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INTRODUCTORY.

PAGE My Part in Marketing the United States Civil War Loans xxxi

MY DEBUT IN WALL STREET.

Results of the Panic of 1857.--Creating a Revolution in 5 the Methods of Doing Business in Wall Street.--The Old "Fogies" of the Street, and How They were Surprised.--Their Prejudices and How they Originated.--The Struggle of the Young Bloods for Membership.--The Youthful Element in Finance Peculiar to this Country.--The Palmy Days of Little, Drew and Morse.--The Origin of "Corners," and the "Option" Limit of Sixty Days

WALL STREET AS A CIVILIZER.

Clerical Obliquity of Judgment About Wall Street 13 Affairs.--The Slanderous Eloquence of Talmage.--Wall Street a Great Distributor, as Exhibited in the Clearing House Transactions.--Popular Delusions in Regard to Speculation.--What Our Revolutionary Sires Advised About Improving the Industrial Arts, Showing the Striking Contrast Between Their Views and the Way Lord Salisbury Wanted to Fix Things for This Country

HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN WALL STREET.

How to Take Advantage of Periodical Panics in Order to 19 Make Money.--Wholesome Advice to Young Speculators.--Alleged "Points" from Big Speculators End in Loss or Disaster.--Professional Advice the Surest and Cheapest, and How and Where to Obtain It

IMPORTANCE OF BUSINESS TRAINING.

Sons of Independent Gentlemen make very bad 25 Clerks.--They become Unpopular with the Other Boys, and must Eventually Go.--Night Dancing and Late Suppers don't Contribute to Business Success.--Give Merit its True Reward.--Keeping Worthless Pretense in its True Position.--Running Public Offices on Business Principles.--A Piece of Gratuitous Advice for the Administration.--A College Course not in General Calculated to make a Good Business Man.--The Question of Adaptability Important.--Children should be Encouraged in the Occupation for which they show a Preference.--Thoughts on the Army and Navy

PERSONAL HONOR OF WALL STREET MEN.

Breach of Trust Rare Among Wall Street Men.--The English 33 Clergyman's Notion of Talmage's Tirades Against Wall Street.--Adventurous Thieves Have No Sympathizers Among Wall Street Operators.--Early Training Necessary for Success in Speculation.--Ferdinand Ward's Evil Genius.--A Great Business can only be Built up on Honest Principles.--Great Generals Make Poor Financiers, Through Want of Early Training.--Practical Business is the Best College

WALL STREET DURING THE WAR.

The Financiers of Wall Street Assist the Government in 39 the Hour of the Country's Peril.--The Issue of the Treasury Notes.--Jay Cooke's Northern Pacific Scheme Precipitates the Panic of 1873.--Wall Street Has Played a Prominent Part in the Great Evolution and Progress of the Present Age

MORE WAR REMINISCENCES--BRITISH AND NAPOLEONIC DESIGNS.

How Napoleon Defied the Monroe Doctrine.--The Banquet to 45 Romero.--Speeches by Eminent Financiers, Jurists and Business Men.--The Eloquent Address of Romero Against French Intervention.--Napoleon shows his Animus by Destroying the Newspapers Containing the Report of the Banquet.--The Emperor Plotting with Representatives of the English Parliament to Aid the Confederates and Make War on the United States

FOREIGN INTRIGUES AGAINST AMERICAN LIBERTY.

How the Imperial Pirates of France and England Were 59 Frightened Off Through the Diplomacy of Seward.--Ominous Appearance of the Russian Fleet in American Waters.--Napoleon Aims at the Creation of an Empire West of the Mississippi, and the Restoration of the Old French Colonies.--Plotting with Slidell, Benjamin, Lindsay, Roebuck and Others.--Urging England to Recognize the Confederacy.--Disraeli Explains England's Designs and Diplomacy.--After the Naval Victory of Farragut and the Capture of New Orleans England Hesitates Through Fear, and Napoleon Changes His Tactics.--Renewal of Intrigues Between England and France.--Their Dastardly Purposes Defeated by the Victories of Gettysburg, Vicksburg and the General Triumph of the Union Arms

SECRETARY CHASE AND THE TREASURY.

The Depleted Condition of the Treasury when Mr. Chase 73 took Office.--Preparations for War and Great Excitement in Washington.--Chivalrous Southerners in a Ferment.--Officials Up in Arms in Defence of their Menaced Positions.--Miscalculation with Regard to the Probable Duration of the War.--A Visit to Washington and an Interview with Secretary Chase.--Disappointment about the Sale of Government Bonds.--A Panic Precipitated in Wall Street.--Millionaires Reduced to Indigence in a Few Hours.--Miraculously Saved from the Wreck.--How it Happened

THE NATIONAL BANKS.

Secretary Chase Considers the Problem of Providing a 81 National Currency.--How E. G. Spaulding takes a Prominent Part in the Discussion of the Bank Act.--The Act Founded on the Bank Act of the State of New York.--Effect of the Act upon the Credit of the Country.--A New System of Banking Required

THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE.

History of the Organization for Ninety-four Years.--From 87 a Button-Wood Tree to a Palace Costing Millions of Dollars.--Enormous Growth and Development of the Business.--How the Present Stock Exchange was Formed by the Consolidation of other Financial Bodies.--Patriotic Action During the War Period.--Reminiscences of Men and Events

"CORNERS" AND THEIR EFFECT ON VALUES.

The Senate Committee on "Corners" and 95 "Futures."--Speculation Beneficial to the Country at Large.--A Regulator of Values, and an Important Agent in the Prevention of Panics.-"Corners" in all kinds of Business.--How A. T. Stewart made "Corners."--All Importing Firms deal in "Futures."--Legislation Against "Corners" would stop Enterprise and cause Stagnation in Business.--Only the Conspirators themselves get hurt in "Corners."--The Black Friday "Corner."--Speculation in Grain Beneficial to Consumers

THE COMMODORE'S "CORNERS."

The Great Hudson "Corner."--Commodore Vanderbilt the 107 "Boss" of the Situation.--The "Corner" Forced upon Him.--How he Managed the Trick of getting the Bears to "Turn" the Stock, and then caught them.--His able Device of Unloading while Forcing the Bears to Cover at High Figures.--The Harlem "Corner."--The Common Council Betrayed the Commodore, but were Caught in their own Trap, and Lost Millions.--The Legislature Attempt the same Game, and meet with a Similar Fate

DANIEL DREW.

Drew, like Vanderbilt, an Example of Great Success 117 without Education.--Controlled more Ready Cash than any man in America.--Drew goes Down as Gould Rises.-"His Touch is Death."--Prediction of Drew's Fall.--His Thirteen Millions Vanish.--How he caught the Operators in "Oshkosh" by the Handkerchief Trick.--The Beginning of "Uncle Daniel's" Troubles.--The Convertible Bond Trick.--The "Corner" of 1866.--Millions Lost and Won in a Day.--Interesting Anecdote of the Youth who Speculated outside the Pool, and was Fed by Drew's Brokers

DREW AND VANDERBILT.

Vanderbilt Essays to Swallow Erie, and Has a Narrow 127 Escape from Choking.--He Tries to make Drew Commit Financial Suicide.--Manipulating the Stock Market and the Law Courts at the Same Time.--Attempts to "Tie Up" the Hands of Drew.--Manufacturing Bonds with the Erie Paper Mill and Printing Press.--Fisk Steals the Books and Evades the Injunction.--Drew Throws Fifty Thousand Shares on the Market and Defeats the Commodore.--The "Corner" is Broken and Becomes a Boomer like the gates of ivory and of horn; portals from which only dreams proceed; and Science cannot as yet say of this or that dream if it proceeds from the gate of horn or from that of ivory.

In short, of the Earth's origin we have no certain knowledge; nor can we assign any date to it. Possibly its formation was an event so gradual that the beginning was spread over immense periods. We can only trace the history back to certain events which may with considerable certainty be regarded as ushering in our geological era.

Notwithstanding our limitations, the date of the birth-time of our geological era is the most important date in Science. For in taking into our minds the spacious history of the universe, the world's age must play the part of time-unit upon which all our conceptions depend. If we date the geological history of the Earth by thousands of years, as did our forerunners, we must shape our ideas of planetary time accordingly; and the duration of our solar system, and of the heavens, becomes comparable with that of the dynasties of ancient nations. If by millions of years, the sun and stars are proportionately venerable. If by hundreds or thousands of millions of

years the human mind must consent to correspondingly vast epochs for the duration of material changes. The geological age plays the same part in our views of the duration of the universe as the Earth's orbital radius does in our views of the immensity of space. Lucretius knew nothing of our time-unit: his unit was the life of a man. So also he knew nothing of our space-unit, and he marvels that so small a body as the sun can shed so much, heat and light upon the Earth.

the early crust of the Earth. Sediments are scarce among these materials.

There can be little doubt that in this underlying floor of igneous and metamorphic rocks we have reached those surface materials of the earth which existed before the long epoch of sedimentation began, and before the seas came into being. They formed the floor of a vaporised ocean upon which the waters condensed here and there from the hot and heavy atmosphere. Such were the probable conditions which preceded the birth-time of the ocean and of our era of life and its evolution.

It is from this epoch we date our geological age. Our next purpose is to consider how long ago, measured in years, that birth-time was.

That the geological age of the Earth is very great appears from what we have already reviewed. The sediments of the past are many miles in collective thickness: yet the feeble silt of the rivers built them all from base to summit. They have been uplifted from the seas and piled into mountains by movements so slow that during all the time man has been upon the Earth but little change would have been visible. The mountains have again been worn down into the ocean by denudation and again younger mountains built out of their redeposited materials. The contemplation of such vast events

For a description of these early rocks, see especially the monograph of Van Hise and Leith on the pre-Cambrian Geology of North America .

prepares our minds to accept many scores of millions of years or hundreds of millions of years, if such be yielded by our calculations.

THE AGE AS INFERRED FROM THE THICKNESS OF THE SEDIMENTS

The earliest recognised method of arriving at an estimate of the Earth's geological age is based upon the measurement of the collective sediments of geological periods. The method has undergone much revision from time to time. Let us briefly review it on the latest data.

The method consists in measuring the depths of all the successive sedimentary deposits where these are best developed. We go all over the explored world, recognising the successive deposits by their fossils and by their stratigraphical relations, measuring their thickness and selecting as part of the data required those beds which we believe to most completely represent each formation. The total of these measurements would tell us the age of the Earth if their tale was indeed complete, and if we knew the average rate at which they have been deposited. We soon, however, find difficulties in arriving at the quantities we require. Thus it is not easy to measure the real thickness of a deposit. It may be folded back upon itself, and so we may measure it twice over. We may exaggerate its thickness by measuring it not quite straight across the bedding or by unwittingly including volcanic materials. On the other hand, there

may be deposits which are inaccessible to us; or, again, an entire absence of deposits; either because not laid down in the areas we examine, or, if laid down, again washed into the sea. These sources of error in part neutralise one another. Some make our resulting age too long, others make it out too short. But we do not know if a balance of error does not still remain. Here, however, is a table of deposits which summarises a great deal of our knowledge of the thickness of the stratigraphical accumulations. It is due to Sollas.

Feet.

Recent and Pleistocene - - 4,000 Pliocene - - 13,000 Miocene - - 14,000 Oligocene - - 2,000 Eocene - - 20,000 63,000

Upper Cretaceous - - 24,000 Lower Cretaceous - - 20,000 Jurassic - - 8,000 Trias - - 7,000 69,000

Permian - - 2,000 Carboniferous - - 29,000 Devonian - - 22,000 63,000

Silurian - - 15,000 Ordovician - - 17,000 Cambrian - - 6,000 58,000

Algonkian--Keeweenawan - - 50,000 Algonkian--Animikian - - 14,000 Algonkian--Huronian - - 18,000 82,000

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