25 cer is gives $2,000,000.”

"The interest on the cost of their con

struction is $900,000, and rate '06 per cent." "But the increase by the inci cased value of wheat, is '134, '07, per cent. over that of the public debt, and that increase is permanent." 'In ten years it would pay both the principal and interest of the public debt.".

No estinate is here made of the increased value of our entire crop of 20,000,000 bushels of 'wheat, and of our corn and other staple products; nor of the increased price of our land and the diminished cost of merchandise, altogether amounting annually to the gain on our wheat.

At 25 cents, 20,000,000 bushels give $5,000,000, which doubled is $10,000,000, as the aggregate amount aunually saved or produced by means of cur internal improvements.

"In 1847, the tolls and dividends received upon our public works was $827,642 repairs and contingent expenses, $317,568, making a balance in their favor of $510,074, or half a million annually."

The Mississippi valley is destined, at no distant period, to become, in this country, the great theatre of railroads. The capital invested in railroads, situated wholly or in part in Massachusetts, is 43,000,000, and the number of miles 1,357. In New York there is nearly 1,000 miles of railroad, costing in round numbers, $28,000,000, with a total income of $3,900,000. Connected with these are 24 machine shops, and they all employ 2,684 persons. If so much has been accomplished in the bicken and hilly portions of our Union, what may we not anticipate on the smooth prairies and level bottom lands of the Great West.

With Lake Erie on the north, the Ohio on the east and south, our national road, canals, and railroads, and multiplying lines of telegraph, we already enjoy facilities for intercommunication equal to most of our sister States.

But our young, elastic, beautiful, and forest born, Ohio, has just begun her onward and prosperous career of internal improvements. "While yet in our infancy," says Allen Trimble, "Ohio has outstripped all the new, and passed eleven of the 'Old Thirteen," and is pressing hard upon the Keystone and Empire States. And who shall say that when all these mighty resources within our borders shall be fully developed, by the intelligence, well directed energy and skill of our people, aided by wise counsel on the part of our rulers, we will not stand foremost of the sisterhood, a noble example of what may be accomplished by a moral, intelligent and free people."

The magnetic Telegraph is one of the most astonishing achievements of mechanical ingenuity united with scientific knowledge. By it and the locomotive, time, space and resistance seem partially annihilated. The one conveys our ideas with the glance of thought, the other our persons and goods with the velocity of the winged tenants of the air.

The telegraph is already our voiceless messenger for the transmission of important civil, political and commercial intelligence. But - what is of greater value, we can now, when widely sundered, become mutual sharers of our joys, or convey to each other, as by a spiritual agency, kindly words of counsel, of encouragement, of sympathy and of hope, in the dark moments of affliction, or the trial hours of adversity. When Franklin with his sportive kite drew down from the frowning thunder cloud its terrible lightning wheel, that rolled its solemn bass, and bound its fearful, mysterious strength with his brittle bands of glass, little did he suspect, that same or a kindred subtile agent would now speed, as leaps the light, and write with its magic finger across a continent, either the spoken or unuttered emotions of

man.

As a no less surprising result, we have recently beheld the agency of the same mysterious element, shooting with intense brilliancy its splendid bear thwart the midnight gloom, illuminating the darkness of night, as with the effulgence of day. With the method of forming those unsurpassingly beautiful paintings, by the delicate touches of the pencil of light, these brilliant achievements of science and art evince the ingenuity and research of this truly wonderful age of discovery. Through the per fection of the mechanic arts man has been able to penetrate the infiniteness of space, to tell the number of the stars, and estimate the distances, motions and magnitude of the heavenly host.

The construction and enlargement of the Erie canal, together with its accompanying railroad, which, like the former, is not long rendered ineffectual by the bands of frost, are among the most remarkable of modern improvements. They have materially contributed in establishing New York as the emporium of the New World. They have opened a communication through the centre of a large and fertile State, doubling the value of its land, increasing the price of its products, and "becoming a profitable source of revenue. Nor are their advantages confined alone to the Empire State. They have brought all the ports of the great lakes into market. The States bor

dering upon these are all materially benefitted. The influence exerted by them upon exchanges, especially that of the canal, is felt throughout the Union.

Their utility can only be exceeded by a canal and railroad soon to be constructed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, across the Isthmus of Panama; and by railroads through the Middle and Western States to Oregon, and through the Southern States and New Mexico to California. These must become the great thoroughfares of Western Europe and Africa, of North America, the Eastern nations of Asia and the islands of the Pacific. We shall soon be only ten days from Europe and Africa, within speaking distance of Oregon and California, and our Pacific ports 20 to 25 days from China.

Improvements in navigation, our multitudinous and increasing commercial exchanges, and the general diffusion of science, are rapidly developing the social and fraternal relations of nations, gradually fus ing them into one peaceful brotherhood. The true glory and grandeur of nations consists not now, as formerly, in the achievement of martial deeds, but in cultivating the arts of peace, in beautifying and adorning the earth by cultivation, and erecting useful and noble edifices; in cutting channels and clearing pathways for their inland fleets of merchandise, in hewing through the adamantine rock, "a smooth and level pavement," or leveling the iron track for their rapid wheels of commerce, and in deeds of universal charity and benevolence.

Our internal improvements, public schools, various hospitals, asylums and charitable institutions, will confer more lasting honors on our Republic, than victories upon a thousand battle fields.

We are already beginning to see the nearer approach of that happier time, when "nation shall not lift up the sword against nation, neither shall men learn war any more." O, thrice blessed Golden Age of futurity! when the ardent aspirations of the living, and the irrepressible longings of many "noble dead," who have "left their footsteps on the sands of time," shall be realized, and the wearied world, after its long night of oppression and sorrow, awake to rejoice in the morning sunlight of universal peace.

Ours are fertile, vast and varied territories, valuable mines, exten-· ded sea coasts, border lakes, navigable rivers, the arteries of a continent, numerous canals, railroads, and lines of telegraph, the nerves of our Union. These are opening unexplored fields for agricultural, mechanical, manufacturing and commercial enterprise. If it be possible, with all these advantages, to secure universal freedom, general

intelligence, public virtue and national industry, there is, open before us a career of progressive improvement never enjoyed by any na

tion.

When the genius of Agriculture, of Mechanics, and of Manufactures, a beautiful. sisterhood, attended by the spirit of Commerce, shall, hand in hand, wing their way over the world, then will "the multitude of the islands" wait upon them, "the wilderness and the solitary places be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose," and in their lovely footsteps will follow intelligence, industry, virtue, peace, plenty, prosperity and happiness.

AN ESSAY,

ON THE RELATIONS OF THE AGRICULTURAL, MECHANICAL, AND MANUFACTURING INTERESTS.

BY SAM'L T. WYLIE, OF CINCINNATI.

The subject proposed for our discussion is-"The relation that agricultural, manufacturing, and mechanical interests sustain to each other."

Political economy has been defined to be "that science which un. folds the manner in which wealth is produced, distributed and consumed."

As our subject is unfolded, it will be found to embrace the most important branches of this science as thus analytically defined, for, as agriculture produces everything which goes immediately to the sustenance of life, so manufactures may justly be said to embrace all those articles which go to make man's appearance before his fellow man, decent, and which enable him to prolong and render life comfortable; which enable him to appear well and feel well; which protect him from the cold and from the heat, and, in a word, which distinguish the civilized man from the savage.

On the other hand the mechanical interest will be found to stand, as it were, between the other two, extending to each a powerful hand, supplying them with sinews and strength; with instruments to unfold their wealth, mould it into form and distribute it among mankind.

God has so intimately connected and blended all the various interests, pursuits and sources of wealth which belong to mankind, that it seems folly for them gravely to question whether they might not dispense with any one of them; or whether any one of them be of greater importance to their welfare than another; and yet it is a question which is daily mooted and not unfrequently gives rise to angry discussion.