146 
NOTES OF AN AMERICAN TOUR. 
twice ; and this distance is equal to the diameter of the earth, 
so that if there had been a passage through the centre of the 
earth to the other side that would not have been a longer 
journey. A most striking impression was received of the 
vast extent of the United States, which are seen to be really 
a compound of many widely different countries—the older 
Eastern States each about the size of England on the 
average, and the newer Western States several times larger. 
The contrast is very striking in going from New York State, 
with its energetic restless Yankee activity, to Virginian take- 
it-easy indolence of habit; and the contrast in the scenery 
from the extensive wooded hills and valleys of New York and 
Vermont to the barren prairies and wild deserts of Kansas 
and Arizona. The changes in the people too are very marked 
in going West, where they speak like English without the 
peculiar Yankee twang of the Eastern States ; which is 
probably simply a survival of the old Puritan style of speak¬ 
ing established by the first settlers, the Puritan Fathers, and 
has since become greatly mixed and diluted in the Western 
States by the enormous subsequent immigrations. 
New 7 York is pre-eminently the capital of the United 
States, as London is of Great Britain ; being equal in popu¬ 
lation to the whole of the ten next largest cities of the 
country, and as large as one-lialf the population of London, 
including with New York, Brooklyn and New Jersey, which 
are on the opposite banks of the two rivers. 
New York itself is in a very unique position, and 
occupies the whole of an island ten miles in length and 
two miles in width, with the great Hudson Ptiver on one 
side, and on the other side the narrow extremity of the 
arm of the sea that separates Long Island from the main 
land. Brooklyn is situated on Long Island, and is as 
large as one-third the size of New York ; New Jersey is on 
the main land, one-quarter the size of Brooklyn. The island 
on which New York stands, called Manhattan Island, is filled 
up completely with houses, excepting a small portion at the 
North end that is not yet built upon, and excepting the large 
Central Park that is reserved in the centre, about two and 
a-lialf miles in length and half a mile in width, which is 
beautifully laid out as ornamental pleasure grounds and forms 
a charming breathing place in the middle of the great city. 
The streets are all at right angles and in straight lines, 
excepting the old portion of the city towards the southern 
point, which is irregularly built, and excepting the most 
important street, the celebrated “ Broadway,” which crosses 
the other streets obliquely for a great portion of its length. 
