Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/479

Rh "They may look, but they won't find them," replied Frank.

"Are you not mistaken?" queried his cousin. "Did not each of them have as many inhabitants as Melbourne within fifty years after its settlement?"

"We will see," was the reply. "Chicago was practically founded in 1816, when Fort Dearborn, which had been destroyed in 1812, was rebuilt. In 1870, fifty-four years later, it had, according to the census, 298,997 inhabitants.

"San Francisco was begun in 1770, when the Mission of San Francisco de Asis, more commonly called the Mission Dolores, was established there; but some people claim that the city was not really founded until 1835, when the village of Yerba Buena was built, and to please them we'll start from that date, which is the year in which Melbourne was founded. By the census of 1880, forty-five years from its foundation, it had 233,959 inhabitants, and at its fiftieth anniversary was doubtless considerably behind Melbourne. But Chicago has gone ahead of both of the other cities in question, as it contained more than