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after he was second in reputation to no man in America, or in the scientific world. Where are the names more honored than those of Arkwright and Fulton, whose greatness was achieved in paths of enterprise and skill, that lie open to every mechanic and artizan.

4. Yet another class of men change their professions in the hope of increasing their usefulness. But usefulness has no more connection, than respectability, with the place which one occupies. In what are called the humblest spheres, the richest and most spreading harvest of duty and benevolence is often reaped; and results are frequently the greater for the obscurity of the agent's situation. You can no more suppress the outflow of a good example and a salutary influence, than you can smother fire with linen garments. The story of the Dairyman's Daughter has been translated into nineteen different languages, and more than four million copies of it have been circulated, making her simple faith and piety the means of the highest spiritual benefit to thousands of her fellow-mortals. Had that girl forsaken her father's cottage to seek a more commanding sphere, she would probably have failed to fill it, and her life would have been a blank and a waste. From the nature of its functions, the clerical profession is made to suffer most seriously from the false notions of usefulness now under discussion. Its great bane in this country has been the intrusion into it of truly good men from other walks of life, with hardly any qualification, except sincere piety and an earnest desire to be useful-men of the humblest powers, the feeblest presence, the dullest speech, who yet might have done much good in their original spheres of duty, by example and private influence, as teachers of their own families, as guardians of the moral well-being of their respective neighborhoods and social circles. But they have been accustomed to identify preaching and doing good, and therefore were resolved upon preaching, no matter how stupidly, ignorantly or foolishly. There died in Portsmouth, England, some four or five years ago, at the age of seventy-three, John Pounds, by profession a mender of shoes, who exercised his calling for half a century or more, in a little shop eighteen feet by six. He was one of the greatest philanthropists of the day, and his name will go down to posterity with those of Howard and Oberlin. Had he, when in middle

life he first felt his mission to be useful, left his shop for the pulpit, it is hardly possible that, at his age and with his scanty education, he could have made himself a burning and shining light in the church. But he did what he could, instead of assuming an office for which he was unfit. He gathered in poor children by scores from the lanes and the wharves of the city, taught them the elements of human learning and of religious knowledge, gave them good principles and habits, sought employment for them at a suitable age, and, by pursuing this course for many years, rescued hundreds of children from hopeless degradation and ruin. He, by remaining in his profession, has given the world a most glorious demonstration, that the power of eminent usefulness is not limited to a few favored walks in life, but that the true and loving heart can do good anywhere and everywhere.

The above are the principal grounds, on which men change their professions; and we trust that our readers are prepared to acquiesce with us in the application to secular pursuits of the good old rule of St. Paul, “Let every man abide in the same calling, wherein he is called." Where this rule is followed, one has a steady and uniform growth in intelligence and influence. His standpoint remaining the same, his mental horizon is constantly enlarging itself, and new objects readily adjust themselves to his mind by their bearings and relations to long familiar objects. But the horizon, often changed, never expands. The influence also of him, who abides in his first calling, gains with every year accumulated power, in the same circle, in the same directions, for the same ends; whereas one cannot carry with him into a new walk of life and among new people, the weight of character and influence which he previously possessed, but must build up for himself a new character and reputation.

III. But we leave this point, to say a few words in defence of our last proposition, namely, that no man should statedly occupy more than one profession at a time. Nor do we care how minutely the principle of the division of labor is carried out, whether in the mechanical or the liberal professions. It is admitted on all hands, that the division of labor is justified by its economical results-that more and better work is done in consequence of this arrangement. A man loses time by chang

ing works, nor can a person be so well skilled in several operations as in one. One man, says Adam Smith, could hardly make twenty pins a day, while ten men, engaged in as many different parts of the work, can make forty-eight thousand in a day, which would be equivalent to forty-eight hundred for one man. But, says SAY, "To have never done anything but make the tenth part of a pin, is a sorry account for a human being to give of his existence." We would reply, By no means, if, while making the tenth part of a pin, he has lived as an intellectual, moral and accountable being ought to live. That the minute division of labor, and the consequent confinement of individuals to single mechanical processes, have in the old world been connected with mental and moral degradation, we admit; but we deny that the connection is a necessary one. The degradation of which we speak has resulted from the fact, First, that the operatives have been destitute of education, and, Secondly, that they have been overworked. But educate a man well at the outset, and then so arrange his hours of labor, that he shall daily have seasons of leisure for reading, study, reflection or social intercourse; and he may, in a life of the merest routine, still be a constantly improving man, and may work out the highest ends of his intellectual and moral being. The growth of a man's mind does not depend on the extent of terrestrial surface, or the number of outward objects, with which he is conversant. The most contracted sphere of life has enough within it, to call forth and satisfy centuries of mental activity. Said an eminent naturalist, putting his hand upon the ground, "I would contentedly pass my Life in the study of what my hand now covers." The common objects, the familiar scenes, the daily events of life, are sufficient educators of the mind which has once received a stimulus to self-improvement.

In the mercantile and liberal professions, it will be readily admitted that the subdivision of research, practice and

enterprise still leaves those engaged in the respective branches, sufficient scope for the exercise of the best powers of mind. In the mechanical professions, what a man does, either demands the constant exercise of ingenuity or skill, or else is a work of mere routine. If the former, there is in his very business a direct opportunity for the practical application of whatever mental power he may have; and he may also reap its outward rewards, in fame and money, as an inventor, or discoverer of improved modes or processes. If the latter, let him only bring to the routine of labor a well furnished intellect; and his mind may be active in digesting and arranging its accumulated treasures, his heart may be awake, his sympathies and affections warm, and the inner man may be daily renewed, and carried onward in the path of eternal progress.

Indeed, for mental and moral growth, it is of prime importance that a man have a fixed center of thought and of activity. Then, an infinite number of concentric circles of constantly growing diameter will mark the symmetrical and uniform progress of his intellect; and all his past acquisitions will be included within his present mental orbit. But if he has, in three, or four, or half a dozen different professions, as many different centers of mental action and expansion, the circles perpetually intersect each other, and the mind is driven round in a confused and tortuous path, in perpetual ignorance of its bearings and its distances.

But it is time that we bring these remarks to a close. One chief object that we have had in view in penning them, is to represent all labor as honorable, to ennoble and dignify toil. Let the ban of society go forth against the drone, whether in broadcloth or in rags. But let industry, diligence, thrift, give every true laborer, whether with head or hand, an honored place as a vital, worthy, precious member of the body politic, living in harmony with the law of God, and in the only condition of spiritual well-being, dignity and progress.

COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE WITH EASTERN ASIA.

THE Comparatively recent transactions between Great Britain and China, and the subsequent well-conducted and successful mission of Mr. Cushing, have, as based on the intrinsic importance of the interests involved, awakened unwonted attention to the means of intercourse between the two great theatres of civilisation. In numerous public prints, disser tations have appeared, discussing the relative facilities afforded by nature along the different routes already in use, or that may be opened to accomplish an intercourse, forming now, and from the days of Solomon-and no doubt ages before that merchant king sent ships to Tarshish-one of the great branches of human policy. Among many other obser

Washington City,
London,

Canton,

Canton,

vations, we may cite the following

66

The journey from New York to Canton, by way of St. Louis, the Missouri, the Columbia and thence across the Northern Pacific, is shorter than any road the European Powers can possibly find."* In order, however, to more clearly estimate the value of the data upon which must rest the decision of this question, we have arranged the subjoined Geographical Notes. The positions on the sphere of the three principal places, were taken from the Tables of Latitudes and Longitudes in Black's Edinburgh Atlas. Calculated on the principles of Mercator's Projection, the relative positions of the three cities yield the following courses and direct distances:

N. Lat. 38° 52', Long. W. London, 77° 08′. N. Lat. 51° 31', Long. E. W. C., 77o OS ́. N. Lat. 23° 03', Long. E. London, 113° 20′. do. do. Long. W. W. City, 169° 32'. Washington to Lond., N. 76° 49′ E., 3320 Geographic, or 3830 Statute miles. London to Canton, S. 72° 05′ E., 5555 Geographic, or 6400 Statute miles. W. C. to Canton, S. 83° 36′ W., 8522 Geographic, or 9830 Statute miles. Thus we see, that in regard to mere relative direct distance, the United States Capital stands something more than onethird farther from Canton than does London, but respective distances on the sphere are only one element to be brought into use in deciding the question at issue. Direct distance, indeed, in one essential respect, claims preeminence, as it cannot be changed by human power; but various obstacles exist, creating important deviations in all long courses, and the removal or obviating of these, is of course left to the enterprise and ingenuity of men.†

It is our endeavor, to be pursued as often as opportunity shall offer, to impress upon this community clear views

of the advantages offered to civilized man by the zone of North America, comprised between N. latitudes 30 and 50 degrees; that is, the zone which we oc cupy. We desire to awaken the public to the mission this nation has to fulfil, and which, though unconsciously, every member of our society is in reality employed in fulfilling a consummation progressing with steady and accelerated motion.

"It is only the all-seeing Eye," says one of the most penetrating of modern writers, "who can trace the threads of the intricate web of history;" and then adds: "The canvas which I have sketched, may discover to the view of an en

*This must be understood as to the facility of reaching South-Eastern Asia; that if we allow the whole zone that is spoken of in this article, to be peopled to the Pacific Ocean, then the practicable route from the various portions of North America to that portion of Asia will be shorter in regard to time, though not so in point of distance.

The rail-road proposed by Mr. Whitney, and which will be more particularly noticed in the sequel of the present article, is intended to extend from Lake Michigan westward, and pass the Rocky Mountains about latitude 42°, and thence to the Pacific Ocean by such route as may appear most suitable. Such a work, if completed, will be one of the most efficacious of all means in the removal of obstacles as to the accomplishment of the design of reaching South-Eastern Asia from the continent of North America, and also from Europe, as it is impossible to pass to China by land across Europe and Africa in as short a distance as across the American continent; and a voyage around either of the Capes is not less than 17,000 miles.

lightened observer, a perspective of a more grand and glorious futurity, by enabling him to perceive in the propagation of European civilization, already gone beyond the seas into the most distant regions, the elements of a more vast and more powerful political system, no longer limited to a single part of the world, but embracing the entire universe."*

Of the modern colonies of Europe, one already stands in every element of power superior; and it is that colony, or more correctly, congeries of colonies, now a confederated nation, spreading over the zone to which we have alluded, and irresistibly advancing in the development of the most stupendous revolution which has ever, and durably, influenced the destiny of mankind. Under all the circumstances which attend the progress of individuals or nations, the present is only the child of the past, and the youth of futurity. As it is with individuals, so is it, and so must it ever be, with nations, whatever may be their physical power; the character of the parent must to a great extent form and modify that of the progeny. It is from the force of this eternal law that we must derive all sane legislation, and hence the absolute necessity of consulting history, or we may say, of listening to the voice of the past.

In brief, the philosophy of history is only the spirit of past time, embodied and speaking truth to present generations; and on no other part of earth does this embodiment express to the living generation, in tones so energetic, or in words so fresh and so true, the ever enduring lessons of experience, as it now does to the increasing millions of the Anglo-Saxon race in North America. It is not to indulge warm poetic anticipations of futurity that our pen is now employed, but, on the contrary, to sustain inductions on what that future must produce by using an element bestowed on us by past time—an imperishable element-experience. In our operations, of whatever nature. Time must be consulted, and his advice obeyed, or if not, he will indignantly point back to what he has enabled us to accomplish, and punish the neglect of his counsels by crushing our airy fabrics in the dust. On the other side, the records of the past have shown us, that all that is enduring stands as demonstrative proof of the connection between cause and effect, and afford us

full assurance that our confidence may be safely placed on the results of a series of sequences flowing from a known and ample

cause.

Therefore when we establish the existence of a progress, and clearly ascertain the laws of its advance, we can then estimate, for all moral purposes or general policy, with adequate exactness, what will be from what has been; and, in fine, with a certainty only short of mathematical. On the second day of January, in the current year, a table of the past, and present, and what we may expect to be the future population of the United States, to the year 1900, was published in the National Intelligencer. This table was compiled rigidly from the documents afforded by the five enumerations already made, and for clearness of statement, we shall make some reference to the table in the course of the present article. Having been for some years engaged in various investigations, to the end mainly of affording a clear view of the Anglo Saxon increase in number and power on the Middle Zone of North America, we propose in the following remarks to present some of the results at which we have arrived. To give that view in its broadest light, however, a description of the great peculiar natural features and relative extent of that zone must precede any detail as regards its inhabitants. Minute detail, alike incompatible with the brevity of an essay, and unnecessary in the present case, will therefore be supplied by general sketches of a space destined to sustain a most influential section of the human family.

Before entering on the proposed survey, I may premise, that in the United States there has been too often manifested a disposition to exaggerate the magnitude and extent of natural objects in our territory, and especially in regard to the Mississippi river. Natural limits of rivers speak for themselves, and neither swell nor contract to suit human fancy. The Mississippi has been, in innumerable instances, pronounced the greatest river of the earth. It is really true, that in some highly important respects, this great river basin, as I shall endeavor to shew in the sequel, does really offer to civilized man advantages beyond what any other river basin of the earth can afford; but in regard to surface drained, it is probably equalled by that of the Plata of South America, as each drains about 1,200,000 square miles,

Vide Heeren, in his Preface to his Historical Manual of the States of Europe and their Colonies.

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whilst the Amazon, not including the Tocantinas, drains full 2,600,000 square miles, and thus contains in its basin alone, an area exceeding those of the two former united. But to assume our survey, we proceed by lines of latitude.

Advancing from South to North, we set out on the curve of 30° N. This latitude intersects the North American Atlantic coast, a short distance to the north of the city of St. Augustine, crosses Florida to the Apalachicola Bay, and thence, skirting the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico 360 miles, passes over the city of New Orleans, and thence, over Louisiana and Texas, 600 miles, to the Rio Grande, leaving Houston in the latter country a little to the southward. This curve traverses the Rio Grande at its great bend, and thence, over the imperfectly known Chihuahua and Sonora, to the Gulf of California, which it reaches a little to the north of the Island of Tiburon-then passes that inland sea, and northern part of the peninsula of the same name, to the Pacific Ocean, at, or near Cape Gonzalo, having an entire range over the Continent of 35 degrees of longitude, which, in that latitude, very nearly equals 2100 statute miles, of which the mid-distance is about the western border of Texas, and about two-thirds west of Sabine River.

N. lat. 35° intersects the Continent very near Ocracock Inlet, and a few miles southward of Cape Hatteras, and passing over the southern side of North Carolina and the northern of South Carolina, thence leaving Tennessee to the northward, constitutes the northern boundaries of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, to the Mississippi River, in an entire distance from the Atlantic Ocean of 750 statute miles. Thence traversing the State of Arkansas, nearly centrically, and leaving that State, up the valley of Arkansas River, by the minor valley of the Canadian River to its sources: thence over the narrow valley of the Rio Grande, crossing that stream about 100 miles below and southwardly of Santa Fé of New Mexico, and 850 miles from the Mississippi, or 1600 from the Atlantic Ocean. Thence, from Rio Grande over the spine of the Rocky Mountains, and entering on regions very imperfectly known, this line crosses the Colorado of the Gulf of California, and reaches the Pacific Ocean near Cape Gaudaloupe, having an entire range of lat. over the continent of 46 degrees of long, which,

in that latitude, is equal to 2,542 statute miles. The mid-distance of this curve is very near its place of crossing Canadian River, and upwards of 400 miles westward of the River Mississippi, and nearly 200 miles westward of the western border of the State of Arkansas.

N. lat. 40° over North America, is there, as it is in all its circle round the earth, the most important of all lat. curves. It enters on the Continent of North America a little distance northwards of Tom's River, Monmouth county, New Jersey, crosses that State and Delaware River, almost touching the city of Philadelphia; thence over Pennsylvania, passing near the towns of Lancaster, York, Bedford, Union and Washington, in that State: Wheeling, in Virginia, Zanesville, Columbus and Troy in Ohio; crosses Wabash River, in Indiana, a short distance above Westport, as it does the Mississippi a little above Quincy, in Illinois, and thence over the northern part of the State of Missouri, reaches the Missouri River near the mouth of the Great Namehaw River; having thus far over the already organized States of the United States, a traverse of 1100 statute miles. Leaving the Mississippi River, N. lat. 40°, ranges westward up the different branches of Kansas and Platte rivers 600 miles, to the 30th degree of long. W. of W. C., amongst the chains of the Rocky Mountains, and to that truly remarkable region, which gives their most remote fountains to the rivers of Platte, Arkansas, Rio Grande, and Colorado of the Gulf of California, and Columbia or Oregon; thence, over about 1000 miles of a country but little known, reaches the Pacific Ocean, at, or very near Cape Mendocino. Thus we find that N. lat. 40° has a range over North America from long. 3o E. to 48 W. W C. or through 51° of long., and within a small fraction of 2700 statute miles. The middle point very near where it crosses the Republican branch of Kansas River, or nearly 200 miles westward of the State of Missouri.

North latitude 45°, advancing westward, leaves the Atlantic Ocean at long. 15 E. W. C. near the mouth of the small

river St. Mary's, Nova Scotia, traverses that peninsula obliquely, crosses the Bay of Fundy, and leaving it by the minor Bay of Passamaquoddy, enters and divides the state of Maine nearly centrically, passes over the extreme northern point of New Hampshire, and thence to the

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