BAKER'S RIVER.
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��that this river has witnessed upon her borders, perhaps none are greater than the changes produced within a century in the facilities and means afforded for transportation and for travel.
Then, the Indian with his birch canoe paddled up its waters, or carried his game and furs on foot upon its banks. And in this way the whites were obliged for a long time to travel and transported their necessaries. Then rough paths were made, so that pack horses and men with hand sleds passed up and down the river laden with such necessaries as the early settlers were able to procure ; then the roads were widenedand the logs removed and the stumps cut down so low, that an ox team with a cart could pass ; then the more opulent could travel in their gig wagons; and at length, after great im- provements in the roads, and carriages, a new idea was started, which was the idea of a turnpike, a stage coach, and a four or a six horse team.
And for a time there was as much ex- citement in regard to turnpikes and stages as there has since been in relation to railroads. For many years did the old stage coach groan under its load of pas- sengers, as it passed up and down daily upon the banks of Baker's River,until at length, the amount of business seemed to exceed the facilities for transportation. Then, new plans are laid ; projects more vast and important are discussed, and for a time, the great idea of a rail road en- grossed the public mind, in the valley of our favorite river. When at length, she saw upon her banks, a road graded to a level ; hills cut through ; valleys filled up ; and upon this level grade those iron bands were placed, which are fast encir- cling the earth, and binding states and nations together by ties of interest as strong as human love of gain.
And soon the iron horse was heard and seen ; the cars sped their way upon the iron track ; and the age of steam had
��come and was duly inaugurated on Ba- ker's River. And following in the train of these improvements came the tele- graph. Men could not long wait for steam to convey their thoughts, but the electric fluid is made obedient to the will of man and does his bidding and conveys his thought with lightning speed ; over- coming all distance, annihilating space, and enabling men, thousands of miles distant to converse with each other as it face to face. Along the course of Baker's River does the magnetic wire convey to all the dwellers^ upon its borders, the events transpiring in the distant portions of our country.
What changes our quiet river shall witness in another century, none can predict ; no eye can see ; no thought can conceive what changes the next century, or even the next fifty years, will produce and witness. Shall we in that time be enabled to navigate the air? Shall elec- tricity and magnetism be still further ap- plied so as to not only afford us light and heat, but also to furnish us with a motive power, so as to do away with the use of steam and water power altogether? or will some new agent be discovered, or some new application of the agencies al- ready understood, be made, so as to rev- olutionize all our present ideas of speed, all our modes of business and all our hab- its of thought? But whatever these changes in the future may be, Baker's River will still move on as it has done in all the changes of the past, in its winding course; fulfilling silently but constantly, every moment as well as every year and every century, its great mission of con- veying our mountain waters, downward and onward, to the bosom of the mighty deep, and at the same time, of watering, fertilizing, refreshing and beautifying the whole region of country through which it flows, thus teaching a lesson which all would do well to learn and to practice.
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