Excerpt from 1776-1876, Centennial Fourth of July Oration: Delivered at Chester, Penna As time rolled on, a still wider spirit of public improvement followed, and canals and railroads were projected over vast sections of our country, connecting large cities and rich agricultural and manufacturing districts with one another and with the seaport towns. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.