TEXT:because it really symbolizes what happen ed to the Native Americans. The West is open for business, but key to the transformation of the region is a river2,000 miles in length, fed by rainfall from 31 states. Running from Minnesota to New Orleans, the Mighty Mississippi. It's a lifeline connecting the West to the outside world. If roads exist, they're muddy tracks. This is the only trade artery, the interstate, that allows the pioneers and settlers to sell the produce they've sweated over.

A huge amount of goods are shipped out, but they're shipped out in the most nickel-and -dime way. A farmer will build a flatboat, fill it up with hogs, sassafras root, ginseng root, tobacco whatever it is you grow-- put it on the flatboat, use the power of the Mississippi to drift you down to sell them along the r iverbank. Aged 19, Abraham Lincoln makes his first trip down the Mississippi, poling his simple raft. The current is too strong to return upstream. The primitive flatboats are simply sold as lumber in New Orleans. Farmers have to walk the 800 miles home and begin again. But on that first journey, Lincoln sees the future. A new invention which will transform the Mississippi, the Midwest, and America.

The steamboat was the 19th century's time machine, just as surely as the airplane was the 20th century's time machine. It shrunk distance. By shrinking distance, it enabled commerce. Even upstream, steamboats can travel 50 miles a day, eight times faster, eight times the cargo of a raft. But they're deadly. Over half the early models explode, maiming and killing hundreds. But their number triples every decade. They make the Midwest America's economic powerhouse. Within 20 years, St. Louis alone swells from a few hundred to a population of 16,000. Over four generations, America has grown from a 100 -mile-wide strip of colonies on the Eastern Seaboard to a continental powerhouse.
译文:它确实象征了美国印第安人的命运。西部具备了通商的条件，但整个区域发展的关键是一条长两千英里的河流，它汇聚了来自31个州的降水。北起明尼苏达，南至新奥尔良，气势雄浑的密西西比河。这是条连接西部与外面世界的生命线，就算有陆路也必然是泥泞的小道。这是条唯一的跨州贸易大动脉，拓荒西部的先驱者和移民们通过它，打开他们用汗水浇灌的农产品的销路。

理查德·斯洛特金[卫斯理大学英语教授和美国研究主任]：“数量巨大的货物由水路运出，但每次的运量却少得可怜。农夫一般会造一艘平底船，上面载满猪肉、黄樟根、人参和烟草，不管种的是什么，全都装上船，借用密西西比河水的强大力量，顺流而下沿岸寻找买主。”19岁的亚伯拉罕·林肯生平第一次踏上顺密西西比河而下的旅程，方式是撑着一只简易的木筏。水流太急很难逆流而返，原始的平底船只能在新奥尔良当作木材售出。农夫们必须徒步800英里走回家，然后再度踏上相同的旅程。但就在这第一次航行中，林肯看到了未来，一项足以改变整个密西西比中西部乃至全美国的发明。

小亨利·路易斯·盖茨[哈佛大学非洲和非裔美国人研究所所长]：“蒸汽船好比十九世纪的时间机器，正如飞机是二十世纪当之无愧的时间机器一样。它缩短了距离，距离缩短了，通商便成为可能。”即便是逆流航行，蒸汽船一天航程也可达50英里，八倍于木筏的速度与载货量。但它们非常不安全，早期蒸汽船半数会毁于爆炸，致残致死数百人。但它们仍以每十年翻三倍的速度递增，它们使中西部成为美国经济的发电站。20年内，仅圣路易斯一座城市的人口就从几百人发展到1万6千人，经过四代人的努力美国从东岸100英里宽的殖民地地带一跃成为横跨整个大陆的经济强国。