ABSTRACT
The optimism of the nineteenth century was caused by a very rapid progress in material well-being, which, in turn, was due to two correlated factors: the continual acquisition of new markets by industrialism, and the continual conquest of virgin soil by agriculture. Our planet being of finite size, this process could not continue for ever, but the Western portions of the United States, the British Dominions, and the Southern countries of South America, afforded such a vast field for expansion that there seemed no need to trouble about the distant time when all the empty spaces would have been occupied.
