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nine pairs of horses being not an infrequent team, and the men em- 

 ployed in quarrying the stone, have made large demands for agricul- 

 tural produce. In looking at the facts in this case, it is curious to 

 observe the chain of connexion running through the multiplied and 

 ramified interests and relations of human life ; how actions and affairs 

 of remote countries and distant times spread their roots in every di- 

 rection, and penetrate to a wide extent of time and place. Thus the 

 revolutions in St. Domingo, which occurred nearly half a century 

 since, and first laid the foundation of the mammoth foitune of this 

 Philadelphia merchant, are now setting in motion the industry and 

 increasing the comforts and wealth of the farmers of Berkshire ; and 

 promise to extend a beneficent action and influence upon the intellec- 

 tual and moral interests of mankind through the generations of all 

 future time. So full of importance and pregnant with incalculable 

 consequences is every event and action in human history ; a mixed 

 web, whose thread Omniscience only can trace and unravel. / 



3. Natural Scenery. The natural scenery of this county 

 combines, in a high degree, the beautiful, the grand, and the pictur- 

 esque. There is an intermingling of so much that is charming and 

 tasteful in rural life with so much that is lovely, elevating, and mag- 

 nificent in the aspects of nature, that a benevolent and philosophic 

 traveller, in winding his way through the favored valley of the Hou- 

 satonic, finds his imagination aroused to its highest capacity of enjoy- 

 ment, and his benevolent and grateful affections continually warmed 

 and expanded. I have a strong faith in the influences of natural sce- 

 nery upon the mind and character. The grandeur of nature inspires 

 nobleness of thought ; and lofty thoughts bring in their train noble 

 and comprehensive affections. The sublimity of a towering moun- 

 tain makes the bosom heave with kindred emotions ; and a prospect, 

 which is bounded only by the horizon, gives an enlargement of mind, 

 which spreads by sympathy into every other department of thought 

 and feeling. What is immense and comparatively limitless in nature 

 powerfully stimulates the sentiment of religious veneration in the 

 heart ; and by a natural process conducts the mind to the contempla- 

 tion of the infinitude, the power, and the perfection of the Creator. 



It is among these higli hills and mountains, where men are trained 

 in the habits of simple life and of self-reliance, that the spirit of free- 



