Excerpt from The Paradise of the Pacific the Hawaiian Islands When the Constitution was adopted, the settled portions of the United States fringed the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. The western boundary was the Mississippi River. Beyond the Father of Waters stretched an expanse of mountain, river, and prairie, far exceeding in area the region which constituted the original United States. Then followed the acquisition of Florida. Louisiana Territory, and, later, the countries obtained by the conquest of Mexico, and, finally, the immense purchase of Alaska from Russia, our traditional friend. 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.