William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

[289] million copies. They are covered by four hundred millions of farms, and these farms are valued at two thousand million pounds sterling. There are seven million five hundred thousand separate families, with seven million separate houses, so that, with a few exceptions, every head of a family in this Republic has a separate home.

During the hundred years of her young life the United States may claim their share in the inventions which have done the most to serve mankind. Setting aside, as open to dispute, their claim to the invention of steam-ships and electric wires, the list of inventions and improvements on inventions is a long and curious document. An American invented the cotton-gin. An American invented the rotatory printing-press. The apple-parer and the knife-cleaner are American. The grass-cutter, the steam-mower, and the planing-machine are all American. Is not the hot-air-engine American? Is not the whole India-rubber business American? One American taught us how to make wool-cards, another to make horse-shoes by machinery. The sand-blast is American, the grain-elevator is American. Americans claim the electro-magnet and the artificial