70 



$l)c jTarmcv's iltontl)ln ilisitor. 



be raised and supplied on the instant if the 

 means of subsistence for the expedition could be 

 had. Captain Langdon— he deserved his title 

 from being the commander of his own merchant 

 ship— had a cargo of Tobago rum arrived ill 

 port — a valuable article then used as well for 

 raising meeting houses as for supplying the 

 warmth to soldiers sleeping without sufficient 

 covering upon the cold ground, and even used, 

 as was said, mixed with gunpowder to inspirit 

 the hardy American soldier going into battle: 

 that cargo of the old "West India," which was 

 seldom used at that time to make a drunken 

 man, was worth the dollars, three thousand and 

 more: it was sold and devoted to supply food 

 for the purpose of fitting out the identical New 

 Hampshire regiments which under Stark gave 

 the first check, resulting afterwards in the igno- 

 minious defeat of Burgoyne's whole army, at 

 Bennington in two successive battles fought up- 

 on the same day : to the cargo of rum Captain 

 Langdon added the pledge of the family silver 

 plate, earned by his own enterprise, to the value 

 of several thousand dollars more. Nor did his 

 services end here: although not in any military 

 command, as soon as the expedition, composed 

 of the ancestors of many now living all around 

 us, scarcely one of whom now survives, was un- 

 der way, the master spirit who furnished the 

 means to set the ball in motion, accompanies the 

 expedition to Bennington in person. Mow grand 

 are now our conceptions of this glorious patriot! 

 We see him in the mind's eye as we first saw 

 him while Governor of the, State in the year 

 1809, the noblest specimen of the man and dig- 

 nified gentleman that our eyes had ever witness: 

 ed. H'! it was who afterwards in 1789, after the 

 adoption of that " most stupendous frabric of hu- 

 man invention," the present Constitution of the 

 Union, in the structure of which he advised as a 

 member of the convention at every step: — he it 

 was who afterwards, in virtue of his office of 

 president of the United States Senate, stood first 

 in the place of President of the United States, 

 introducing and qualifying the immortal Wash- 

 ington, the first unanimously elected to that 

 office by the people. Of all the noble deeds and 

 eventful life of John Langdon there can be no 

 historian who may do him even-handed justice. 

 The papers and the records furnish but frag- 

 ments of his history. 



But not less wary and patriotic than the master 

 spirit was his colleague from New Hampshire in 

 the Continental Congress of 1775-6, the first 

 Josiah Bartlett, who presided over the govern- 

 ment of this State several years before the ex- 

 istence of its present Constitution. He was in- 

 stant in season and out of season in every thing 

 that related to his country's welfare. The object 

 of the letter addressed to the Committee of 

 Safety from Philadelphia seemed to he solely the 

 transmission of a letter to the speaker of our 

 House of Assembly from agents who had gone 

 to England to present a petition from Congress 

 to the crown and parliament of England. He 

 embraces in the same letter other topics. The 

 manufacture of gunpowder had become a matter 

 of scarcely less importance at the moment than 

 the raising of men : its deficiency at Bunker 

 Hill bad been full in the necessary retreat of the 

 Americans from the Charlestown peninsula, 

 when the powder gave out. A plenty of powder 

 would probably have enabled Stark's command 

 to repulse the advance of the British grenadiers 

 a third and fourth, as it did a first and second 

 time, when marching to encircle the fort. The 



Congress at Philadelphia passed "resolves for 

 making sall-petre," and President Bartlett in the 

 same letter as that from which this extract is 

 taken " earnestly recommends the putting them 

 in practice." 



The nitre collected about buildings, no longer 

 necessary for the manufacture of gunpowder to 

 be used in the assertion and defence of our lib- 

 erties, is valuable for other important domestic 

 purposes. Preserved and used in the soil as a 

 stimulant for the crops produced by our mother 

 earth, the nitre as a principal ingredient of gun- 

 powder, would be of immense value. Like the 

 ammonia of our best manures carelessly expo- 

 sed as well in yards and hovels as when it is 

 laid out in the fields passing off in the air, so 

 does the nitre collected about buildings becojne 

 wasteil and useless: indeed there are few per- 

 sons who seem to be conscious that such virtue 

 exists where the means of its creation are hardly 

 realized by the every-day observer. Mr. Bartlett 

 was a physician and as much of a chemist prob- 

 ably as the most learned of his day: his best 

 knowledge was diverted to the use of his coun- 

 try. Accordingly as the sequel of his letter to 

 the New Hampshire Committee of Safety of 

 1775, he finishes as follows : 



It appears from several experi- 

 ments in this Colony, [Pennsylvania, where Dr. 

 Franklin was at least half a century in advance 

 of his time in science] that the surface of the 

 earth that has been for some years kept from the 

 rain will produce saltpetre. The floor of a 

 meeting house being taken up, the earth pro- 

 duced one pound for every bushel: under barns, 

 stables, &c. much more. There appears to be 

 no more art in making it than in making potash. 

 When the liquor is properly boiled and put into 

 pans to cool, it shoots and sticks to the bottom 

 and sides very beautifully. The liquor may then 

 be easily drained off, and either boiled over again 

 or put on another mash. Though probably the 

 Continent will be well supplied with powder in 

 the spring, yet it is best by all means to put it out 

 of the power of our enemies to defeat us of that 

 necessary article, hy supplying ourselves, and if 

 we have a double or treble quantity it will be no 

 damage, and in future save our cash from being 

 sent abroad after it. 



The principle then understood by Dr. Bartlett 

 of the concentration of nitre may serve to ex 

 plain the creation of guano, that most valuable 

 of all the concentrated manures, now come to 

 be used extensively in Europe as an article of 

 manure. Inexhaustible quantities of guano are 

 said to exist on the islands of the Pacific near 

 the equator off the coast of Peru : its value, be- 

 longing to the government, is represented to be 

 of sufficient magnitude to afford a perpetual rev- 

 enue for the support of the civil institutions of 

 that ancient Spanish province now an indepen- 

 dent sovereignty of South America. It seldom 

 or never rains upon the islands where the guano 

 is formed. If the ammonia, collected under a 

 meeting house where no drainings of cattle or 

 other manure-making substances are lodged, con- 

 centrates nitre for the manufacture of a pound 

 of saltpetre to every bushel of the surface soil, 

 what might we not expect in a series of ages 

 from the concentrated ammonia upon the Peru- 

 vian islands situated and surrounded by the salt 

 water, where myriads of birds are constantly de- 

 positing the excrements of the sustenance which 

 is derived Horn the fish and flesh and vegetable 

 substances obtained from the surrounding seas? 

 The guano conies from the islands where it nev- 

 er rains — it is the concentrated ammonia fixed 

 by long-continued dryness of the atmosphere — 

 fixed and nearly mineralized from the lapse of 

 time which has collected it in banks to ihu 



depth of many feet. By the last English prices 

 current we observe that Peruvian guano rules at 

 wholesale at the rate of nine and ten pounds 

 sterling (forty and fifty dollars) the ton. In this 

 country, from its scarcity, it is retailing from sixty 

 to eighty dollars the ton. 



Growth of Philadelphia. Fairniount and the 

 Siispensiou Iiiidge. 



On our way home from Washington in the lust 

 days of April, while tarrying of an afternoon at 

 Philadelphia, we took an omnibus for Fairniount, 

 which has for many years furnished from the' 

 Schuylkill, pure water to the inhabitants of that 

 city. Astonishing had been the progress of the 

 city since we last visited Fairniount, some twelve 

 years ago. The business and the buildings ex- 

 tending the beautiful streets, originally laid 

 out by Penn now almost two centuries ago, over 

 the spaceway of miles, seemingly as large in the 

 new part as was the whole extent of the old city 

 including Southwark and the Northern Liberties, 

 from the Delaware river on the east to the 

 Schuylkill river on the west, — had spread to an 

 incredible extent. The coal and the iron trade, 

 annually accumulating in the interior of Penn- 

 sylvania probably at the rate of from twenty-five 

 to fifty per cent, had been one of the causes of 

 the immense creation of capital in active busi- 

 ness which the city now presents. We had no 

 idea, after the paralyzation said to have heen pro- 

 duced by the sinking of thirty-six millions of 

 capital in the United States Bank, that Phila 

 delphia could be alike prosperous now with 

 other cities of the country, as New York and 

 Boston : but revulsions produced by swindling 

 banks and corrupt speculators seem to have little 

 effect in retarding that prosperity of the city 

 which has grown out of the industry and enter- 

 prise of the men of this country. 



The entire waters of the Schuylkill river 

 are brought to the particular use of the city 

 which lies now as between the two rivers at the 

 point near down to where the former unites it- 

 self to the Delaware. A fall in the river, over 

 which a peculiar dam, striking at first up stream 

 for a considerable distance, and then nearly at 

 right angles crosses to the western shore, fur- 

 nishes the power for forcing the water up an 

 elevation of seventy-five or a hundred feet. This 

 elevation with a rocky base lies above all the 

 country around on that side of the river in a sin- 

 gle hill just large enough fur a convenient basin 

 for holding the water to he lei off in pipes and 

 communicated to all parts of the city. As this 

 basin was constructed when the city was of much 

 smaller dimensions than it now is, it might be 

 supposed that the requisite quantity of water 

 would hardly be supplied for the whole. A 

 great revenue is derived to the city Irom the 

 Fairniount water works. It was remarkable 

 now to see the same white marble images that 

 stood on the sides of Fairniount, sending forth 

 as if coining out of the rock, the continuous 

 stream of water which flowed years ago, purify- 

 ing and cooling the air in hot sultry weather all 

 around it. As one of the places of constant re- 

 sort in the warm seasons of the year, the frequent 

 omnibuses furnish the means of easy travel : six 

 cents only to the passenger are charged lor the 

 whole distance across the city from the Mer- 

 chants' Exchange to the Schuylkill river. — 

 To every visitor of Philadelphia the jaunt to 

 Fairniount commends itself. 



The ancient villa of Robert Morris, the finan- 

 cier of the American revolution, lies a little to 



