That was not all.  Untold wealth in the form of natural resources was discovered in the South and West.  Coal deposits were found in the Appalachians stretching from Pennsylvania down to Alabama, in Michigan, in the Mississippi Valley, and in the Western mountains from North Dakota to New Mexico.  In nearly every coal-bearing region, iron was also discovered and the great fields of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota soon rivaled those of the Appalachian area.  Copper, lead, gold, and silver in fabulous quantities were unearthed by the restless prospectors who left no plain or mountain fastness unexplored.  Petroleum, first pumped from the wells of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1859, made new fortunes equaling those of trade, railways, and land speculation.  It scattered its riches with an especially lavish hand through Oklahoma, Texas, and California.

=The Trust—­an Instrument of Industrial Progress.=—­Business enterprise, under the direction of powerful men working single-handed, or of small groups of men pooling their capital for one or more undertakings, had not advanced far before there appeared upon the scene still mightier leaders of even greater imagination.  New constructive genius now brought together and combined under one management hundreds of concerns or thousands of miles of railways, revealing the magic strength of cooeperation on a national scale.  Price-cutting in oil, threatening ruin to those engaged in the industry, as early as 1879, led a number of companies in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia to unite in price-fixing.  Three years later a group of oil interests formed a close organization, placing all their stocks in the hands of trustees, among whom was John D. Rockefeller.  The trustees, in turn, issued certificates representing the share to which each participant was entitled; and took over the management of the entire business.  Such was the nature of the “trust,” which was to play such an unique role in the progress of America.

The idea of combination was applied in time to iron and steel, copper, lead, sugar, cordage, coal, and other commodities, until in each field there loomed a giant trust or corporation, controlling, if not most of the output, at least enough to determine in a large measure the prices charged to consumers.  With the passing years, the railways, mills, mines, and other business concerns were transferred from individual owners to corporations.  At the end of the nineteenth century, the whole face of American business was changed.  Three-fourths of the output from industries came from factories under corporate management and only one-fourth from individual and partnership undertakings.

[Illustration:  JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER]