to the bottom of an ice sheet and to scrape along other hard surfaces.

Then the scratches on the bed rock, sometimes a foot or more in depth, so deep that we may call them furrows, are conclusive proof that some ponderous moving agency carrying on its under side rough substances, which must have been rocks, cut these furrows with irresistible force.

Except for a few sand hills (dunes) in St. Anthony Park, there are just two kinds of hills in and about St. Paul—river bluffs and glacial hills. The river bluffs skirt the Mississippi River and the lower part of Phalen Creek. All the other hills are of glacial origin; that is, they were dumped where they are by melting glaciers.

Broad streams carried some of the terminal moraines away and spread them at a distance in level deposits, called out-wash plains. Riverside, across the Mississippi, Dayton's Bluff, Arlington Hills, and the Merriam Park district are examples. In Hamline there is a red out-wash plain. To the north is a gray, glacial, gravel plain. Lake Phalen and Lake Como are of glacial origin. Their basins were formed by rings of glacial hills. They are, therefore, called rim-lakes.

It would be difficult to picture a bird’s-eye view of the land in this vicinity before the great glaciers transformed it, but it will be easier to gather some conception of the work they did and of the importance and value of their mission. In these we see more of that supreme wisdom that molded and furnished the earth for the dwelling and use of man.

QUESTIONS
How can we tell that glaciers were here?
How can we tell in what direction they moved?
Where in St. Paul can we find mixed gravel pita?
How could a glacier make a lull?   A lake?

St. Paul - Chapter III – Surface Features

(From “St. Paul Location-Development-Opportunities” by F. C. Miller, Ph. D., Webb Book Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minnesota, 1928)
Landscapes are Nature's pictures.
—M. E. Lee

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES

What a goodly prospect spreads around,
Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires!
—James Thomson

St. Paul is located on the upper Mississippi near the mouth of the Minnesota Hiver. From the time of the earliest explorers this situation has been regarded as advantageous. In addition to its geographic location it forms a striking part of one of Nature's great pictures. The river valley is really a gorge, enclosed by steep, rock-ribbed bluffs, for the most part the old channel of the retreating River Warren Falls.

On the main headlands and cliffs are the principal residence sections, while the heart of the business district is located on a beautiful terrace. Particular charm is found in the narrowness of the rock-bound channel and in the practical absence of a flood plain.

About four miles from the center of the city, the Minnesota River joins its master stream between Fort Snelling and Mendota. This tributary, which flows through the whole breadth of Minnesota, connects the waters of the Red River of the North with those of the Mississippi. Indeed, here is a natural stretch of water that needs but comparatively little improvement to form a navigable channel for medium-sized craft from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay.

St. Paul is located at 45 degrees north latitude, about half-way between the equator and the north pole, or a little more than 6,000 miles from either. Its longitude is about 93 degrees west. Accordingly, St. Paul is also very nearly midway between the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line, and enjoys a very central position.

In passing, it may be mentioned that St. Paul is in the Central Standard Time Belt. There is a slight difference between Central Time and St. Paul Time. The difference amounts to about twelve minutes. When it is noon Central Time, it is twelve minutes to twelve local time, or 11:48 A.M.

The altitude of St. Paul is from 680 feet above sea level (mean water level of the Mississippi) to about 1,000 feet in the extreme northwestern part of the city. From the point of view of health, the altitude is very favorable, insuring both good, invigorating air and an excellent grade for the flow of drainage water. And as the river altitude at St. Paul is 680 feet above sea level and the distance from our city to the Gulf of Mexico about 1,994 miles, the navigation possibilities of the river ran hardly be overestimated, as the river falls only a trifle more than four inches per mile from this city to tidewater.

No attempt will lie made to describe the natural attractions of the St. Paul surface features in detail. They are merely mentioned here to give some sort of general bird's-eye-view of the natural points of interest.
Attention has been called to the steep, bold, and frowning cliffs, headlands, and bluffs on forth sides of the river gorge. Below and beyond these rocky river banks may be found a number of strikingly beautiful terraces. Some enthusiastic geographers have seriously proposed the substitution of the name of Terrace City for St. Paul.

The ice sheet, of about 30,000 years ago, invaded Minnesota and seriously interfered with the drainage system then existing, by blocking up old channels with silt, sand, gravel, and boulders, by filling up the troughs of numerous streams with the same material and by digging out new more or less permanent channels. In this way, there came into being quite a number of lakes, swamps, bogs, and also a number of creeks and streams. Before the city spread out and began to assume metropolitan proportions, a large number of these watercourses and basins were still in existence; but, when the city began to build sewers and lay water mains, these watercourses and basins were almost destroyed. Even today numerous dried-up creek and river channels and former lake basins may be found in many parts of the city.

For a few blocks on Rondo Street the street cars run on the bed of a former stream that  flowed through the grounds of St. Joseph's Hospital and on to the river in the direction of Fourth and Jackson Streets where it was crossed by a bridge.



In the extreme northeastern district, Lake Phalen, and, in the extreme northwestern part, Lake Como have been preserved.  Both lakes are in a beautiful environment, and both offer water sport of various kinds.

St. Paul has no real mountains, though there is some slight evidence of the work of mountain-making forces in the folds of the Mississippi limestone bluffs a few miles south of St. Paul. There are, however, numerous hills in and about the city. All these hills can be put under three heads— bluffs, glacial hills, and dunes, being the result of the work of the river, ice, or wind. Starting from the Mississippi River northward, these hills appear in regular succession. Near the river are the bluffs, farther out and covering all but the outermost fringe of the city are glacial hills, and just beyond the northernmost fringe are low sand dunes. It is largely due to the river gorge and the hills that St. Paul can offer such a picturesque panorama of hill, dale, and plain, of highlands and of lowlands.

In the southeastern part of the city where the Mississippi makes a sharp turn from the east to the south is one of the most impressive lookout places. It is here that we find a number of small mounds made by the mound builders, presumably Indians who had either adopted the method of burial of the mound builders or who were their lineal descendants.

In many cases the glacial hills were partially or wholly washed away by the water coming from the melting ice. The sand, gravel, and clay, so gained, were carried by the glacial water farther from the ice front and deposited in broad sheets some distance away. In  this manner were formed the wash-plains we find in various sections of the city, particularly in Hamline and at the State Fair Grounds.

Because of the abundant supply of ground water, which can easily dissolve the upper layer of bed rock (Trenton limestone) and the softness of the second layer (St. Peter sandstone), St. Paul has numerous caves. Most of them are in the St. Peter sandstone. One of the caves (Carver's Cave) is of historic interest, both because of the semi-sacred character the Indians ascribed to it and also because it was visited and described by one of the earliest explorers of this part of Minnesota. Many of the smaller caves have been enlarged, and some of them have been entirely dug out by the hand of man for useful purposes.    As the temperature in the caves varies little during the whole year, they form excellent growing places for mushrooms and splendid storehouses for certain kinds of perishable goods.

From many good lookout points the natural beauty of the city can be observed. The bluffs, with their terraced stairways, the river as it flows on, the bridges that span its course, and that man-made skyline of massive business buildings, domes of capitol and cathedral, spires of churches, puffing locomotives pulling loads of freight and passengers, and all the countless indications of a busy city outline themselves before us and form a fascinating picture.

Some of the vantage points from which the city can be seen are the following:
Wabasha Street Bridge.
High Bridge.
Cherokee Heights Drive.
Fort Snelling Bridge.
Indian Mounds Park.
Oakland Street.
Summit Avenue and Ramsey Street near the University Club House.
Linwood Park, St. Clair Street and Victoria Street.
Agricultural School, near Raymond Avenue.
West-Side river bluff, from South Wabasha Street to High Bridge and beyond.
Wheelock Parkway in many places.
Snelling Avenue Reservoir near Otto Avenue.
Rice Street Reservoir.
Glacial Hills, St. Anthony Park.                                                                             Roofs of St. Paul sky-scrapers, such as those of the Pioneer Building, Merchants National Bank, Great Northern and Northern Pacific Office Building, Athletic Club Building.
Domes of the Capitol and the Cathedral.
Tower of the Montgomery Ward Building.
What man has done in St. Paul is scarcely less impressive than what Nature did in the dim past, since the site of St. Paul was raised above the ancient sea. It is seldom that,
away from the mountains, Nature has prepared so varied, pleasing, and suitable a situation for a city. To its natural attractiveness the citizens have added all the adornments of beauty that arc found in its boulevards and parks, the character of its architecture, and the massive homes of industry and commerce.

QUESTIONS
In what respects is the rolling character of the city advantageous?
What are the city's most striking land features?
How has the city changed the surface appearance?
In what part of the city are the natural stairways?
What 18 the altitude of St. Paul?
Where do you believe is the best outlook?

St. Paul - Chapter II - Cities

(From “St. Paul Location-Development-Opportunities” by F. C. Miller, Ph. D., Webb Book Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minnesota, 1928)
Cities have been a lamp of light along the pathway of humanity.
—Rev. Dr. Guthrie

As we are making a study of our own city, it will be interesting to learn something about the growth and character of other cities. First, what is the explanation of the city? How do cities start, and why do they grow?

Long, long ago cities—they were only towns or villages then—afforded, in the numbers that assembled in them, a strong means of common defense. The principal activities were in the fields. Shelter and safety were found in the community center. Often strong walls were built around a town. The famous ancient wall around the city of Home is still in existence, and even Paris is still surrounded with a wall.

But there were other reasons for the rise of cities. As far as history dates back, there has been commerce by land and sea. Naturally the places most fitly and conveniently situated were selected as the sites of cities. Constantinople has, perhaps, the most unique situation in the world. Examples of other foreign cities are London, Hamburg, Stockholm, Cairo, Hong Kong, Calcutta, and Rio de Janeiro. In America, there are New York, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, Duluth, and the cities on the St. Lawrence.

As manufacturing increased and commerce expanded, the cities that were naturally the best ports of entry and departure grew rapidly. Business opportunities multiplied. Men were both needed and attracted to these centers, just as in our country the West has been regarded as the land of opportunity.

The largest number of cities is, therefore, on the coast of their respective countries or easily accessible by rivers or lakes. Since the building of railroads, inland cities, such as Pittsburgh and Kansas City, have grown rapidly. Pittsburgh is located in the center of a great mining and manufacturing section, and Kansas City in the center of a productive agricultural region.

Some cities have grown very rapidly while others have been ages in attaining their size. Of course, the cities of the new world in which we live are much younger than those in the older countries. Many of the large cities of Europe were founded by the Romans more than two thousand years ago, as, for instance, London, Cologne, Paris, Vienna, and Constantinople. Compared, however, with the cities of India, China, and Japan, these  European cities are young. These three countries had many large cities at the time our European forefathers were barbarians or savages, hardly more advanced in civilization than the North American Indians at the time of the discovery of America.

On account of their steady growth, the ancient cities grew in a natural way, receiving and retaining the mark or impress of the many generations of people that lived in them and gave them the distinguishing characteristics by which they differ greatly from other cities. Some of these cities have acquired distinct personalities. One city becomes known as the shipbuilder and another as the patron of art.

Oxford becomes a synonym for learning, Florence for painting, and Rome for law.  Philadelphia has been called the city of brotherly love. It was the home of the Quakers, who have left on the city the firm impression of their quiet, staid, conservative, charitable, and moral character. New York still retains features of its Dutch founders. The tolerant spirit of Lord Baltimore has not died out in the city he founded.

The cities on our eastern and southern coasts were the first to be founded, as they lie in the territory that was first discovered. They are, generally speaking, of different and distinct types, retaining the characteristics of the diverse peoples that built them. Thus there are cities with English, French, and Spanish traditions and architecture. The cities of the West are more alike, because they have, for the most part, been settled by the various descendants of a later generation. As these are far younger than cities of renown in the old world and even than many others in our own country, they have not yet had sufficient time to develop individual distinction or the culture of older cities. While cities may not have been founded for the express purpose of promoting learning or art or other characteristics that have distinguished them, along with their material development has arisen a taste for beauty, and art, and learning. The very size of a large city makes possible the greater and more beautiful park, the taller building, the better transportation system, the finer libraries and galleries of art, and a multitude of other advantages and attractions that ever invite the visitor and citizen. As a result, about one half of the people of the United States live in the larger towns and cities.

The country appeals to those who love nature, but the city has a greater attraction to others. It is said that to be out of the streets of Florence was exile to Dante, and that Socrates never cared to go beyond the bounds of Athens. The city is a little world within itself. It is more varied and complete than the country. It is not strange that it has become a magnet to men. The greater the group the more contact of mind with mind and the greater the creative urge and development. Culture also comes from contact. The cities have, therefore, been the centers from which civilization has radiated, as, for example, Athens and Florence.

The history of the Roman world is the history of the city of Rome. The ideals of learning  and art and law established by these cities are still the standards of the world. We have now seen some of the reasons for the location and development of cities, for their original and traditional differences, and for their numerous advantages. In the next chapter, we shall call attention to the unique location and surface features of St. Paid, and in other chapters to its development and opportunities.

QUESTIONS
How do cities start and grow?
What docs the situation of a city have to do with its development?
Explain the advantages of an old city.
How do cities of Europe and Asia differ from ours?
What are some of the oldest cities in our country?
What advantages are there in a large city?