It was the one commodity which appealed to the ambitious and adventurous side of the industrial character at that time and in that place.

It was the one commodity the management of which opened chances of procuring vast wealth, and especially vast speculative wealth.

To the American of the end of the eighteenth century the roads leading to great riches were as few as those leading to a competency were many.

He could not prospect for mines of gold and of silver, of iron, copper, and coal; he could not discover and work wells of petroleum and natural gas; he could not build up, sell, and speculate in railroad systems and steamship companies; he could not gamble in the stock market; he could not build huge manufactories of steel, of cottons, of woollens; he could not be a banker or a merchant on a scale which is dwarfed when called princely; he could not sit still and see an already great income double and quadruple because of the mere growth in the value of real estate in some teeming city.

The chances offered him by the fur trade were very uncertain.