A study of the influences that have given direct, shape and character to the history of Indiana carries the inquirer back not only to the beginnings of American history in the Mississippi Valley, but to more remote causes. For example, what is the explanation of the phenomenal swiftness (as history goes) with which this valley, one great primeval wilderness but little more than a hundred years ago, has progressed to the high tide of twentieth century civilization? Obviously, soil, climate, configuration and natural features of the country, stock and national policy are all factors which, collectively, have wrought results that for expediteness and inherent energy hardly find an analogy in the history of the world. A comparison with other continental portions of the globe presents some interesting contrasts. The most striking, perhaps, as presenting differences imposed by the physical basis, is Africa. That vast continent, with its more than ten million square miles, lying contiguous to the older centers of civilization and itself the seat of the most ancient ones, has, until recent times, remained the "dark continent," and the invasions of the dominant nations have to the present day resulted only in a polyglot group of colonies that are practically negligible in an estimate of the world's growth. Insufficient water supply and vast wastes, tropic heat, fell diseases and ineradicable pests have been effective deterrents to successful reign of men.

If we consider South America, with its zones of climate ranging all the way form the tropics of Brazil to the Antarctic sterility of southern Argentine, and its fertile soils, capable of supporting a teeming multitude, however, we find it a congeries of minor nations that seem forever on the border of anarchy. Briefly, the history of South America and that of the United States since the settlement of the tow continents largely illustrates the difference in stock.

Australia, with an area almost equal to that of the United States, is little more than one vast barren waste, with a fringe of isolated civilization strung along part of its coasts.

Of Asia, we are told by an authority, "owing to its great extent from east to west the central parts, deprived of moisture, are almost everywhere deserts, and a belt around the western, southern and eastern shores comprises nearly all that contributes to the support of man."

The same writer (Charles Maclaren) pointing out the superior natural advantages of the Americas as a seat of civilization, maintains that "the new continent, though less than half the size of the old, contains at least an equal quantity of useful soil and much more than an equal amount of productive power:; and he adds that "America is indebted for this advantage to its comparatively small breadth, which brings nearly all its interior within reach of the fertilising exhalations of the ocean." This means that the rain supply, which is evaporated from the ocean, reaches these interior parts; the rain supply, in turn, means a system of well-supplied streams, and they mean, in the first instance, irrigation and vegetation, and in the second, natural routes of travel and transportation that are a great determining factor in the distribution of settlers in a new country. Apropos to this, if we study a hydrographic chart of the Mississippi Valley showing the numerous streams that ramify far and wide from the great "father of waters" and its larger affluents, and if our imagination adds to these the innumerable creeks that reach out, traversing almost every square mile of the country, what nature has done for the land in this particular becomes apparent.

Closely correlated with the abundant water supply ins this favored region is a soil unsurpassed in productiveness and a climate which is at once adapted to a wide range of vegetation and to the stimulation of human energy -- a very potent factor in the development of civilization. For variety of productions useful to man perhaps no spot on earth excels the Mississippi Valley, and this value is enhanced by the adaptability of the soil to vegetation that is not indigenous, many of our products today being of exotic origin. This fertility and adaptability of the soil, says Livingston Farrand in his "Basis of American History," "must be regarded as among the chief contributing causes to the stupendous growth of the American nation."

The stock that peopled our section has, of course, been an immeasurable factor in the extraordinary development of the country. What self-government is in the hands of an untrained people is demonstrated by South American history. The tide of humanity that poured into our middle west after the Revolutionary War was not only the offspring of the most staid and substantial on earth, but it had back of it nearly two centuries of training is self-government. It was a population of hardy, independent and capable, jealously guarding its institutions and the best that it had inherited politically. Above all, its individuals were ardent lovers of their land and permanent home-makers. Add to this a national policy, evolved through the same people, that fostered the settlement and development of the public domain along wise lines that had been thought out by some of the most patriotic and most able statesman of the age, and we have in rough outline the fundamental factors of that particular phase of civilization in which the State of Indiana shares. To appreciate well the character and meaning of our local history we should consider these antecedent causes explaining the larger history of which we are a part. A long and interesting chapter on these preliminaries might well be written, but the aim here is to touch upon them in a cursory way only, as an introduction to our nearer theme.