368 THEIR FUTURE INFLUENCE. 



in tilling, they have gradually extended themselves 

 along the valley southwards into Virginia, carrying 

 their habits, their wheat-culture, and their love of in 

 dustry and of free labour, along with them. Thus they 

 form, behind the slave-holders of Maryland and Virginia, 

 and between Kentucky and the Carolinas, a growing 

 band of wheat-raising, generally free-soil-preferring 

 people, whose influence will not fail to operate benefi 

 cially on the future fate of the slave population of the 

 States in which they reside. The political power, which 

 formerly was retained exclusively by the tobacco-grow 

 ing flat-lands of the tide-water region, will now begin to 

 be shared with the occupiers of the wheat-growing lime 

 stone zone of the interior mountain-slopes. It would, in 

 fact, have already left Eastern Virginia, since the whites, 

 to the west of the mountains, are now much more 

 numerous than on the eastern side, were it not that, in 

 the elections in this State, slave property is represented, 

 and that the number of members sent by the eastern 

 counties to the Legislature is determined by the number 

 of slaves, as well as that of white men, they severally 

 contain. 



There are already at Washington many public insti 

 tutions, which the stranger will visit with pleasure. 

 Among others, I had much gratification in visiting, with 

 Dr Henry, the Office of Weights and Measures where 

 accurate sets of both, and of beautifully executed and 

 durable balances, were preparing for each State of the 

 Union and the Office of the Coast Survey, where the 

 latest methods were in operation for copying, in electro 

 type, the large maps, plans, and sketches connected 

 with this most important work. It is a matter of doubt 

 whether the State ought to be more congratulated upon 

 having so well begun the great undertaking of an accu 

 rate coast survey, or upon having been enabled to place it 

 under the able direction of so capable a head as Dr Bache. 



