Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/194

 monument, the sacred hills of Arlington, the Potomac winding towards Alexandria, which Adams predicted would become the continent's metropolis and greatest export city, the imposing declivities of old Georgetown, at whose base were once anchored merchant ships from foreign ports, there passes before the mind a vivid panorama of the history of the American people. Beauty and majesty have obliterated the infant city of a hundred years ago. The achievements of science have mocked many of the ancient prophecies. The canal, starting at Georgetown, which was to have carried the deliberations of Congress to the Western world, knows no such use, and the ships that were to crowd the Potomac are content to moor at railway termini along the Atlantic coast.

But although applied science has confounded the wisdom of a hundred years ago, the hopes and dreams of the founder of the capital have been realized. In 1798, before the Government moved to the new city, Washington wrote concerning the capital:

"A century hence if this country keeps united, it will produce a city, though not so large as London, yet of a magnitude inferior to few others in Europe."