Sheldon Jackson: Pathfinder and Prospector of the Missionary Vanguard in the Rocky Mountains and Alaska (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Sheldon Jackson: Pathfinder and Prospector of the Missionary Vanguard in the Rocky Mountains and Alaska During the half-century which preceded this period, the United States, by purchase, by conquest and by diplomacy, had acquired a magnificent domain of virgin territory, which extended from the Mississippi and the Gulf Of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean and the Shores Of Puget Sound. Into this New West, then an unknown and almost nu inhabited land, - a land Of mystery and desert solitudes and deadly perils - a few resolute settlers had gone, fol lowing the trail of the hunters and trappers, in the stir ring days of the forties. Up to the middle of the cen tury, however, there were very few, even of the most ad venturous of these forerunners of civilization, who had any adequate realization of the vast extent and boundless possibilities of this princely heritage. The discovery of gold on the Pacific coast in 1848 was a divinely ordained event which directed the attention of the whole nation to the Far West, and suggested to the men of action and intelligence, whose faces were stead fastly set towards it, the possibility of an overland route to the goal Of their ambition on the Pacific slope. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.