58

CANAL-BOAT.

CHAP. III.

public. Our fellow-passengers consisted for the most. part of shopkeepers, artizans, and mechanics, with their families, all well-dressed, and so far as we had intercourse with them, polite and desirous to please. A large part of them were on pleasure excursions, in which they delight to spend their spare cash.

On one or two occasions during our late tour in the newly-settled districts of New York, it was intimated to us that we were expected to sit down to dinner with our driver, usually the son or brother of the farmer who owned our vehicle. We were invariably struck with the propriety of their manners, in which there was selfrespect without forwardness. The only disagreeable adventure in the way of coming into close contact with low and coarse companions, arose from my taking places in a cheap canal-boat near Lockport, partly filled with emigrants, and corresponding somewhat in the rank of its passengers with a third-class railway-carriage in England. "Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère ?" would have been a difficult question for me to answer, especially as I afterwards learnt that I might have hired a good private carriage at the very place where I embarked. This convenience indeed, although there is no posting, I invariably found at my command in all the states of the Union, both northern and southern, which I visited during my stay in America.

Travellers must make up their minds, in this as in other countries, to fall in now and then with free and easy people. I am bound, however, to say that in the two most glaring instances of vulgar familiarity which we have experienced here, we found out that both the offenders had crossed the Atlantic only ten years before, and had risen rapidly from a humble station. What

ever good breeding exists here in the middle classes is certainly not of foreign importation; and John Bull, in particular, when out of humour with the manners of the Americans, is often unconsciously beholding his own image in the mirror, or comparing one class of society in the United States with another in his own country, which ought, from superior affluence and leisure, to exhibit a higher standard of refinement and intelligence.

We have now seen the two largest cities, many towns and villages, besides some of the back settlements, of New York and the New England States; an exemplification, I am told, of a population amounting to about five millions of souls. We have met with no beggars, witnessed no signs of want, but everywhere the most unequivocal proofs of prosperity and rapid progress in agriculture, commerce, and great public works. As these states are, some of them, entirely free from debt, and the rest have punctually paid the interest of Government loans, it would be most unjust to apply to them the disparaging comment "that it is easy to go ahead with borrowed money." In spite of the constant influx of uneducated and pennyless adventurers from Europe, I believe it would be impossible to find five millions in any other region of the globe whose average moral, social, and intellectual condition. stands so high. One convincing evidence of their wellbeing has not, I think, been sufficiently dwelt upon by foreigners: I allude to the difficulty of obtaining and retaining young American men and women for a series of years in domestic service, an occupation by no means considered as degrading here, for they are highly paid, and treated almost as equals. But so long as they en

60

PHILADELPHIA.

CHAP. III.

joy such facilities of bettering their condition, and can marry early, they will naturally renounce this bondage as soon as possible. That the few, or the opulent class, especially those resident in country places, should be put to great inconvenience by this circumstance, is unavoidable, and we must therefore be on our guard, when endeavouring to estimate the happiness of the many, not to sympathise too much with this minority.

I am also aware that the blessing alluded to, and many others which they enjoy, belong to a progressive, as contrasted with a stationary, state of society;-that they characterize the new colony, where there is abundance of unoccupied land, and a ready outlet to a redundant labouring class. They are not the results of a democratic, as compared with a monarchical or aristocratic constitution, nor the fruits of an absolute equality of religious sects, still less of universal suffrage. Nevertheless, we must not forget how easily all the geographical advantages arising from climate, soil, fine navigable rivers, splendid harbours, and a wilderness in the far West, might have been marred by other laws, and other political institutions. Had Spain colonized this region, how different would have been her career of civilisation! Had the puritan fathers landed on the banks of the Plata, how many hundreds of large steamers would ere this have been plying the Paranà and Uruguay, how many railway-trains flying over the Pampas, how many large schools and universities flourishing in Paraguay!

Sept. 28.-We next went by railway from New York to Philadelphia through the state of New Jersey. Large fields of maize, without the stumps of trees rising above the corn, and villas with neat flower-gardens,

seemed a novelty to us after the eye had dwelt for so many hundreds of miles on native forests and new clearings. The streets of Philadelphia rival the finest Dutch towns in cleanliness, and the beautiful avenues of various kinds of trees afford a most welcome shade in summer. We were five days here, and every night there was an alarm of fire, usually a false one; but the noise of the firemen was tremendous. At the head of the procession came a runner blowing a horn with a deep unearthly sound, next a long team of men (for no horses are employed) drawing a strong rope to which the ponderous engine was attached with a large bell at the top, ringing all the way; next followed a mob, some with torches, others shouting loudly; and before they were half out of hearing, another engine follows with a like escort; the whole affair resembling a scene in Der Freischutz or Robert le Diable, rather than an act in real life. It is, however, no sham, for these young men are ready to risk their lives in extinguishing a fire; and as an apology for their disturbing the peace of the city when there was no cause, we were told "that the youth here require excitement!" They manage these matters as effectively at Boston without turmoil.

6

62

EXCURSION TO NEW JERSEY.

CHAP. IV.

CHAPTER IV.

Excursion to New Jersey-Cretaceous Rocks compared to European. —General Analogy of Fossils, and Distinctness of Species.—Tour to the Anthracite Region of the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania.— Long parallel Ridges and Valleys of these Mountains.-Pottsville. -Absence of Smoke.-Fossil Plants same as in Bituminous Coal. -Stigmariæ.-Great Thickness of Strata.-Origin of Anthracite. -Vast Area of the Appalachian Coal-field.-Progressive Debituminization of Coal from West to East.-General Remarks on the different Groups of Rocks between the Atlantic and the Missis sippi.-Law of Structure of the Appalachian Chain discovered by the Professors Rogers.-Increased Folding and Dislocation of Strata on the South-eastern Flank of the Appalachians.—Theory of the Origin of this Mountain Chain.

CRETACEOUS STRATA OF NEW JERSEY.

Sept. 30, 1841.--FROM Philadelphia I made a geological excursion of several days, to examine the cretaceous strata of New Jersey, in company with Mr. Conrad, to whom we are indebted for several valuable works on the fossil shells of the tertiary, cretaceous, and Silurian strata of the United States. We went first to Bristol on the Delaware to visit Mr. Vanuxem, then engaged in preparing for publication his portion of the State Survey of New York; next by Bordentown to New Egypt, and returned by the Timber Creek, recrossing the Delaware at Camden.

Although in this part of New Jersey there is no white chalk with flints, so characteristic of rocks of this age in Europe, it is still impossible to glance at the fossils, and not to be convinced that Dr. Morton was right