In time this early outbound man learned that there were rivers which
ran not to the southeast and into the sea, but outward, across the
mountains toward the setting sun. The winding trails of the Alleghanies
led one finally to rivers which ran toward Kentucky, Tennessee, even
farther out into that unknown, tempting land which still was called
the West. Thus it came that the American genius broke entirely away
from salt-water traditions, asked no longer "What cheer?" from the
ships that came from across the seas, clung no longer to the customs,
the costumes, the precedents or standards of the past. There came
the day of buckskin and woolsey, of rifle and ax, of men curious for
adventures, of homes built of logs and slabs, with puncheons for
floors, with little fields about them, and tiny paths that led out into
the immeasurable preserves of the primeval forests. A few things held
intrinsic value at that time--powder, lead, salt, maize, cow-bells,
women who dared. It was a simple but not an ill ancestry, this that
turned away from the sea-coast forever and began the making of another
world. It was the strong-limbed, the bold-hearted who traveled, the
weak who stayed at home.
[Illustration: Westward movement of the center of population from 1790
to 1900, indicated by stars.]