142 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



bury it in sand under ten feet of earth might possibly 

 be estimated if for any given place it was exactly 

 known how much sand and earth was deposited by the 

 yearly fresh and a like amount reckoned for each year 

 of a term. 



Much good earthen-ware is burnt here and the neigh- 

 borhood far around supplied. I should be tedious if 

 I undertook to mention all that is good and beautiful in 

 this little place and among its inhabitants, of whom 

 there are those plying most of the useful arts and 

 crafts. Their manufactures are not yet enough to 

 supply them with all they need, but they have among 

 themselves the most important and are obliged to bring 

 in very little, and so much the less because the uni- 

 formity and frugality of their way of life admit of few 

 wants. Unlike their sister colonies at Neuwied, Ebers- 

 dorf &c, they have not yet established the finer branches 

 of manufactures, the fewness of their numbers and the 

 circumstances of their situation not rendering these 

 feasible. 



The good order and the comfortable prosperity, 

 which are so especially pleasing to every foreigner, are 

 the fruits of religion and piety, activity, and industry. 

 Everyone is occupied and whatever is made shows in- 

 trinsic goodness and the marks of judicious pains-tak- 

 ing. Here are seen the effects of the same causes 

 which I mentioned when speaking of the Quakers 

 the time wasted by the greatest part of mankind in 

 idleness or unprofitable pleasures is here applied un- 

 ceasingly in the best manner and for the common good. 

 What a land might not America already be if all the 

 inhabitants had fashioned themselves on the pattern of 

 the community at Bethlehem. Certainly they make 



