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in Connecticut, and forms the eastern boundary of the Connecticut valley, until it unites with the last-mentioned range in the county of Hampshire; but is less distinctly marked by eminences than the others. The chief single mountains are Saddle Mountain in Massachusetts, computed to be about 4000 feet above the sea, Watchusett in the county of Worcester, Aschutney in the state of Vermont, Monadnock in New Hampshire, and the White Mountains in the same state, of which the highest summit is Mount Washington, probably between 10,000 and 11,000 feet above the ocean, and the highest land in the United States. This mountain is covered during a great part of the year with snow, and is seen in fair weather at the distance of ninety miles from the sea, and 160 from its base.

New England abounds in cataracts and cascades; those of the White Mountains being singularly romantic and beautiful. The principal rivers are the Schoduck, Penobscot, Kennebeck, Amariscoggin, Saco, Piscataqua, Merrimack, Parkers, Charles, Taunton, Providence, Thames, Connecticut, Hooestonnuck or Stratford, Onion, La Moille, and Missisconi. The largest of these are Penobscot, Kennebeck, Merrimack, and Connecticut. The chief lakes are Champlain and Memphremagog, lying partly in Vermont and partly in New York; Winnipisiogee and Umbagog in New Hampshire; Sebago, Moosehead, Willeguenguagun, and Chilmacook or Grand lake in Maine. The most important and useful harbours are those of Machias, Frenchman's Bay, Wiscasset, Portland and Wells, in Maine; Piscataqua in Hampshire; Newbury Port, Salem, Marble head, Boston, Provincetown, and New Bedford, in Massachusetts Proper; Newport, Bristol, and Providence, in Rhode Island; and New London, New Haven, and Black Rock in Fairfield, in Connecticut. Burlington Bay is the most considerable harbour in lake Champlain, on the Vermont shore.

An extraordinary phenomenon respecting this lake we must be here allowed to insert from Dr. Dwight's Travels in New England, vol. ii. p. 95. 'Friday morning, Oct. 18th, we rode to the south end of the lake accompanied by Mr. Whettlesey to examine a rock of which a singular, not to say an incredible, opinion prevails in the vicinity. Our road, for near half a mile, lay on a natural causeway, about thirty feet in breadth, which separated the lake in two parts, and was formed of earth, probably washed up by its waves. The rock, which was the particular object of our curiosity, is said, by inhabitants long settled here, to have moved a considerable distance from the spot where it anciently stood, towards the south-western shore. You will not suppose we considered this story as founded either in truth or good sense. However, having long believed it to be prudent, and made it a regular practice, whenever it was convenient, to examine the foundation of reports credited by sober men, I determined to investigate this, as I saw that it was firmly believed by several discreet persons. One particularly, a man of unquestioned reputation, and long resident near the spot, declared, that about forty years since, the top of this rock, at the ordinary height of the water, was at least two

feet below its surface, and fifteen or twenty rods farther from the causeway than when we saw it. The shore has unquestionably remained as it then was; for the trees and stumps standing on the causeway are older than any man now living, and the space between them and the lake is very narrow, scarcely extending fifteen feet from the trees.

'The top of the rock is now at least two feet above the water. This height it is declared to have gained imperceptibly, year by year, for many years, in consequence of its advancing towards the shore, and standing continually in water more and more shallow. The water is evidently of the same depth now as formerly, as is proved by the appearance of the shore.

'When we came up to the rock, which was standing where the water was scarcely knee-deep, we found a channel behind it, towards the deeper water, formed in the earth, about fifteen rods in length. It was serpentine in its form, and was sunk from two to three feet below the common level of the bottom on its borders. In the front of the rock the earth was pushed up in a heap, so as to rise above the water, declining, however, at the distance of a few inches, obliquely and pretty rapidly. Not far from this rock we saw another, much less, attended by the same phenomena, except that they were diminished in proportion to its size. The whole appearance of each was just as one would expect to find, if both had actually removed from their original places towards the shore, throughout the length of their respective channels. How these channels were formed, or by what cause the earth was heaped up in front of these rocks, I must leave to the divination of others. The facts I have stated, as I believe, exactly?

The climate of New England is considered very healthy, one in seven, it is said, living te the age of seventy years, and about one in thirteen or fourteen to eighty years and upwards. The most prevalent winds are the north-west, west, and south-west; but the east, and northeast winds, which are insalubrious, occur frequently at certain seasons of the year, particularly in April and May, on the sea-coasts. The coldest winds of all are from the west; and Dr. Dwight has some curious remarks on their origin. These winds, says he, are purer than any others; a fact universally remarked throughout this country. During their prevalence the lungs are feasted and the frame invigorated, in such a manner as is never experienced at any other season. Their influence on plants, also, is entirely peculiar. It is customarily said, by those who have long cultivated tobacco, that its leaves, are perceptibly thicker and heavier, after a north-west wind has blown two or three days, than at any other time; and such a season is considered, by skilful cultivators, as the best for cutting this plant. When grass has been mowed at such a season, I have observed the scythes to be covered with its juice, so thick and viscid, and adhering so tenaciously to the scythe, as to oblige the mowers to employ the whetstone, not for the sake of giving the scythe an edge, but to remove the glutinous substance with which it was covered. During the preva

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lence of these winds, wood burns more rapidly, and with a more vivid flame. The flame, also, makės frequently a small explosion (if I may be allowed the term), resembling strongly that of a musket, discharged at a .ery great distance. All these facts, as it seems to me, are easily explicable on the supposition, that the north-west winds have their origin in the superior 1egions of the atmosphere. If this opinion be admitted, we cannot, I think, be at a loss for 1easons why they are instantaneously, and, in the winter, severely cold; why they commence with violence and terminate suddenly; why they are remarkably pure and healthy; why in a singular manner they facilitate combustion; why they are wholly free from terrene exhalations; why, in many instances, they condense clouds immediately vertical, some time before they are percerved to blow on the surface; why they carry clouds, at times, toward the south-east, without interrupting at all the blowing of a south-west wind; and why in the month of March, during which the westerly winds almost regularly prevail, all kinds of wood shrink, and become dry, in a greater degree than in the most intense heat of our summer sun. Particularly, the peculiar degree of cold, experienced in this country, seems to be explicable on this ground only. Every man, accustomed to read even newspapers, knows that the air, at a moderate distance from the earth, is usually much colder than near the surface. This fact has been so often proved by ascending high mountains, and by rising into the atmosphere in balloons; and is so evident from the ice and snow, always visible, even under the equator, at great elevations, that few persons are ignorant of it. Every degree of cold experienced in this country, must naturally be expected from winds, which have their origin in a superior region.' Travels, vol. i. pp. 44, 45.

The weather is less variable in New England than in the middle, and especially the southern states of the Union, and more so than in Canada. The extremes of heat and cold are, according to Fahrenheit's thermometer, from 20° below to 100° above 0; the medium being from 48° to 50°. The quantity of water which annually falls here is from forty-two to forty-eight, and yet they suffer here more from drought than in England, where the annual quantity of water is estimated at about twentyfour inches. Hence it is inferred that the atmosphere is remarkably dry, and thus some have accounted for its singular salubrity. Winter commonly commences, in its severity, about the middle of December; sometimes earlier, and sometimes not till Christmas. The diseases most prevalent are alvine fluxes, St. Anthony's fire, asthma, atrophy, catarrh, colic, inflammatory, slow, nervous, and mixed fevers, pulmonary consumption, quinsy, and reumatism. Dr. Dwight observes that a succession of cold years have proved peculiarly unfavorable to healtn in New England; the spotted fever, which was a new disease, and the spurious peripneumony, which had never before been known to be endemic there, having ravaged great part of the country, at a late period of this kind. The latter indeed became a formidable scourge to the people; heads of families, the men especially, having been swept away in

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such unprecedented numbers, that more children had been made orphans than at any preceding time since the country was colonised; and there was every reason to fear that it would pervade the Union; for, beginning in Connecticut iu 1812, it had, in the course of three years, spread extensively over Virginia and Ohio.

The soil exhibits every diversity from barren sands to the richest loams and clays. The hills are covered with brown loam intermixed with gravel, and are very favorable to grazing; in the western parts of the country, wheat, and all other kinds of grain and fruits appear suited to the climate. The clayey soils, when well manured, are also very productive. A rich loam, varying towards clay, is prevalent in Connecticut, and is favorable to every kind of cultivation. Sand is generally found on the plains; and the yellow pine plains, which are a mixture of sand and gravel, are friendly to every production that does not require a richer soil. The white pine plains are usually covered with loam, and these, as well as some of the last-mentioned in the same condition, are uncommonly fertile. The valleys are a rich mould; and the intervals, bordering the various streams, are generally sands formed by earth deposited by the floods in the spring, and are of the richest quality. Generally speaking, New England seems better adapted for grazing than for grain, though a sufficient quantity of the latter is raised for home consumption, if we except wheat which is largely imported, particularly into Massachusetts, from the middle and southern states. Indian corn, rye, oats, barley, buck-wheat, flax, and hemp, generally succeed very well. Fruits of every kind, which suit a temperate climate, may be obtained in abundance. The summer heat brings to perfection peaches, apricots, and nectarines. Orchards of apple-trees cover a considerable part of the whole country, and cyder is the common drink of the inhabitants. Pears, plums, cherries, currants, gooseberries, whortleberries, blackberries, bilberries, &c., abound. Perry is made in some parts of the country, but not in great quantities. Various species of the hickery and hazle-nuts, and chestnuts, are plentifully furnished by the southern half of New England. In travelling through the forests of New England (which, even in the old states of America, still occupy no small portion of the soil, notwithstanding the improviden destruction of wood) Dr. Dwight was forcibly struck with the wisdom of divine providence displayed in the decay of the foliage. Were the leaves, when they fall, to go through the usual processes of fermentation and putrefaction, like other vegetables, the atmosphere would be rendered so unwholesome that it would be impossible for man either to inhabit or to clear a forested country. But the juices are exhaled before the leaves fall; they lie lightly on the ground, so as to permit a free circulation of air: so far from being offensive in their decay, they have even a peculiar fragrance, which poets have sometimes noticed among the melancholy charms of autumn; the mould into which they are converted appears to be the best of all manures, being suited to more kinds, and producing higher degrees of vegetation than any other

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The pioneers of civilisation bivouaque, or, in the true phrase, squat, in full assurance of their salubrity, in the woods; and endemial diseases are unknown there till men, collected in societies, prepare the way for and induce them, by their improvidence, their errors, their injurious habits, or their crimes. For example, no country abounds more with small lakes and ponds than New England: they are supplied by subjacent springs; the water is cool, sweet and pure; and the margins are universally healthy ground. Dr. Dwight could not, after 'very extensive enquiries,' discover a single exception to this fact; but where dams have been raised, and artificial mill-ponds constructed, remittent and autumnal fevers have become endemic to an alarming degree. The mongrel cedar appears to shed its leaves here in a manner which has not yet been observed in any other tree. It resembles in its growth a spreading oak of moderate size-which in Europe would be an enormous tree. In autumn red spots, not unlike roses at a little distance, but generally larger, are dispersed over it: upon examination it is found that these are small twigs, the growth of the existing, or perhaps the preceding, year, which die together with their leaves, assume a red or reddish-brown color in their decay, and fall; so that the tree sheds its leaves not singly but with the spray

from which they spring, exchanging annually, according to Dr. Dwight's observations, about a third of its foliage, in this manner. Singular as the fact is, it seems heretofore to have passed unnoticed, and the author could find no person able to give him any account of it: but he had opportunities of examining and verifying it himself in his different journeys.

Gardening is much improved, and its productions are daily varying and increasing. But the most important production of New England is grass. The high and rocky ground is in many parts covered with clover, and affords excellent pasture to some of the finest cattle in the world. The quantity of butter and cheese made for exportation is very great. Considerable attention is now paid to the raising of sheep; and the wool is in a state of progressive improvement. The principal exports of New England are mackarel, salmon, cod, and other fish; whaleoil and whale-bone, timber, masts, boards, staves, hoops and shingles; horses, mules, salted beef, and pork, potash, pearlash, flax-seed, apples, cyder, corn, butter, and cheese.

New England is considered one of the most populous parts of the United States; its states, in 1790, contained 1,009,522 persons; in 1800, 1,233,041. The following is

TABLE I.-The Free White population of the New England States, the Free Persons of Color, and the Slaves, in 1820.

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TABLE II. The classification of the productive Inhabitants of each State; the number of Persons engaged in Agriculture, Commerce, and Manufactures, in each of the United States; together with the proportion which each class forms of the whole Population.

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TABLE III.--The States in the order of their Population in 1820, with the Population in 1800

and 1810.

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The great body of the inhabitants consists of land-holders and cultivators of the soil. As they possess in fee-simple the farms which they cultivate, they are all naturally attached to their country; and the cultivation of the soil makes them robust and healthy. New England has been not unaptly denominated a nursery of men; and hence are annually transplanted, into other parts of the United States, thousands of its natives. They are almost universally of English descent; and to this circumstance, as well as to the general attention that has been paid to education, it is owing that the English language has been preserved among them in so considerable a degree of purity. A succession of New England villages, says the intelligent traveller from whom we have quoted other observations in this article, composed of neat houses, surrounding neat school-houses and churches, adorned with gardens, meadows, and orchards, and exhibiting the universally easy circumstances of the inhabitants, is, at least in my own opinion, one of the most delightful prospects which this world can afford. You are to understand, that every man in this country, almost without an exception, lives on his own ground. The lands are universally holden in fee simple; and descend by law to all the children in equal shares. Every farmer in Connecticut, and throughout New England, is therefore dependent for his enjoyments on none but himself, his government, and his God; and is the little monarch of a dominion, sufficiently large to furnish all the supplies of competence, with a number of subjects as great as he is able to govern. In the cultivation of his farm he gratifies his reason, his taste, and his hopes; and usually finds the gratification at least sufficient for such a world as this. Here he can do every thing which is right, and no man can with impunity do any thing to him that is wrong. If he is not in debt, an event necessary only from sickness or decrepitude, he is absolutely his own master, and the master of all his possessions.'

The New Englanders are tall, stout, and well made. Their education, laws, and situation, serve to inspire them with high notions of liberty, of which they are jealous in some cases, perhaps, to excess. A chief foundation of freedom in the New England states is a law, by which intestate estates descend to all the children, or other heirs, in equal proportion; and hence it happens that

the people of New England enjoy an equality of condition, that is unknown to any other part of the world. They are described as being generally frugal, industrious, and inured to habits of sobriety and temperance. Learning is as much diffused among all ranks of people in New England perhaps as in any other part of the globe; which is owing to the establishment of schools in every town. In these schools, generally supported by a public tax, are taught the elements of reading, writing and arithmetic; and in some of the principal and more wealthy towns they introduce the superior branches of grammar, geography, and other sciences. Literature is also encouraged and diffused by the circulation of newspapers and periodical publications, and by the establishment of reading societies and parochial libraries. Curiosity, and a desire of information, are very prevalent in New England; and the common people, it is said, are distinguished by attention to strangers. In former times the New Englanders were strict, to a degree of punctiliousness, in their observance of the sabbath; and hence, as well as from some other traits of their character, they acquired the character of a superstitious and bigoted people. But a catholic, tolerant spirit, occasioned by a more enlarged intercourse with mankind, has of late much increased, and is becoming universal. 'If,' says Dr. Morse, they do not go beyond the proper bounds, and liberalise away all true religion, of which there is very great danger, they will counteract that strong propensity in human nature which leads men to vibrate from one extreme to its opposite.'

The custom still prevails, transmitted to the present race from their ancestors, of annually celebrating fasts and thanksgivings. In spring, the governors of the several New England states, Rhode Island excepted, proclaim a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer; and in autumn, after harvest, they appoint a day of public thanksgiving. Many of the women are handsome. Those who have enjoyed the advantages of a good education are numerous, genteel, and agreeable in their manners, and sprightly and sensible in their conversation. It is the laudable practice here among all ranks of females to accustom themselves at an early period to the management of domestic concerns. Employment at the needle, in cookery, and at the spinning-wheel, is honorable. The women in country

towns manufacture the greater part of the clothing of their families. Their linen and woollen eloths are excellent. Among the amusements of the people of New England is dancing, of which the young people of both sexes are extremely fond. The athletic and healthy diversions of cricket, foot-ball, quoits, wrestling, jumping, hopping, foot-races, and prison-bars, are universally practised in the country, and some of them in the most populous places, and by people of almost all ranks. Of the religion of the New Englanders, and of the provision that is made for the support of it, we have already spoken under the article AMERICA. We may here however observe, that the constitution of these states especially provides against the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of it, And, in the constitution of all the different states, religious liberty is a fundamental principle.

All countries,' as Dr. Dwight says, 'contain restless inhabitants; men impatient of labor; men, who will contract debts without intending to pay them who had rather talk than work; whose vanity persuades them that they are wise, and prevents them from knowing that they are fools; who are delighted with innovation; who think places of power and profit due to their peculiar merits; who feel that every change from good order and established society will be beneficial to themselves; who have nothing to lose, and therefore expect to be gainers by every scramble; and who, of course, spend life in disturbing others, with the hope of gaining something for themselves. Under despotic governments they are awed into quiet; but in every free community they create, to a greater or less extent, continual turmoil; and have often overturned the peace, liberty, and happiness of their fellowcitizens. In the Roman commonwealth, as before in the republics of Greece, they were emptied out, as soldiers, upon the surrounding countries; and left the sober inhabitants in comparative quiet at home. It is true they often threw these states into confusion, and sometimes overturned the government. But if they had not been thus thrown off from the body politic, its life would have been of a momentary duration. As things actually were, they finally ruined all these states: for some of them had, as some of them always will have, sufficient talents to do mischief; at times very extensive. The Graceni, Clodius, Marius, and Marc Antony, were mer of this character. Of this character is every demagogue, whatever may be his circumstances. Power and profit are the only ultimate objects which every such man, with a direction as steady as that of the needle to the pole, pursues with a greediness unlimited and inextinguishable.

Formerly the energetic government established in New England, together with the prevailing high sense of religion and morals, and the continually pressing danger from the French and the savages, compelled the inhabitants into habits of regularity and good order, not surpassed, perhaps, in the world But since the American revolution our situation has become less favorable to the existence, as well as to the

efficacy, of these great means of internal peace The former exact and decisive energy of the government has been obviously weakened. From our ancient dangers we have been delivered, and the deliverance was a distinguished blessing; but the sense of danger regularly brings with it a strong conviction that safety cannot be preserved without exact order, and a ready submission to lawful authority. The institutions and the habits of New England, more I suspect than those of any other country, have prevented or kept down this noxious disposition; but they cannot entirely prevent either its existence or its effects. In mercy, therefore, to the sober, industrious, and well-disposed inhabitants, Providence has opened in the vast western wilderness a retreat, sufficiently alluring to draw them away from the land of their nativity. We have many troubles even now: but we should have many more if this body of foresters had remained at home.'-vol. ii. pp. 441-443.

Dr. Dwight assures us, that fewer capital crimes have been committed in New England since its establishment, than in any other country on the globe (Scotland perhaps excepted), in proportion to the number of inhabitants." Yet of the laborer in New England, he says, ' Almost every man of this character is either shiftless, diseased, or vicious. And yet employment is found every where, and subsistence is abundant and easily obtained. The price of labor is also very high, a moderate day's work being usually purchased at a dollar. Every healthy, industrious, prudent man, may therefore live almost as he wishes, and secure a competence for old age.' Nevertheless he affirms, that few of these men are very industrious, fewer economical, and fewer still virtuous. The mechanics he describes as being, in all respects, of a different character. Perhaps it will be found, that up to a certain degree in society, morals, as well as manners, improve at every step of the ascent; for character Fecomes of more importance, when there is more to lose and more to hope; and men sometimes become respectable in proportion as they feel their own respectability. Another class who are important missionaries of civilisation in South America, and whose services cannot easily as yet be dispensed with in many parts of the United States, are portrayed in dark colors. Speaking of the persons who are employed in peddling articles of small value about the country, Dr. Dwight says, the consequences of this employment, and of all others like it, are generally malignant, and that it has had an unhappy influence on both the morals and manners of the people.' 'Men,' he says, 'who begin life with bargaining for small wares, will almost invariably become sharpers. The commanding aim of every such man will soon be to make a good bargain, and he will speedily consider every gainful bargain as a good one. fraud will assume in his mind the same place which commercial skill and an honorable system of dealing hold in the mind of a merchant. Often employed in disputes, he becomes noisy, pertinacious, and impudent.

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