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AMERICA. and down the Mississippi and along its western tributaries in steadily increasing numbers from the time of La Salle's voyage down the river in 1682. By 1803, the year of the Louisiana purchase, these men and their descendants were scattered widely over the western plains, drawing their supplies from the large village at St. Louis or the small town of New Orleans. There was no real occupation of the country, however, until the signs of the exhaustion of the farming lands in the east, combined with political considerations, led to an investigation of the opportunities for profitable existence beyond the Mississippi. Politics was largely responsible for the annexation, in 1845, of Texas, and the same force, acting in advance of economic or agricultural reasons, led to the organization of the emigrant aid societies in 1854 to hasten the settlement of Kansas and Nebraska. The discovery of gold in California in 1848, in Nevada a decade later, and in the Klondike in 1897, resulted in opening up those regions, and in the sudden extension of the limits of permanent occupation. For further information on America, see special articles under the political divisions of the continent.

.—A comprehensive work is, Reclus, Nouvelle géographie universelle. Volumes XV.-XIX. (Paris, 1890-94), translated and edited by Keane and Ravenstein (London, 1890-95). The following monographs comprised in Stanford's Compendium of Modern Geography and Travel are comprehensive: Dawson, North America, Canada, and Newfoundland (London, 1897); Gannett, North America: The United States (London, 1898); Keane, Central and South America (London, 1901). Consult, also, in general: The National Geographic Magazine (Washington, 1888, et seq.); The American Geographical Society Journal and Bulletins (New York, 1852, et seq.); Humboldt, Examen critique de l'histoire de la géographie du Nouveau Continent, new edition (Paris, 1836-39); Perez, Geografía général del Nuevo Mundo (Bogotá, 1888); Sievers (editor), ''Amerika. Eine allgemeine Landeskunde (Leipzig, 1894); Dupont, Notions de géographie générale'' et geographie physique, ethnographique, politique et économique du continent américain (Paris, 1900); Hellwald, Amerika in Wort und Bild (Leipzig, 1883-85); Shaler, Nature and Man in America (New York, 1891); Russell, Volcanoes of North America (New York, 1897); id., Glaciers of North America (Boston, 1898); Wright, Ice Age in North America (New York, 1889); Powell, &ldquo;Physiographic Regions of the United States,&rdquo; National Geographic