Frontier life compared with tribal life. When we compare life in a frontier community like Boonesborough with that of the primitive tribe, what striking likenesses and important differences appear? In the first place, danger from savage foes caused the members of both communities to draw close together for protection. In the second place, although the members of both communities were willing to share food, clothing, and shelter with one another in case of need, the practice was by no means so widely followed along the frontier as in the tribe. Members of a frontier settlement were generally expected to provide for their own needs. In the third place, the tribe had few friendly dealings with other tribes; a frontier community, on the other hand, depended on distant communities with which it came into more or less constant contact for articles which it needed but which it did not produce. In addition, a frontier settlement, in spite of the rude merriment of some of its inhabitants at the expense of a tenderfoot now and then, welcomed and entertained strangers and heartily encouraged immigration. Interest was also keen in the affairs of other communities and in news from the outside world. In the last place, while clannishness and prejudice appeared at times in Western settlements, there were few signs of that group mastership which was so universal in the clan. On the contrary, the most striking feature of frontier life, outside of the obligation which rested on every settler to join in the common defense, was individual freedom.

QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS

1. Find out what you can about the early history of your own community. Compare it with that of Boonesborough.

2. Prepare a talk on the settlement of one of the following places: Marietta, Ohio; Salt Lake City, Utah; Astoria, Washington; St. Augustine, Florida; Vincennes, Indiana; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Topeka, Kansas; San Francisco, California. Compare with the history of Boonesborough and your own community.

3. Compare a rural community with which you are familiar with Boonesborough in (1) industry, (2) trade, (3) amusements, (4) religious and educational opportunities.

4. What was the best feature of community life in Boonesborough? What was its worst feature? Explain.

SECTION III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MODERN CITY COMMUNITY

Decline of Boonesborough. If you try to locate Boonesborough on a modern map of Kentucky you will have difficulty in finding it, for the little frontier settlement has practically disappeared. Attracted by more fertile lands to the north and west, many of the original inhabitants, including Boone, migrated; greater opportunities in business in neighboring communities caused others to leave; and malarial fever brought on by the neighboring swamps drove still others away.

The chief cause for the decline of Boonesborough, however, was its unfavorable location for commerce and manufacturing. Situated in a region which swarmed with game and which possessed rich soil, the site was ideal for a frontier community, but it proved, as population in the West multiplied, to be an out-of-the-way place for business. Since it was located on no important stream or body of water and was also remote from the routes prepared by nature for canals and railroads, neither Western products nor Eastern merchandise needed to pass through its borders on their way to or from the markets of the outside world. As a result of these disadvantages the little settlement, after a period of growth, grew smaller and smaller until, today, it is little more than a memory.

Causes for great cities. With few exceptions, in fact, only those settlements situated where there is a "break in transportation" become important cities. Wherever goods in transit must be changed from land routes to water routes or

from water routes to land routes, labor is required to load and unload them, warehouses must be provided to store them, and quantities of supplies must be furnished to meet the wants of the workers. These different activities necessitate the living of many people within a small area, and, in consequence, a city develops.

If the region to which the city serves as an outlet or inlet is rich in fertile lands, mineral resources, and timber, and is inhabited by a capable, industrious people, the quantity of goods shipped out and in is greatly increased and the importance of the city is magnified accordingly. If the hinterland, as such a region is called, possesses large stores of iron, coal, and timber, the community is likely to become a center of manufacturing as well as of commerce and to develop into a great metropolis.

Pittsburgh, for example, became an important commercial and manufacturing center because it is situated at the forks of the Ohio, where land and water routes meet, and because, in addition, it is in the center of one of the richest coal and iron regions in the world. St. Louis became a great city as a result of its favorable location on the Mississippi, where land and water routes cross and where, at the same time, the city is in the midst of a magnificent agricultural district many of whose products it markets and whose needs it supplies. In like manner San Francisco and Seattle in the West, New Orleans in the South, and New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore in the East attained their present size because their sites mark the meeting-place of important land and water routes and also serve as convenient centers for the manufacture of the raw materials which are so abundant in their hinterlands.

Advantages of the site of Chicago. Chicago is a good illustration of the way in which great cities develop. Those who have heard the roar and rumble of "the Loop❞—the business center of Chicago-find it hard to realize that where the fourth largest city in the world now stands, there were,