1 
PERSISTENCE 
writing, and political speaking of the liberal 
sort. Mr. Aikens’ reading was very much 
given to books on science, mechanics and 
works of reference. 
From Adams, Mr. Aikens made a short 
stay at New Bedford and about Boston, in 
1853, " here he wa» employed as proof reader 
in the State Printing Office. Following the 
star of his destiny, the next year he brought 
up in the city of New York, where 
he was immediately engaged upon 
the Post, in whose interest he was 
soon afterward sent to the West as 
correspondent. In this capacity he 
visited the principal cities from St. 
Paul to St. Louis, writing up the 
mineral aud manufacturing interests 
of the country. During this journey 
in the West, Mr. Aikens visited Mil¬ 
waukee, where he made the ac¬ 
quaintance of Mr. Cramer, with 
whom he soon after became associa¬ 
ted in the printing business, in the 
connection which still continues. 
During bis early slay in Milwaukee, 
Mr. Aikens was engaged ns city 
editor of the Milwaukee Wisconsin, 
. and soon after as Secretary of the 
Chamber of Commerce, in compli¬ 
ment to bis talent as a statistician, 
which office he held for flve years. 
of Cramer, 
rabcler 
Because I begged so hard, 
She has at lust unbarred 
The treasure-chamber of her fastened heart, 
And Love's feet enter In, 
That waited long to win 
Their way. nor would from closed door depart 
His patient, faithful feet 
Find favor with my Sweet. 
ANDREW J. AIKENS, 
WILD SCENERY IN VIRGINIA, 
Vermont is a good State for one to be 
born in, as many of the live men of the 
world know by personal experience. Of 
M.r, Charles Nordhoff, formerly of tlic 
Evening Post, has recently completed a trip 
through the Virginias; and has recorded bis 
impressions in a series of very readable let¬ 
ters to the New York Tribune. He com¬ 
pares the famous New River Gorge of West 
ith the Yosemite wonders of Cali- 
Becausc t bogged so hard, 
This, then, Is uiy reward— 
Love the wayfarer becomes Love the guest 
No more in streets of scorn 
He turns away forlorn, 
His tired foot find rooms of shaded rest, 
Where all their dusty heat 
Is cooled by my Sweet. 
V 11 ‘gumi w 
forma, and adds: 
More than two years were consumed in 
the survey of the wild country between the 
White Sulphur Springs aud the Falls of Ka¬ 
nawha. I met, on the line, some of the gen¬ 
tlemen who bad been engaged in this work, 
and saw the difficulties which they encoun¬ 
tered aud heard of the hair-breadth escapes 
which some of them made from a terrible 
death. In our somewhat difficult ride we 
surmounted the precipices and approached 
the river only at intervals; but the engineers 
hud to carry a line along the river; their 
duty led them to the most inaccessible places, 
aud they bad to take nice measurements 
where it was not easy for a squintl to stand, 
and where men could only crawl on their 
hands and knees, or be supported by ropes. 
The result is a roadway which passes 
through the mountains on an easier grade 
by far than any other of the great East and 
West lines connecting the Atlantic with the 
West. The Erie Railway has grades as high 
as eighty-four feet to the mile; the Pennsyl¬ 
vania has ninety-five feet to the mile; the 
New York Central, though in general it lias 
easy grades, inns up to ninety-five feet to 
the mile; the Baltimore and Ohio runs up 
to one hundred and fifteen feet to the mile. 
The Chesapeake and Ohio will have no 
grades over thirty feet to the mile facing 
west, and west of Howard’s Creek it has 
none over twenty feet to the mile. It will 
have the lowest grades of all the East and 
West lines, and this, joined to the fact that 
it laps the Ohio at a point—Huntington— 
so low down that it is always accessible to 
steamboats, so shat it will give the south¬ 
west its shortest connection with the Atlan¬ 
tic, would make it a great enterprise, im¬ 
portant to the country, even if it did not 
pass through i region of unexampled rich¬ 
ness in coal, iron and timber, which has 
heretofore been strut out from a market, and 
closed against capital and industry. 
The New River aud the Greenbrier have, 
in the course of ages, worn their way through 
the mass of hills and mountains which lie 
between the Falls of Kanawha and the 
White Sulphur Springs. In all this country, 
so fur us I could notice, there are very few 
signs of the upheaval strata. The rocks lie 
in their beds as they were deposited, aud the 
river seems lo have worn its way down from 
the tops of the mountains to the present 
level. It was to carry an easy grade that 
the engineers of the Chesapeake and Ohio 
Road selected the course of the New River 
for their line. There, nature had done, in 
the course, perhaps, of millions of years, a 
work of excavation for them, which gave 
them the means of laying a road-bed so 
nearly level that it presents no obstacle 
to travel or transportation. They had only 
to lake care that the road should run above 
the level of higli water; and as the river 
rises sometimes forty or fifty feet, this bus 
placed the line high above the low water 
which prevails at this season of the year. 
At. two great bends which the New River 
makes, tunnels are building. One of these, 
(3,400 feet long, will ho the longest in the 
United States until the Hoosac Tunnel is 
completed. It saves nearly five miles of dif- 
g. In these tunnels large 
IJi'cmiso I begged so hard, 
For nneu my fitto tll-Btarred 
Is swayed by tlio mild might, of happy moons, 
Only one lightest touch ! 
Only I but,, oh, how uiuuh! 
Lovo wearies out whom well ho importunes? 
And well did lie entreat 
Tlite mercy of my Sweet. 
THE GREAT YOSEMITE FALLS. 
In the Valley of the Yosemite, 
Mariposa Co., California, is to be 
seen one of the most stupendous 
waterfalls on the globe,—not so 
much for the volume of water which 
is discharged, ns for the great higlit 
from which it leaps, and the 
beauty of its descent. In the sum¬ 
mer of 1869 Rev. E. D. Prime, one 
of the editors of the New York Ob- 
server, visited the Valley of the f ^ 
Yosemite, and in a letter written t 
on the spot, makes the following 
narrative of the great water-falls 
represented in our illustration: 
“ Directly in frout of the hotel the 
Yosemite Fall meets the eye, the 
water dropping gently over the 
brow of the opposite cliff 1,500 feet, 
then striking the rock ami flowing on in a 
cascade 630 feet farther, when it makes a 
final leap of 400 feet and is gathered up in 
the basin below. In the course of the morn¬ 
ing we walked to the foot of the Fall, half a 
mile distant, and listened to the story of the 
stream which had fallen from the dizzy 
higlit, and drank of the pure water as it 
flowed quietly away toward the Merced. 
The volume of water at this season of the 
year is not large, hut no accumulation could 
add to the gracefulness of this highest of the 
Falls, which is sometimes altogether turned 
aside from the perpendicular by the wind 
swaying it to aud fro, like a sheet oi gauze, 
and occosioimlly, is almost lost in mist in 
I tnakifi 
Because r hogged so hard 
Years, wlili ami seasons niurred, 
Are lightened biiokwufdb us with sudden suns, 
Ydfl, over life's whole skies 
The light Ol her dear eyes 
Travels, Hite ilinvn and sunset shed nt once. 
Mixed In one glory, meet 
All days tills ilny, my Sweet! 
Because I bogged so hard, 
Thoshadow doth retard 
Upon the dial one delicious hour: 
One hour that la not found 
Within the duy'B dull round. 
But added by great Love’s exerted power 
Lot time move on, its beat 
Is muslo now, my Sweet! 
The present firm 
Aikens & Cramer, arc large opera¬ 
tors in the printing of “Outsides” 
for local newspapers, more than five 
hundred editions of which are issued 
from the press of the above firm. Mr. 
Aikens was among the first, if not the 
very first, to introduce the co-operative plan 
of printing newspapers in America. In the 
year 1844, lie observed that ft small campaign 
paper was made up from the forms of a large 
weekly. The idea at once occurred to him, 
why cannot this be done with other papers, 
ami tints save composition, press work and 
editing V The advertising agents, too, he 
thought could by such a plan, send out their 
advertisements through this method, and 
thereby greatly reduce the expenses to pub¬ 
lishers. * * * * To give a clearer idea 
of the wonderful success of Mr. Aiken’s 
enterprise, it may lie stated that there are 
now eight hundred and fifty newspapers 
in the United States printed on this plan. 
In personal appearance Mr. Aikens is tall, 
aud of a large, well-knit frame. Usually 
thoughtful and contemplative, he is as genial 
and courteous in manner as he is generous 
in his social relations. 
Still da I bog her lull'd. 
For inner gules still guard, 
And ns bo passed, so Love ngiitn would puss 
Entering lu feur and bound. 
Returning free and crowned. 
The going of bis fuel Shull fall, alas! 
But now their eugor boat 
Must win Its way, my Sweet! 
AXDRKW J. AIKKNS. 
this class is A. J. Aikens, whose portrait is 
at the head of this sketch, and who was 
horn at Barnard in the year 1830. Being of 
an active and intellectual turn of mind, lie 
obtained a fair early education, and for a 
time devoted himself to teaching school. 
Being also of a mechanical t urn of mind, he 
took a fancy to learn the art of printing, for 
which purpose, at the age of fifteen, lie en¬ 
tered the office of the Spirit of the Age, nt 
Woodstock, Vt. Three years later lie had 
made such good use of his opportunities 
that he was in charge of the printing office 
and was editor of the paper one year. From 
Woodstock he went to Bennington to accept 
the position of editor of the Gazette, where 
he remained two years, acting us editor, 
bookkeeper, pressmen, etc. Mr. Aikens 
then removed to North Adams, Maes., 
where he edited the S*nt.ir4l for two years. 
During all this wane j$r. Aikens was 
engaged in various literary labors—reading, 
torics for 
MABGABET HAMILTON: 
A STORY OF DUTY AND DISCIPLINE 
BY PEN DENNIS. 
ig the long descent in air.” 
Surely, when we have such wonders in 
our own land, Americans have little occa¬ 
sion to vis! (t, foreign countries on sight-seeing 
excursions. Like Charity, their viewing of 
wonders should begin at home. 
j ’linitmui'lil llimiii 
ficulL road buildin 
gangs of men are employed at several points, 
and the whole line is in a good stale of for¬ 
wardness. Willi the exception of some miles 
of easy work near the Greenbrier, which can 
be done so rapidly that it was not advisable 
to put it under contract until next spring, 
the winds line of the New River aud Green¬ 
brier is under contract, and everywhere the 
contractors’ gangs are busily at work. A 
great part of the road-bed has already been 
completed,and all is so planned and carried on 
that the whole line shall be done simultane¬ 
ously with the tunnel at Great Bend. There 
is no reason to doubt that, as the work is 
now going on, the road can he opened by or 
before next October, which I believe the en¬ 
gineers expect to accomplish. Indeed, though 
there is still some heavy work to be done— 
for it is all, or nearly all, heavy work—it 
seemed to me that the worst had been done 
first, and that what remains is neither so 
difficult nor likely to he so costly or tedious 
as what is finished. 
The piers of the bridge at the crossing of 
the New River, at Miller’s Ferry, for 
instance, the longest bridge on the road, are 
completed; and one span of the bridge will 
be laid this Fall. This bridge will he 670 
feet long, ami the span which was being 
raised when I passed there was 250 feet in 
length. 
There is very little bridging needed on 
the New River (I believe there is only one 
THE GREAT YOSEMITE FALLS, CALIFORNIA (2,700 FEET HIGH.) 
