The commercial importance of Galveston may be judged of by the single fact that of the four hundred thousand bales of cotton produced in Texas in the year 1860 three hundred thousand bales were compressed and exported at Galveston, worth at that time $15,000,000 in gold, but would now be worth $25,000,000. The geographical location of Galveston speaks also for its commercial importance. It is the New York of Texas, and Galveston Island is the Long Island of Texas. The inside harbor lies in the bay immediately in the rear of the city, between the island and the mainland, where the bay is two miles wide. The entrance to the harbor has ten feet of water over the bar in low tide, and fourteen to sixteen feet in high tide.
Galveston lies in twenty-nine degrees north latitude, and midway between the mouth of the Mississippi River on the east, and Mexico and the Rio Grande on the west. If you draw an imaginary line commencing at the mouth of the Columbia River, in Oregon, running southeast; another line commencing at Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi, running due south, and another commencing at Portland, Maine, running due southwest; all these lines will intersect at Galveston. One of the driving wheels of the great commercial wagon of the United States stands at Galveston, and the steam of progress is driving the mighty vehicle westward, keeping pace with the "star of empire."
When that network of railroads which but for secession would now have been thrown over all Texas, east, west, north and south, tapping the wheat regions of Northern Texas, the lumber regions of Eastern Texas, the stock regions of Western Texas, and the cotton and sugar regions of Southern Texas; we say, when this railroad system shall be achieved for that great country, thus developing and bringing to the markets of the world the productive resources of Texas, a country six to seven hundred miles square, large enough to lay down on its surface the State of Massachusetts more than thirty times, and not lap anywhere, the result will be wonderful beyond all present calculations. Every variety of soil is found in Texas, and all kinds of grain and fruit can be produced there, with sugar, and cotton one to four bales to the acre.