given for the benefit of this institution, beside other smaller donations. It is under the government of two boards, one of thirteen trustees, one of forty-five overseers, A building of brick is erected, fifty feet long, forty wide, three stories high. This institution is remote from any other college, and bids fair to be useful under a president and professor of languages.

CHAP. XXVII.

Description of New England-Mountains-Climate-Diseases

Soil-Rivers-Productions--Forests.

NEW ENGLAND is a country which presents to the tra veller all the varieties of surface which can be found. There is a plain of great extent in the south-eastern part of Massachusetts. Extensive plains are also spread through a considerable part of the counties of York and Cumberland, and along the Merrimack through the interior of New Hampshire, Many others not inconsiderable, exist in other places. Vallies of every size, from the great Connecticut valley to the little bason, constitute of course no inconsiderable part of a country which is so generally undulating, and whose hills are a proverbial description of its surface. Connecticut valley ex-. tends from Saybrook to the Canada line, and is not far from three hundred miles in length, Its breadth varies from half a mile to twenty miles; and is charmingly diversified by the intrusion of numerous spurs from the two great ranges of mountains, which form its eastern and western boundaries.

The mountains in New England are either long ranges or separate eminences. The westernmost range begins in the county of Fairfield, and, passing through the counties of Litchfield and Berkshire, may be said to unite with the Green Mountains at Williamstown, in the north-west corner of Massachusetts: being there separated only by the narrow valley of Hoosac river. The highest part of this range is Toghkonnuck mountain in Egremont, the south-western corner of the same state. Over this mountain, which is probably elevated more than three thousand feet above the ocean, runs the boundary between Massachusetts, Connecti

cut, and New York. This range, hitherto known by no appropriate name, may, with propriety, be called Toghkonnuck Range.

The second range is that of the Green Mountains. The eastern front of this range begins at New Haven, in a noble bluff, called West Rock, and extends thence, to the Canada line; sloping, however, with a very gradual declension, in the northern parts of Vermont; and in Canada becoming merely a collection of small hills. The two highest summits of this range are the Camel's Rump, (so called from its strong resemblance to the back of that animal) and the mountain of Mansfield, both in Vermont, in the county of Chittenden: these are very lofty, several thousand feet above the ocean. The third range begins also at New Haven in another very delightful eminence, called the East Rock; and, passing through the counties of New Haven, Hartford, and Hampshire, extends into Canada, through the whole length of the state of New Hampshire. The Blue Hills, in Southington, Mount Tom, Mount Holyoke, in the vicinity of Northampton and Hadley, and Mount Toby, in Sunderland, are the principal summits of this range south of New Hampshire. This range, although less lofty than the highest parts of the two former, is yet more precipitous and romantic than either. It crosses Connecticut river just below Northampton and Hadley, in Massachusetts. No mountains in New England present, from their summits, so delightful views as are furnished by various eminences of this range. This may be advanageously termed The Range of Mount Tom, which is the principal eminence.

The south or eastern range is less distinctly marked; it begins at Lyme, in Connecticut, and forms the eastern boundary of the Connecticut valley, until it unites with the last mentioned range in the county of Hampshire. It has no very remarkable eminences.

Of single mountains, the highest, in Massachusetts, is Saddle Mountain, in the towns of Adams, and Williamstown, so called from its striking resemblance to that piece of furniture. This mountain is computed to be little less than fourthonsand feet above the surface of the ocean. Its southern point is the highest land in Massachusetts. Watchusett is a lofty hill in Princeton, in the county of Worcester. Aschutney is a noble single hill in Windsor, in the state of Vermont. Monadnock is a very lofty conical mountain in Jaffrey, New

Hampshire. The White Mountains in New Hampshire are a round clump with numerous summits, of which Monnt Washington is far the highest; being probably between ten and eleven thousand feet above the surface of the ocean; and much the highest land in the United States. Nothing can be more majestic than the appearance of this mountain; it is covered, a great part of the year, with snow, and in this state is seen ninety miles as sea, in fair weather, and one hundred and sixty from its base. The mountains called Moosehillock, or Mooseheelock, and Ossipee, are short ranges in New Hampshire, of very considerable height, and very respectable appearance; as are those called Pondicherry, (vulgarly Cherry) a lofty range of the White Mountains, on the northwest; though these last may be considered as a continuation of the range of Mount Tom.

New England abounds in cataracts and cascades, alternately of great beauty and grandeur; of the first of these the Connecticut, Housatonic, or Hooestonnuc, Onion, Saco, Kennebec, and Penobscot, furnish a great number, as do also several smaller rivers. The cascades of the White Mountains are perhaps unrivalled in their romantic beauty.

Precipices of great wildness and grandeur are presented by many of these mountains. The south-western side of the summit of Mount Washington, particularly, which is a perpendicular descent of vast extent, and is superlatively majestic and awful. Of softer or more elegant scenery, few countries furnish so many or so exquisite varieties as New England. The fine intervals which border its numerous streams, particularly the noble ones on the Connecticut, are among the most finished beauties of the landscape. To complete the picture, the native and universal verdure which clothes the lean and dry, as well as the rich and moist part, gives an unrivalled cheerfulness to the whole country.

New England has a very healthful climate, as is evinced by the longevity of the inhabitants. It is estimated, that about one in seven of the inhabitants live to the age of seventy years; and about one in thirteen or fourteen to eighty years and upwards.

North-west, west, and south-west winds are the most prevalent. East and north-east winds, which are unelastic and disagreeable, are frequent at certain seasons of the year, particularly in April and May, on the sea coasts. The weather is less variable than in the middle, and especially the southern,"

states, and more so than in Canada. The extremes of heat and cold, according to Farenheit's thermometer, are from 20 degrees below to 100 degrees above 0. The medium is from 48 to 50 degrees. The inhabitants of New England, on account of the dryness of their atmosphere, can endure, without inconvenience, a greater degree of heat than the inhabitants of a moister climate. It is supposed, by some philosophers, that the difference of moisture in the atmosphere of Pennsylvania and New England is such, as that a person might bear at least ten degrees of heat more in the latter than in the former. The quantity of water which annually falls in England is computed at tvnty-four inches; in New England, from fortytwo to forty-eight; and yet in the latter they suffer more from drought than in the former. These facts evince the remarkable dryness of the atmosphere in this eastern division of the United States, and in part account for its singular healthfulness. Winter commonly commences, in its severity, about the middle of December; sometimes earlier, and sometimes not till Christmas. Cattle are fed or housed, in the northern parts of New England, from about the 20th of November to the 20th of May; in the southern parts not quite so long. There have been frosts in every month in the year, though not in the same year; but not very injurious.

The diseases most prevalent in New England are-alvine fluxes, St. Anthony's fire, asthma, atrophy, catarrh, colic, inflammatory, slow, nervous, and mixed fevers, pulmonary consumption, quinsey, and rheumatisın.

Of these disorders, the pulmonary consumption is much the most destructive, and is commonly the effect of imprudent exposures to cold and rainy weather, and the night air with the same quantity of clothing, and the wearing of damp linen; and among the lowest order of people, from the intemperate use of strong liquors, especially of fresh distilled rum, which, in too many instances, proves the bane of morals, and the rùin of families.

The small-pox, which is a specific, infectious disease, is not allowed at present to be communicated by inoculation, except in hospitals erected for the purpose, in by-places, and in cases where there is a probability of a general spread of the infection in a town, Nor is this disease permitted to be communicated, generally, by inoculation, in any of the United States, except New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and South Carolina,

In populous towns, the prevalent diseases are more nume rous and complicated, owing to want of fresh air and exercise, and to luxurious and fashionable living.

In these northern latitudes, the prevalent disorders of the winter months, among the males, are inflammatory. Both men and women suffer from not adopting a warmer method of cloathing.

On Lake Champlain, and some other waters, and where running streams have been converted into nearly stagnant ponds, intermittents frequently prevail. But this disease is seldom known within thirty or forty miles of the sea coast. In some of the elevated parts of Vermont, and in a few places in the western parts of New Hampshire, children, women, and some men of delicate constitutions, are affected with swellings on the throat. This effect is ascribed to their drinking brook and river water. Boston, Providence, Newburyport, and a few other places on the sea coast, and in the interior country, have been visited with the yellow fever.

A late writer (Dr. Foolke, in a discourse read before the American Philosophical Society) has observed, that "in other countries, men are divided according to their wealth or indigence, into three classes; the opulent, the middling, and the poor; the idleness, luxuries, and debaucheries of the first, and the misery and too frequent intemperance of the last, destroy the greater proportion of these two. The intermediate class is below those indulgencies, which prove fatal to the rich, and above those sufferings to which the unfortunate poor fall victims: this is, therefore, the happiest division of the three. Of the rich and poor, the American republic furnishes a much smaller proportion than any other district of the known world. In Connecticut, particularly, the distribution of wealth and its concomitants is more equal than elsewhere, and therefore, as far as excess or want of wealth may prove destructive or salutary to life, the inhabitants of this state may plead exemption from diseases.' What this writer says of Connecticut in particular will, with very few exceptions, apply to New England at large.

The soil of New England is diversified by every variety, from a lean and barren sand, to the richest clay and loams. The first great division of soil is a brown loam every where mixed with gravel. With this the hills, which constitute a great part of the whole surface, are universally covered. This soil is always favorable to the production of grass, and in the