5l)c Jarmcr's illontl)lt) bisitcrr. 



89 



tio one for many yenrs after the settlement thought 

 of nvoiding conslructin;,' roads along the valleys. 

 An inilepentlent and ini'-lligent race of tneii set- 

 tled down ujion and inlrahiled these hills. The 

 soil strong and prodiiclive after ils first clearing 

 enahled ils tenants not only to live well, hut well 

 to instruct and educate their sons and daughters, 

 many of whom have gone forth nixl shone as 

 lights in the world— men of eminence for talent 

 and wealth in other States; and also in ils infaiK-y 

 to contrihute an almost incredible amouirt'of men 

 and means, of Iwne and sinew, for gaining that 

 Independence which has phrced the nmion M.pon 

 its highest pinnacle, in the war of the re\oluiion. 

 All this was accompWsJied (and Wilton of the 

 New Hampshire towns aiuong the hills was not 

 alone patriotic,) before the inhahiianis understood 

 or [inictised the better [irinciple for the construc- 

 tion of roads. Beginning to learn and appreciate 

 the great value of improved roads, wilhin a few 

 years the town incurred an extra expenditure and 

 tax of nearly twenty dollars to each and every 

 man, woman and child, for new roads construct- 

 ed mainly in the most unseule<l parts of (he town 

 lip the valleys of the several mouHlain sireamsi 

 and these connected with roa<ls passing through 

 other towns, making tiie ways qn-ite as easy 

 «TOong<he l>ills as the roads over the more level 

 townships above or helow. 



These remarks have been elicited hy readin" 

 the notice of a new work lately published by Pro- 

 fes.-or Gillespie in New York, enlilled '-A Man- 

 ual of the Principles anil Practice of Road-Mak- 

 ing," from which the reviewer (ireseRtstJse follow- 

 ing extract: 



A iira^( road over an uneven and hilly coun- 

 try may, at first view, when merely seen upon the 

 iMa|), be pronounced to be a bad road ; lor i^)e 

 straightness must have been obtained either by 

 fubmiiiiug to steep slopes in ascending the hiKs, 

 and descendjiig into Uie valleys, or these natural 

 olislacJes must have Iw-eit overcome by incurring 

 » great and unnecessary expense in making deep 

 cntlings and fillings. 



A good road should wind around these hills 

 instead of ruiifiing over them, and this it may 

 often do wilhout at all increasing ils length. For 

 if a hemisphere (such as half a bullet) be placed 

 so as to rest upon its plane base, the halves of 

 great cireles which join two opposite points of ihis 

 base are all e lual, whether they pass borizontnlly 



make such a circuit as would increase its length 

 two thousand feet. The malbemalical axiom 

 that "a straight line is the shortest distance be- 

 tween two points," is thus seen to he aimnsale 

 guide in road-making, and less appropriate (ban 

 the paradoxical proverb, that "the longest way 

 around is the shortest Avay home." 



The gently curving road, besides its st/bgtan- 

 tial advantages, is also much more pleasaiK lo 

 the traveller tipon it; for he is not liitigued % the 

 ledToiw pros|K?« of a long, straight siretcii of 

 road to be travei-se<), and is met at each curve by 

 a constantly vaned view. 



or vertically. Or let an egg be laid upon a table, 

 and it will be seen that if a level line be traced 

 upon it from one end to the other, it will be no 

 longer tba'i the line traced between the same 

 (loidis, but passing over the top. Precisely so 

 may the curving road around a bill lie ofleii no 

 longer than the straight one over it ; for the lat- 

 ter road is straight only with reference to the ver- 

 tical plane which passes throiii'h it, and iscurved 

 with reference to a horizontal plane ; while the 

 former level road, thoogh curved as lo the verti- 

 cal plane, is straight as to a liorizonlal one. Both 

 lines thus curve, as we call ibe latter one straight 

 in preference, only because its vertical curvature 

 is less apparent to our eve.s. 



The difference in lengih between a strai'dit 

 road and one which is slightly curved is very 

 small. If a loail between two places, ten miles 

 upnri, were made to curve so that the eye couM 

 nowhere see furlher than a quarter of a" mile of 

 it at once, its length would exceed that of a per- 

 fectly straight roati between the same points bv 

 only almiit one hundred and fifty yards. 



But even if the level and curved road were 

 very much longer than the straight and steep one, 

 it would almost always he better to adopt the for- 

 mer ; (or on it a horse could safely and rapidly 

 • (Irawhis full load,while on the other he coiiUI carry 

 only part of his load up the hill, and must dimin- 

 ish his speed in descending it. Asn general rule 

 the horizontal length of a" road may he advanta- 

 geously increased, to avoid an ascent by at least 

 twenty limes the perpendicular height which is 

 to lie thus saved : that is, to escajie a hill a hun- 

 dred feet high, it would be proper for the road to 



l^e Riches of a Great State—Iron and Coal. 



The develojimeots of the resources of our coun- 

 try are but beginning lo be made. Twenty years 

 ago wlio would Have dreamed that of a half -lay 

 or evening five hundred tons of Pennsylvania 

 anthracite coaj \u a single power of locomotion 

 should he transported to the distance of fifty 

 miles into the interioroi'New Hampshire : We 

 have always been in the habit of carrying fuel 

 from the interior lo the city, as there bearing 

 the higher price. But since the building of a 

 city in New Hajiijisbire at the greatest water-fills 

 of the Merrimack, and a railroad passing up its 

 valley for the distance of nearly an hundred miles 

 from Boston without an undulation of rise and 

 fail exceeding in the whole distance over fifteen 

 (eet to tlH« mile, more tons of anthracite for con- 

 sumption in one week have Iteen taken from Bos- 

 ton lo Manchester than nil the merchandize pass- 

 ing to the country altove us lor a whole year be- 

 fore the railroad was constructed. 



Ti« heavy item of pass.ige up probably does 

 not exceed that of the passage down. Everv 

 thing the land or the farmer can produce, not 

 wanted for consiimptiou above, goes to a cash 

 market. The site of the most jjopiiloiis town of 

 New Ham(«hire knew hardly a building of its 

 IJresent liaMtation twelve years ago: in that lime 

 business and po/)ulation have grown here suffi- 

 cientof themselves for the support of a railroad. 

 One establishment alone, of those useful, durable 

 and cheap fabrics of cotton every where worn 

 and consi«ined throughout the country, sends over 

 the railroad on the way to market some hundred 

 bales ofgoods per day; ihecotlon wastage thrown 

 from the spinning threads of this establishment, 

 exceeds a ton and a half weight per diem. It 

 speaks well (br the manufactures of New Eng- 

 land, that ihe lime of the cheapest gomls of the 

 Amoskeag establishment haslteen the time of its 

 greatest |)rofits. The rise in the prices of c(,tion 

 and the rise of labor consequent upon the rise 

 of the prices of sustenance are fmin<l lo carry 

 not along with ibem exactly a corre<'poiiding rise 

 in the price of g<io<l.-<. 



The resources of the great conmionwealth of 

 Pennsylvania in its iron and co.il aie not yet to 

 be comprehended or couiiied. ft is remarkable 

 now to see that Slate spurred lo new enterprise 

 and effort by (he capiial and means of New Eng- 

 land. About three years ago the Reading raib 

 road leading from Philadeljdiia to the coal region 

 was taken up by Massachuseits capitalists main- 

 ly for the purpose of cheapening the transport 

 ol coal. The railroad came in com(ietiiinn with 

 a canal in the same direction through which the 

 coal had been brought. The price over the road 

 was reduced to a dollar per ton for the hundred 

 miles. The increase of the r|uaiitity of coal un- 

 der the cheapened trans|)ort astonishes every 

 body: it was n god-send to poor people, cheap- 

 ening their winter fuel in most of the Atlantic 

 cities. Coal is destined to be ilelivercd by the 

 railroads through all the interior of New England, 

 for a less price than would have been the oHginal 



price of transport from the seaboard. Pennsyl- 

 vania has inexbtfustible qiiantilies of coal. All 

 along the eastern ■declivity of the Allegany ^nd 

 Blue ridges in the valley of ih^ S„s,p,ehanm, „nd 

 Ihe highlands bordering the sources .of rbat river, 

 as well as the Schuylkill, and the 1.ac.ka-waTm,the 

 aiilhiacilecoalabotmds: this 'lays in detfp be<«8 

 sometimes (.Iny,wn otn of position on the easterly 

 angle of Hhe mountains. Where the ■wa'ten-s turn 

 westward the region of hiiuminous coal com- 

 mences.: this lays i.n hmizontal strata all over 

 some regions of oounlry. We saw it along th« 

 excavation formed 1.y the bed of the Monoiigahela 

 river above Pittsburgli, overlaid with limestone 

 and underlaid with iron ore i.n some iiistimcfs. 

 The apertures running into the emUi ujyoii the 

 side-hill from which the coal was taken out and 

 let <iown upon inclined .planes to be loaded tijion 

 the hoats lying along, looked like .entraiKM^s to 

 arrt-hills l,y the animal of incrediWc la-boi-, Tdo 

 bit^Hminm^scoal and iron ore in Pennsylvaflia 

 have bull! «,p in that section of the State l«.yond 

 the moqqmtains the Iron city with irearly ils hun- 

 dred ihonsatid inhabitants. PittsWgb, h. a mao- 

 ulactiLre «f glass nrore beautiful than a«y mnnu 

 factnre of the kind in the Atlantic cities, al- 

 ready employs a milhon ami a Jwlf <lo.|lai-s of 

 capital. 



Pennsylvania also furnisJies the j.ine timber 

 used for the better buildings far down the Ohio 

 and Mississippi river to New Orleans. Of thia 

 western Pennsylvania |«ne forest, a member of 

 Congress of New Hampsbi,>e, who has made a 

 fortune as a lumber mei-cf>ant (iir «p )h« valley 

 of the Conneciicui, has recently carrietJ his e«ter- 

 f.rise to the Keystone State in the ,,vux>hase ofi 

 several thousand acres of evergreen fo.tjst near 

 the sources of one of the hraiiclies of th« Sirs- 

 I i|uehanna. 



But the great soin-ce of g«i,, which ca« never 

 be exhausted in Pennsylvania is her rich trail ore, 

 abounding in all |«rts of the State. Fmn this 

 material only a fow months since has com^oenoed 

 the mamilacture of railwad iron. Fall Riveo in 

 Massachusetts, upon Ihe conHnesofRbcIc Island 

 on a branch of the N.nraganset bay, c^beady a 

 beaulilul inanMliw^Miring cityset upon (t hilly i»do- 

 ing wonders with coal and iron Ircwdrt Som 

 Pennsylvania, in the making of giant !«,.>ch«,ery 

 and iron rails for roa.ls. The pig ii-o„,of i?bnn- 

 sylvania, made from the heat of awhrasi-le, is 

 worth .lelivered in Boston $i7 per ton -made 

 from the chniroal heal (a process like thtrt of co- 

 king) the pigs are worth there $34 jier tan. Ex- 

 Governor Porter of Harrishurgh, P-,,., in Swn es- 

 tabllshinent.-i turns out from the ore five thous.uid 

 tons of pig iron per annum : lhisyea*i he furnish- 

 es for the furnaces of Horace Gray and Company 

 at South Bo.«ton three thuusan.l Ioiip. This <'eii- 

 tleman, once the popular chief magistrate of his. 

 Slate, retired to private life, ia of that class of 

 men who are not a|it to slay ruined frtmi any for- 

 mer revulsions of business. Having made and 

 lost a fortune before he entered on public life, 

 the iron business since he retired li-nin office has 

 again made him independent— but t>ot too inde- 

 pendent 10 travel the country on biraine.ss ns the 

 unassuming and unpretending private citizen.— 

 Gov. Porter had whilom been talksd of beyond 

 the limits of his State as a promin»nt candidate 

 for the second office in the gift of the people of 

 the IJniteil Stales: he doubtless enjoys himself 

 quite as much in the prnflinble devefepment of tbe 

 riches under ground of his Stale ne he would in 

 any public honors that office mighii bestow upon . 

 him. 



