470 CITY OF PEOVIDENCE. 



alteration among our western brethren, which is pro 

 bably inherent in a purely democratic and popular con 

 stitution. 



March 21. I went down this morning, with my 

 friend, Professor Henry Kogers, to Providence, in 

 Khode Island by railway a distance of forty-two miles 

 to pay a short visit to Dr Wayland, the president of 

 Brown University, in that city. The road led in gene 

 ral through a poor agricultural country of sands and 

 sandy gravels. About Providence, also, the soil is 

 sandy, and, where loose, is blown by the wind. 



Providence, the chief town in the small State of 

 Ehode Island, is a clean thriving place, of about 30,000 

 inhabitants, well situated for trade, on a small navigable 

 river, which connects it at a short distance with the 

 Atlantic. The lower, or business part of the town, is 

 built upon a flat intervale which skirts the river, while 

 the sides and summit of the sloping bank which leads to 

 the upland, afford sites for streets of well-built and plea 

 sant residences, which overlook the low town, the river, 

 and the flats beyond. 



The city itself is replete with business and bustle. It 

 is full of steam-engines and manufactures more so, pro 

 bably, and in greater variety, than any other city of its 

 size in the Union, unless, perhaps, the new town of 

 Lowell be an exception. The State of Rhode Island, 

 also, which has in all only a population of about 

 120,000, shows a larger amount of exports and imports, 

 in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, than any 

 other State in New England, Massachusetts alone 

 excepted. It partakes, therefore, of the activity which 

 distinguishes the most stirring part of the New England 

 population. 



The farming in this State is not in an equally fortu 

 nate and progressive position. The farming community 

 as a body do not, more than in Massachusetts, occupy 



