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world. A considerable portion of its marine shore is occupied 

 by the navy-yard of the United States. 



Middlesex county is intersected by rail-roads in a manner 

 which renders the communication of its ditferent parts with 

 the capital extremely easy and expeditious. The southwestern 

 part of the county is traversed, to a considerable extent, by the 

 Worcester rail-road, soon to be transformed into the great West- 

 ern rail-road. Towards the northeast, the Lowell and Nashua 

 rail-road, and, connected Avith it, the upper Eastern rail-road, 

 traverses the whole breadth of the county. Besides these, the 

 Middlesex canal, the first work of the kind of any considerable 

 extent in the country, lies wholly in this county, and connects 

 the waters of the Merrimack river with Boston harbor, thus 

 opening a free communication between the interior of New 

 Hampshire and the capital of Massachusetts, and furnishing a 

 convenient transit for a vast amount of goods and produce, and 

 especially of lumber and fuel. No part of the State presents 

 so many good markets for agricultural produce, and so conven- 

 ient means of access to them, with such facilities of general 

 intercourse. 



II. Aspect of the County. — The general aspect of the 

 county presents nothing interesting or picturesque, but the 

 neatness and good condition of the buildings and appendages 

 on the farms, the ample evidences of wealth and abundance, 

 and the general appearances of industry and thrift, indicate a 

 condition of distinguished success and prosperity, if we put 

 aside the commercial cities, not to be found in the same extent 

 of territory any where else in the United States. The exten- 

 sive manufacturing capital invested here and in active opera- 

 tion ; the expensive and useful public improvements ; the fairs 

 at Brighton, where so many thousands of cattle are sold weekly, 

 and vast amounts of capital are kept in active use ; the liberal 

 institutions for education in Harvard University and other semi- 

 naries; the provision for the relief of the insane at Charlestown ; 

 the establishment for the purposes of penal justice in the State's 



