State received her just share of all the classes of emigrants arriving in the United States during this period, she would have added to her population, a strong, useful and able-bodied class of men who would aid her greatly in her development.
"Why this region of concentrated population, the towns along the Erie canal, should contain such a large part of the foreign element is probably due to numerous causes. This was a region of great activity and growth; a place where there was room for unskilled as well as skilled labor of all kinds; it was along a direct route of transportation and travel to the great and growing west and a foreigner knowing nothing about the country and having no definite destination would stop along the route wherever he could make a living. Although chance may have largely determined the location of the foreigners in this new country, his old environment was also an important factor in determining his place of settlement. He came from an old and well settled region in Europe where the population was concentrated and the country often overcrowded and in com-
