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.foreign (fforresponbence. 
LETTERS FROM MR. HORSFORD—No. IV. 
Maycnce — Frankfort—Mode of Traveling — Giessen — Prof. 
Liebig and his Laboratory. 
Giessen, Germany, Dec. 1845. 
Mr. Tucker —At Mayence, an hour of interval be¬ 
tween arrival and departure, permitted me to glance at 
the most prominent objects. In the river, against the 
town, are some sixteen grain mills, which seem to be 
little floating houses, anchored, and their machinery car¬ 
ried by the current. Below the bridge of boats, com¬ 
manding a fine view of the river and the lands beyond, 
is a vast red sand-stone pile, interesting as having been 
the head quarters of Napoleon, when here. It is now a 
mere store-house. Above the bridge, strong fortifica¬ 
tions are going up. Two or three streets back from the 
river, is the cathedral, of which much was written in the 
guide books, but which I found it difficult to appreciate 
from the crowds of little insignificant buildings that sur¬ 
round it; as a specimen of architecture, it is quite lost. 
A little farther on is the statue erected to the memory 
of the accredited inventor of the art of printing. It is 
of bronze, about 25 feet high—a figure robed, and with 
a huge bible under the arm—designed by Thorwaldsen. 
A few yards from it, on one side are wretched little an¬ 
tique buildings, under the shadow of the lofty cathedral; 
on the other, at no great distance, is the theatre, a splen¬ 
did modern building; within a stone’s throw are the walls 
about the city, destined to bear up cannon, and echo the 
peals of artillery; and here in the center, is a memento 
to the man, through whose invention the features of this 
ancient city are to be made known to residents of anoth¬ 
er continent—through which Luther revolutionized the 
world, and through which we may yet see Mayence 
strongly fortified without walls and a standing army. 
From Mayence to Frankfort, a railway conveyance 
brings the traveller in an hour and a half. The road is 
level or nearly so, and the track supplied on either side, 
much of the distance with a row of trees. Frank fort-on-I 
the-Mayn, is interesting as one of the free cities of Ger-! 
many. Its streets are about as regular as those of May¬ 
ence or Cologne, which is about equal to saying that a 
right line seems to have had no charms for the practical 
architects and engineers of these towns. The sashes of 
the windows are in the form of a cross; being made of 
four lesser sashes, which, each by itself, turns upon hin¬ 
ges. It is quite impossible to have a window elevated of 
depressed by weights, since the walls are filled in with 
bricks. The most modern, as well as more ancient 
structures, are all arranged in the same way. This is 
one of the great Fair cities of Europe. Every traveller, 
passing not more than a day here, sees a great many 
things to be remembered for life. I will mention but 
two or three. In a narrow street known as the residence 
of Jews, resides the recently made Baron Rothschild. 
His dwelling is a palace. A little way from his magni¬ 
ficent dwelling, in a humble unobtrusive structure, still 
lives his aged mother, refusing to exchange the hearth 
stones that have become dear to her, for even splendors 
that few monarchs of the world can command. 
Along one of the principal streets, among other dis¬ 
plays of costly ware, the colored Bohemian glass, whose 
manufacture is kept a secret, eclipses every thing of the 
kind I have ever seen. Blues, carmines, yellows, greens 
and reds, that seem to have been stolen from rainbows, 
are impressed upon vessels of every form and use. I un¬ 
derstand approximations to the excellence of the article 
are made in England. 
Here also, as in many places on the Rhine, rows of 
acacia trees have been cropped, causing the branches at 
the terminus to grow abruptly outward. The cropping 
again of the branches produces a similar effect upon 
them, and the foliage is in this way rendered exceedingly 
dense. It seems to be admired, but I did not find my ear¬ 
ly estimate of the beauty of the free wide-spreading oaks 
of the Genesee Valley materially lessened, though driv¬ 
ing through them more or less for a day or two. The 
inhabitants have appropriated a birch shrub to the growth 
of hedges. It becomes dense by frequent cropping, and 
seems to serve the purpose well, though much inferior 
to the hawthorn hedges of England. They compel the 
same shrub to grow into a variety of fantastic shapes, as 
ornaments for gardens and passage ways. In a park not 
far from the theatre, is a statue of Goethe, much in the 
style of that of Mayence. The poet was born here. 
From Frankfort to Giessen, an Eilwagen or diligence , 
conveys the traveler in about six hours. The villages 
along the way are exceedingly numerous, there being 
one as frequently as one or two miles. The country be¬ 
tween is a section of cultivated fields, separated from each 
other and theMcAdam roads, by nothing except little ba¬ 
saltic or red sandstone land marks. There are no dwell¬ 
ings intervening between the villages; some of the towns 
are walled and garrisoned. The only object that particu¬ 
larly interested me along the route was a mode of eva¬ 
porating salt. There seem to be springs, like those at 
Salina, from which the water is taken to the top of a 
frame work some thirty-five feet high, and then permit¬ 
ted to trickle through bundles of twigs, to vats below. 
This of course much concentrates the water, and renders 
less boiling necessary, an important point where wood is 
so scarce. 
The Eilwagen seats just nine passengers; six in one 
apartment, and three in the other. The seats are num¬ 
bered and taken in the order of payment. Luggage is 
locked up behind and strapped on top. The horses, lean, 
