incubated have grown into mighty powers of great national, and some of considerable international, importance.
It was by favor of these propitious conditions that many of the great fortunes, based upon land, were founded. According to the successive census returns of the United States, by far the greater part of the wealth of the country as regards real estate was, and is, concentrated in the North Atlantic Division and the North Central Division, the one taking in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, the other Chicago, Cincinnati and other cities.3 It is in the large cities that the great land fortunes are to be found. The greatest of these fortunes are the Astor, Goelet and Rhinelander estates in the East and, in the West, the Longworth and Field estates are notable examples. To deal with all the conspicuous fortunes based upon land would necessitate an interminable narrative. Suffice it for the purposes of this work to take up a few of the superlatively great fortunes as representatives of those based upon land.