become the Birmingham of America. It has coal in vast abundance, and of a superior quality; its price not quite three-pence sterling a bushel. It is supposed that the whole tract of country between the Laurel mountain, Mississippi, and Ohio, yields coal. Pittsburgh, in addition to various other manufactures, makes glass bottles, tumblers, and decanters, of equal quality to any that are imported from Europe. It has an inland navigation, interrupted only by the falls at Louisville, of 2200 miles down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, and an inexhaustible market for its manufactures in all the states and settlements on the borders of those mighty rivers.

But the most extraordinary, and most important manufacture in the United States, and perhaps in the world, is that of steam-boats. Whoever may have first applied the force of steam to the purposes of navigation, it is certain that no one perfectly succeeded in the attempt prior to Mr. Fulton; which is proved by the fact, that since the accomplishment of this plan in America, the use of steamboats has become common in Europe; whereas, before that period, every endeavour to navigate boats by steam was vain and fruitless. In the year 1807, the first American steam-boat plied between the cities of New York and Albany; and since that time, this mode of navigation bas been practised with great success in many other rivers of the Union besides the Hudson. At present many steamboats, and a great number of barges, are in active operation upon the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, hitherto almost unnavigable, except in the direction of their currents. The painful, laborious, and tedious method of ascending those rivers with barges, was always attended with great difficulty and considerable danger. From twelve to sixteen days were usually consumed in the passage from New Orleans to Natchez, a distance of 322 miles. Steam-boats, by stemming the current at the rate of four miles an hour, and going in motion twelve hours a day, will perform the same voyage in less than half the time. In other places the difference is still greater. Albany is brought within twenty-four hours of New York, 160 miles distant, instead of averaging five days as formerly, viz. threedays by water and two by land. In countries where fuel abounds, and where the streams are rapid, steam-boats are an invaluable acquisition to the inhabitants; and the facility, economy, and despatch of travelling are all wonderfully augmented by steam nagivation.

The following table exhibits the great benefit derived to the traveller from this invention, and the cheapness of

travelling; since, it is to be observed, that food as well as conveyance is included in the charge:

In the spring of 1817, a steam-boat reached Louisville, in Kentucky, from Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, a distance of 700 miles, dropping down the river Ohio. She displayed her vast power by different tacks in the strongest current on the falls, and returned over the falls, stemming the force of the current with much ease. About the same time, a large steam-boat arrived at Louisville from New Orleans, having ascended against the stream 1720 miles, with a valuable cargo of wines, sugar, coffee, raisins, sheet-lead, fur, earthenware, &c. exceeding in value 25,000 dollars. On the 31st of March, 1818, the steamboat Vesuvius arrived at the same place from New Orleans in twenty-six days, laden with coffee, sugar, and dry goods, carrying also a number of passengers. On her voyage she met seven steam-boats in their progress, down the river; but since that period the number of these vessels has considerably increased, and the time employed in their navigation is so much lessened, that one of them has been known to proceed from Louisville to New Orleans, and back again, 3440 miles, in less than forty days. The use of steam, applied to navigation, has effectually removed those obstacles which the length and rapidity of the Mississippi presented to boats propelled by personal labour alone; and the property freighted, is infinitely less liable to damage, and is transported at less than one-half the cost of the route across the mountains from the states lying east of the Alleganies. Hence it does not seem extraordinary to expect, that in due time steam-boats will find their way from the Atlantic ocean into the great inland seas of the United States, by the completion of the grand canal to connect the waters of the Hudson river with lake Erie; and from the lakes will carry their treasures to the gulf of Mexico.

Agriculture.-The three great national objects of government in the United States are, the encouragement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. The richness of the soil, which amply rewards the industrious husbandman; the temperature of the climate, which admits of steady labour; the cheapness of land, which induces emigration from all countries; render agriculture the great leading interest in America. This furnishes outward cargoes, not only for all their own ships, but for those also which foreign nations send to their ports; or, in other words, it pays for all their importations; it supplies a great part of the clothing of the inhabitants, and food for them and their cattle. What is consumed at home, including the materials for manufacturing, is four or five times the value of what is exported.

The number of people employed in agriculture, is at least three-fourths of all the inhabitants of the United States; some say more. It follows of course, that they form the great body of the militia, which now consists of more than 800,000 men, and is the bulwark of the republic. The value of the property occupied by agriculture, is many times greater than that employed in every other way. The settlement of waste lands, the subdivision of farms, and the numerous and daily improvements in husbandry, annually increase the superiority of the agricultural interest. The resources derived from it are at all times certain, and indispensably necessary: besides, the rural life promotes health by its active nature, and morality, by keeping the people at a distance from the luxuries and vices of populous towns. In short, agriculture is the spring of their commerce, and the parent of their manufactures. The following extract from Mr. Jefferson's elegant and interesting" Notes on Virginia," will throw additional light on the subject of American agriculture.

"The political economists of Europe have established it as a principle, that every nation should endeavour to manufacture for itself; and this principle, like many others, is applied to America, without calculating the difference of circumstance, which should often produce a different result. In Europe, the lands are either cultivated, or locked up against the cultivator. Manufactures must

therefore be resorted to of necessity, not of choice, to support the surplus of their people. But we have an immensity of land, courting the industry of the husbandman. Is it best then that all our citizens should be employed in its improvement, or that one-half should be called off from that, to exercise manufactures and handicraft arts for the

other? Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators, is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those, who, not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, (as does the husbandman,) for their subsistence depend upon the casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. This, the natural progress and consequence of the arts, bas sometimes, perhaps, been retarded by accidental circumstances; but, generally speaking, the proportion which the whole of the other classes of citizens bears in any country to that of its husbandmen, is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a good enough barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption.

"While we have land to labour on, then let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, and smiths, are wanted in husbandry; but for the general operations of manufacture, let our work-shops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there, than to bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles. The loss by the transportation of commodities across the Atlantic, will be made up in happiness and permanence of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution." The rapid increase of a healthy and vigorous population implies a flourishing state of agriculture, and accordingly, the United States, except the year 1808, (when the embargo existed,) and 1814, in addition to maintaining their own fast-growing population, have on an average, exported one-fourth of their agricultural produce. As a science, agriculture is improving rapidly; and societies for its further improvement are established at Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and some other states. These societies have diffused much practical knowledge on the modes of tillage, pasture, and grazing best adapted to the different districts of the Union. If the system of farming followed in America be inferior to that practised in Europe,

NO. V.

it does not proceed merely from a want of knowledge; it is from their having such quantities of land to waste as they please.

The chief articles of agricultural export are wheat, flour, rice, Indian corn, rye, beans, peas, potatoes, beef, tallow, hides, butter, cheese, pork, &c. horses, mules, sheep, tobacco, cotton, indigo, flax-seed, wax, &c.-The following statement shows the value of these exports, constituting vegetable food only, in particular years, namely,

In 1802, 12,790,000 dollars ;-1803, 14,080,000 dols.; 1807, 14,432,000 dols. ;-1808, 2,550,000 dols.;-1811, 20,391,000 dols. ;-1814, 2,179,000 dols. ;-1815,11,234,000 dols. ;-and in 1816, 13,150,000 dollars.

Agriculture is the base of every civilized society; and the farmers of the United States enjoy many advantages superior to those enjoyed by the same class any where else in the world. Almost every farmer is a freeholder; and a continuation of that incalculable advantage is secured by the plan adopted by the general government for the disposal of the public lands. These lands, with some exceptions to be noticed hereafter, originally consisted of the whole of the country north and west of the Ohio, to the Mississippi; and a considerable portion south of Tennessee and west of Georgia, to that river. These countries are now subdivided into states and territories, and consist of the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Mississippi; and the Michigan, Illinois, and North-West territories. The purchase of Louisiana from France, has added an amazing extent of country to the general fund. To enable the reader to trace the subject with greater facility, the following short view of the present state of the public lands is annexed; and the mode adopted by congress for their disposal, is a matter of great public interest, not only to the present citizens of the United States, but to the world at large; for all the inhabitants of the earth may avail themselves of whatever advantages may result from it. By the benevolent policy of the general government, the right hand of fellowship is held out to all mankind. Whoever arrives in

the country for permanent settlement, can become a citizen within five years after his arrival, and be entitled to partake in all the blessings that this chosen country and its excellent institutions can afford.*

• As many persons have been disappointed in their expectations of becoming citizens at the time they wished, it may not be improper in this place to give an abstract of the law upon the subject. The act was passed on the 14th of April, 1802.

The first step necessary to be taken in virtue of this act, is to make a registry of the intention to become a citizen, and obtain a certificate thereof. This can be done in the district court were the person arrives; and the clerk of the court is entitled to charge fifty cents for the register, and fifty cents more for the certificate.