New York City

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From manifest indications we believe that the city of New York is destined to be the largest in the world. At present it contains more than one-sixth (520,000) as many inhabitants as there were in our middle country seventy years ago, and our whole country contains seven times more than there were in it at the same period. The City of New York has grown with the growth and strengthened with the strength of our united Commonwealths, and with the same mighty tramp of progressive population, which is now heard sounding from the Atlantic to the Pacific shores, so, from the ten thousand sources of our population, will there come those who will pitch their tents within our walls and take up their abode in modern Tyre. In the natural course of events, the City of New York will contain a population ot 2,000,000 of inhabitants in sixty years from the present date. Nothing can prevent this but some overpowering calamity, which no one can foresee at present, and which no one anticipates. If such will be the mighty tide of population flowing through our streets in 1910, 'what will the City of New York be in A. D. 2,000? This is a question which no one can answer. Strictly speaking, New York is a commercial city, a mart of the sea—a port for tall ships and a caravansera for the merchants and merchandise of the world. On one side it is bounded by a narrow arm of the sea, and on the other by a broad and noble river; it is secure from all winds, and the most gigantic leviathans ot the deep can ride safely and lightly close up to our wharfs and our warehouses. Every year it is becoming more and more like a whirlpool in drawing from afar those who want to sell and those who want to buy. Its centralizing influence is immense, and it no more can be checked than can the tides of the ocean. Here men come with what is new, and here men come to see what is new. " As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth the face of man his fellow;" and the natural result of men often meeting in masses together, is both to spread and elicit knowledge. Of .this we have been more sensibly impressed during the past three weeks, than during any other period within our recollection. The streets of New York have been daily trod by forty thousand strangers in search ol business and pleasure. Nowhere else have we had, or could we daily have, such opportunities of obtaining information from so many different sources, and of imparting it to so many different " lookers on in Venice." The Fair of the American Institute attracts many thousands to visit this city annually, and next year the World's Fair will attract far more than have ever visited New York before. The cities of the old world possess more., interest to the traveller, because they are nearly all historical, and the association ot places .with events which have become famous in story, kindles up the feelings and excites the imagination ; New York cannot boast of towers, castles, venerable cathedrals, c.; neither can it boast of towering-monuments, gorgeous palaces, splen'Ud works of art, museums of renown, and gallerJs of paintings; no, she can boast of none of these; but ever*. year adds something new and more imposing and as certainly as time wings its fliglTi, certainly does New York grow on, and f ,, in grandeur and the acquisition ofbu';.,'i and institutions, which will yet becom , t T; nowned as those of London or Paris.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 8 Issue 6This article was published with the title “New York City” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 8 No. 6 (), p. 45
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican10231852-45

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