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presence, the debates in both chambers were on no interesting 
subjects, therefore I did not stay long. In the senate chamber 
hung two pictures of no great excellence, by an artist of Charles- 
ton: the battle of Eutaw in the revolutionary war,under General 
Greene, and the defence of the lines at New Orleans, by General 
Jackson. In a few days an interesting object was to be taken 
into consideration, namely, the question if the government of 
the United States have the right to lay out canals and public roads 
in the different states of the union, or not! Reasonable men 
conceive that the government must have the power to execute 
such works; on the other hand, the short-sighted, from certain 
envy between the states, dispute this right with the government 
The jealousy between the states seems to take the upper hand. 
The state of South Carolina intended to make a public road, lead¬ 
ing from Charleston westwards to the state of Tennessee; this 
road would have -passed for some miles through the state of North 
Carolina, the state of North Carolina opposed its execution, under 
the pretext that the road would not bring sufficient profit to the 
last state, although the two first states would have executed it at 
their own expense. The true reason of this opposition is said to 
be that the advantage of that road to the state of South Carolina, 
was grudged by the other states. 
From the state-house we went to Columbia College; it is an 
university, but has neither medical nor theological faculties. 
There are six professors. Dr. Cooper is the president, with 
whom I became acquainted last summer in Boston: on his return 
home, he was taken sick in Richmond. 
The number of students was one hundred and twenty, who 
live in two large buildings, opposite each other; between them 
is the house of the President, and on both sides the houses of the 
professors. We paid a visit to Mr. Vanuxem, Professor of 
Natural History. He showed us the collection of minerals be¬ 
longing to the college, but not so interesting as the collection of 
minerals of South Carolina, made by him last summer. There 
were several fine tourmalines, emeralds, pyrites containing gold; 
a new kind of metal called Columbian, asbestus and different 
specimens of primitive rocks. There was also pure gold from 
North Carolina^ which was only discovered about six years 
ago. When at Cheraw, I was willing to make an excur¬ 
sion to the gold mine, but it would have taken me a couple of 
days. I was told, gold is found in a slime, which is dried up 
and then sifted, the gold dust remaining in the sieve. But miners 
are expected from Germany, and at their arrival, they will begin 
a regular exploration. It is said, that at present the company has 
a profit of twenty dollars a week. I visited also the library, which 
was not considerable, and did not contain any thing remarkable. 
