1S3S] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



131 



proportion to the (]uantity of decomposed granite. 



The low (grounds iyiiiii; on the margin ol James 

 River, which are too well known to require any 

 description, may be adduced as an instance ot'tiie 

 extreme (ku'ahility of soils, scarcely less imperish- 

 able than the black prairies of Indiana, '{'hough 

 they now exhibit the benefits of good culture m a 

 remarkable degree, even under the severe pres- 

 sure of the t(3ur-phift system; yet the most exhaust- 

 ing tdlage to which the}' were formerly subjected, 

 had efit^cted but little deterioration in their lertili- 

 ty; and indeed some portions of them have never 

 been sufficiently reduced by a long course of corn 

 and tobacco, to yield a crop of wheat that will not 

 lodge before harvest. Their extraordinary produc- 

 tiveness is no doubt chiefly to be ascribed to their 

 alluvial formation, combined with the accumula- 

 tion of mineral earths which ihey have received 

 from the mountains through a long course of ages. 



The whole of these flats is believed to be now 

 under culture lor a considerable distance above 

 Richmond. If there be any remains of the origi- 

 nal Ibrest, it is not within my knowledge ; but I 

 have a distinct recollection of some portions of it, 

 before it had been despoiled of its glory. Such syl- 

 van magnificence is perhaps no where to be seen 

 in Eastern Virginia at this day; and even the bot- 

 toms of the Missouri have seldom exhibited spe- 

 cimens of more towering height and gigantic pro- 

 portions. 



T. S. P. 



From Blackwood's " World we Live in." 

 RAILROADS AND STEAMBOATS. 



It might be a serious speculation to inquire into 

 the probable effects of the railroad system on man- 

 kind. Certainly no system ever became so popu- 

 pular, and so suddenly and so widely popular. 

 France has begun to flmg out those gigantic arms 

 of communication over her noble country. Bel- 

 gium exults in the commencement of a web of 

 railroad in which it expects to catch all the stray 

 dollars and centimes of the continent. The tran- 

 sit from Ostend to the Rhine will, in tlie course 

 of a year or two, be an affair of a couple hours. 

 Germany is shaking off the sleep, her blaclcsmiths 

 are lighting their Hercynian forges, and from the 

 mountains of the Hartz to the Tyrol, huge men 

 with antediluvian visages and Cyclopean arms 

 are hammering at iron wedges, rail, and gear, for 

 "fire horses.'' Prussia is laying down railroads 

 from her capital to France, to Poland, and to Aus- 

 tria. The puzzling question of her politicians be- 

 ing, whether she thus invites invasion, or pro- 

 poses defence. But politicians are blockheads on 

 matters of common sense, and of all blockheads 

 the German politician is the most profound, head- 

 strong and hopeless. The merchant, the traveller, 

 and the tinker know better things. They could 

 tell them, that the roughest of royal roughnders, 

 was never able to whip and spur either French- 

 man, Belgian, Prussian, or Austrian into bellige- 

 rency, more than fifty years out of every hundred. 

 But, thanks to the growing common sense of man- 

 kind, they never will be able to do this again, now 

 that the world are beginning to discover that filty 

 years of victory are not worth one year of peace. In 

 short, the world is evidently become a buying and 



selling world, a vast spinning and weaving com' 

 munity, a vast aggregate of hands and head.g, 

 busy about th.c main chance, and much more in- 

 clined to eat, drink, and be ha|)py, than to burn 

 each other's warehouses, or blow out each other's 

 i)rains. That war will neverceaseout of the world, 

 is a theorem founded on the fact, that the couni- 

 !(>f:s majority of mankind have a strong tendency 

 to be fools; but we may establish another theo- 

 rem, that the more difiicult it is to make war, the 

 less likely it is to be made. The more mechani- 

 cal dexterity, personal ingenuity, and natural ex- 

 pense that is required to make war, the more will 

 success be out of the power of brute force, and 

 tlie more in the power of intellectual superiorit}^ 

 Let war come to a conflict of steam engines 

 and all the barbarian rabble of the world, Turks 

 and Tartars, Arabs and Indians, Africans and 

 Chinese, must obviously be out of the question at 

 once. They may massacre each other, but they 

 must fly from the masier of the mechanics. All 

 the half barbarians, Russian, Greek, Pole, Swede 

 and Austrian, must make the attempt only to be 

 shattered, and Field Marshal Stephenson, with 

 his squadron of fire horses, galloping at a rate of 

 eighty miles an hour, must consume their battalia 

 with the breath of his nostrils. Thus England, 

 instead of feeling alarmed at the sudden passion 

 of foreigners for mechanicism, should rejoice to see 

 the passion spreading, should encourage them to 

 throw all their powers into mechanical rivalry, 

 and exult in every railroad that shoots its serpent 

 line among the hills and valleys of the continent, 

 and hail the smoke of every steam engine that 

 (rails its murky line along the sky, as not merely 

 an emblem, but an instrument of their own supe- 

 riority. Mechanicism, the great power of art, is 

 as exhaustless as any of the great powers of na- 

 ture, for it is only the exhaustless vigor of intellect 

 combining with and commanding the secrets of 

 nature. 



Ten thoiisand years might roll on, and every 

 j'earsee a new advance of every kingdom of Eu- 

 rope in invention, and England keeping ahead of 

 them all, and like one of her own engines, show- 

 ing her speed by the sparks that lighten the road 

 behind. The steam engine in its effective state, 

 is but little more than half a century old, for its in- 

 vention, in the time of Charles II., left it upwards 

 of a century, little more than a to3\ In half a cen- 

 tury more, its present perfection may be looked 

 upon as little else than that of an ingenious play- 

 thing. It is scarcely ten years since the steam- 

 boat first ventured to sea. Thirty years ago, the 

 late Lord Stanhope, was laughed at by all Lon- 

 don, for his attempt to swim the steamboat from 

 London Bridge to Greenwich. It now dashe&from 

 the tower to Constantinople; or shoots down the 

 Red Sea, fis'hts the moonshine on its own ground; 

 sweeps to Bombay, Ceylon, and Bengal, and as- 

 tonishes the Mogul and the Emperor of China, 

 the same mornmtT, with the month's newspapers 

 from London. The railway, in its present power, 

 is not ten years old, yet is already spreading, not 

 merely over Europe, but over the vast savannahs 

 of the New World. What will all this come to 

 in the next fifty years. What must be the effect 

 of this gigantic stride over the ways of this world? 

 What tlie mi<>hty influence of that mighty commu- 

 nication which, even in its feeblest state, has been 

 in every age, the grand instrument of civilization? 



