Since that time roads and railroads have been made all the way across the country; great cities have been built where once was only wilderness; and the wild Indians have been tamed. The United States has given the Indians large pieces of land to pay them for having taken other land away from them. These places given to the Indians are called “Reservations,” because they are reserved for them, just as a seat in the theater that is reserved for a person is called a “reserved seat.”

The first railroad to the Pacific coast took the middle route from Chicago to San Francisco. But you can now take a train from Chicago and cross to the Pacific by the north, middle, or south. It took months when the “Forty-niners” went across in their covered wagons, but now it takes less than one day by airplane.

People used to say, “Go West, Young Man, if you want to make a fortune,” and many thousands did go West, not looking for gold, but for farm lands, which were given them free by the United States if they would raise crops. Some of these men who went to Oklahoma and Texas and other places, chiefly west of the Mississippi, found oil oozing out of the ground on their farms. This oil spoiled the land for farming and made the water unfit even for the horses and cows to drink. The land was ruined—no good—so many farmers gave up and moved away.

There are three kinds of oil in the World—vegetable, animal, and mineral. Did you ever play the game called Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral? It’s a good game. The “Old Man” shouts, “Vegetable !” and you must name a vegetable, any vegetable—“potato,” for instance—before he can count ten. Or he shouts, “Mineral !” or “Animal!” and you must name a mineral or an animal before he counts ten. In this game a mineral is anything that isn’t animal or vegetable. But no matter whether he says “Animal,” “Vegetable,” or“Mineral,” you will always be right if you say, “Oil!” for it is one of the few things in the World that can be all three.

The oil from vegetables, like olive oil, and the oil from animals, like cod-liver oil, is good for food, but mineral oil from the rocks under the ground is not good for food. But some one found out that mineral oil could be burned to give light and heat, and then the automobile was invented, and from this mineral oil was made the gasoline to run automobiles. Many other things are now made from this kind of oil—medicine, colors for dyeing, and even perfumes.