64 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



200 million pounds of tobacco, five million busliels of barley, 

 potatoes in fabulous quantities and fifty-two million pounds of 

 wool. Without passing through the entire list these illustrations 

 may serve to shew what is the rate of progress in this direction 

 in this comparatively young country. 



Regarding mankind as one great family, alike interested in the 

 moral government and providence of God, and in that social pro- 

 gress which constitutes the glory of humanity, is there nothing in 

 the fact that the southern States of the Union supply England, the 

 greatest manufacturing nation in the world, annually with sixty mil- 

 lion dollars worth of their staple production? Is t'.iere in this no 

 guarantee for peace and for the consequent social progress of the 

 two most intelligent nations on the face of the earth 1 Great 

 Britain excepted, the external commerce and navigation of the 

 United States, exceed that of any other nation. It is not that 

 there is any thing so wonderful in this if it were not that it has 

 been the growth of less than a century. 



Among the most interesting features of the present age, steam 

 navigation must. not be overlooked. Several lines of steam com- 

 munication between Europe and America are now in existence. 

 Magnificent vessels have been constructed, chiefly by American 

 shipbuilders, which connect the two continents twice every week 

 by a voyage occupying only nine days. 



It is neither unfair nor unkind to say that the mercantile marine 

 of America, amounting to one-ninth of all the sea-going ships of 

 the world, excels them all in most of the requisites which can 

 confer distinction, aiid holds out models which cannot but be gene- 

 rally adopted. 



Honor to the memory of George Steers. Conceived when he was 

 a mere boy, his system of ship-building, (now well illustrated in 

 the Niagara and Adriatic, those magnificent ships whose splendid 

 proportions have excited so much admiration,) is based on the 

 assumption, that, for a vessel to sail easily, steadily and rapidly, 

 the displacement of water must be nearly uniform along her line. 

 This principle he has carried out in every vessel he has built. 

 When he laid the keel of the Mary Taylor, he engaged to make 

 her a faster, dryer, and steadier craft than had ever left the port 



