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 694 Railroads and their results. [i828- commercial revolution brought about everywhere in the world by this invention, following rapidly on the application of steam to ocean navigation. Three distinctively important results for the United States may, however, be noted. In the first place, the very size of the country made railroads far more important here than in the countries of Europe. The resources of the United States are separated by distances so great that anything approximating their full development would have been impossible under the old methods of transport. The great rivers of the West, as already shown, were important arteries of commerce ; but there were vast districts separated by enormous distances, and either totally disconnected from these waterways, or connected with them only by streams incapable of conveying more than a very limited trade. Nor could canals be constructed to complete the system of waterways in any adequate degree. Consequently, had any observer in 1830 been able to appreciate the great possibilities of production on the American continent, he must have resigned himself to the conviction that, in the face of the small advance mankind had yet been able to make in respect of transport, these possibilities could never be realised. In the second place, the railroads solved the geographical problem, and profoundly modified the course of economic development. They united the East and West. Neither mountains nor rivers could stop them. If any commodity could be produced in one district and sold in another, these districts could now be connected. Even down to the middle of the century the chief routes of commerce ran north and south : since that time they have run east and west. The economic unity of the country was at last made possible. The third feature of American railroads lies in the fact that to a great extent they have preceded commerce rather than followed it. They have been built not to connect producing districts but to create production. In the Far West the rails have been laid through the wilderness; and the settlers have followed the rails, as formerly they followed the river courses. It is this fact which has made the development of the trans-Mississippi region possible. The first railroad to be opened was the Baltimore and Ohio, in 1831. As the name implies, the idea of the road was to unite the sea-coast with the Ohio river; but it was not until 1853 that the Ohio was reached. During the first twenty years of railroad development, lines were built rapidly in the Eastern States, both North and South, while after 1840 considerable advance was made in the States west of the mountains. Little, however, was accomplished towards overcoming that barrier between them which had played so important a part in the early history of the country. In 1842 a line was completed between Boston and Albany ; and in the same year New York was connected by rail with Buifalo at the lake end of the Erie Canal, the level character of the country, which had made the canal possible, causing also the first through rail connexion here. The people soon perceived the importance