by Dr. William Hunter. A year or two after, lectures on electricity, with the Franklinian experiments, were given by Solomon Southwick, the father of the gentleman of the same name in Albany. From about 1756, there was more general literature in Newport, and through the island, than perhaps any other part of America, which was owing to a very well-selected public library given by Abraham Redwood, esquire, a very opulent and generous person belonging to the society of friends. He gave five hundred pounds sterling for the books in London. These were selected with great judgment by the colony agent, and some were added by private donations. President Styles was its librarian between twenty and thirty years. After a British army took possession of the island, this valuable selection of books was despoiled of a great portion of the English classics, histories, voyages, and travels, and whatever came under the head of entertaining books. The library is still respectable. Among military men, Rhode Island gave to the nation General Greene and Commodore Perry. The once very beautiful scenery which embellished the island, and its character for healthfulness, drew to it every summer numbers of opulent invalids, with not a few men of property, who sought pleasure and agreeable residence. It was the permanent residence of many men of independent fortune, past the meridian of life, from different parts of Europe and the West India islands, and who chose that spot in which to spend their days. This accounts for the large number of tories, or gentlemen who wished for no alteration in government and the habitual order of things. Besides very handsome country-seats, that island contained three gardens that merited, in some measure, the name of botanical gardens, having greenhouses and hothouses, with curious foreign plants. Those belonging to Malborne, Redwood, and Bowler, were the most distinguished. The most elegant and costly dwellinghouse in the twelve colonies was the country-seat of Colonel Malborne, which was accidentally de stroyed by fire previous to the revolutionary war. The beautiful spot now belongs to another family. Before the revolution, Rhode Island with its capital (Newport) was the most agreeable spot on the Atlantic shores. It enjoyed a very considerable commerce: the most lucrative, although not the most moral, was the trade to Africa. Newport was then, from the causes already mentioned, a lively, genteel, and literary town, and Providence was comparatively small. But after the British took possession of it, the town of Providence rose rapidly on the ruins of the capital. Upward of nine hundred buildings, of all descriptions, were destroyed by the British, principally for fuel; and what was equally, if not more, to be lamented, they also destroyed, through necessity, all the beautiful woods and ornamental trees on that fine island. During these calamities, Providence, Bristol, Warren, and several towns on the Narraganset shore, increased in size and consequence, leaving the island, like an old battered shield, held up against the enemy. If the general government can do anything to recover it to a con dition in any respect equal to its former consequence, they ought, in gratitude, so to do; for where is the spot in the United States that has suffered so much as Newport on Rhode Island? While we are disposed to eulogize Rhode Island, there is one thing we have always regretted, and that is its penal code. In point of health and propriety, her prisons were far behind those of other states; and the severity of their punishments far more rigorous than in most of the other colonies and states. Their whipping at the cart's-tail fell but little short of the Russian knot; and their ear-croppings and brandings long continued after other states had meliorated their punishments for theft and forgery. The following shows the population of the state at different periods :In 1730, 17,935 In 1800, 69,122 No state in the Union occupies, at the present time, a more prominent position than New York, or, in many points of view, a more interesting. One of the earliest in the history of the colonial settlements, occupying one of the largest territories among the original thirteen states, touching, with its extensive arms, the ocean, and two of the larger lakes, including for a century the most powerful body of Indians within our borders, and some of the principal paths of foreign invasion, her scenes of early enterprises and military operations, often distinguished by the bold and beautiful traits of nature, have been in turn the witnesses of extending civilization, and the triumphs of modern science and art enlisted in her service. Where the Indians, sent out or led on by the French Jesuits in Canada, laid the ambush, or fell upon the defenceless frontier settlement, or where the armies of France and England contended for the possession of American forests, in the course of years the same places witnessed the strife between the colonies and the mother-country; and, since it ceased, have been enlivened by the passage of steamboats or rail-cars, or afforded sites for flourishing towns and cities. To give more than an imperfect outline of the past and present condition of so large, populous, and important a state, in the few pages allotted to it in a work like this, will be impossible; and, to avoid the necessity of falling into a mere record of dry statistics, we must confine our attention to some of the leading natural features, the most important epochs in history, works of art, and other points of interest. HUDSON RIVER.-This stream, as one of the most important channels of commerce in the Union, merit special attention. Its natural advantages have been immensely surpassed by those added by art: for, since the construction of the canals, especially the Grand or Erie canal, an extent of territory has been opened, surpassing, a thousand times, that which borders the stream and its branches. The railroads already made increase the amount of navigation and valuable freights annually borne upon the bosom of this noble river; and those proposed and partly completed, promise still greater and incalculable results. Of those more recently completed, the New York and Erie railroad, described on another page, is by far the most important, forming, as it does, a second and more rapid communication between the Atlantic sea-board and the lakes. The Hudson rises in the wild, elevated, and almost uninhabited region west of Lake Champlain, and flows, at first, nearly north, then east, and finally south, till it falls into New York bay, passing through which and the lower bay, its waters mingle with those of the ocean, at Sandy Hook. The latter and principal part of its course is remarkably straight, and almost due south. After receiving several small branches in the upper regions, it is swelled by the Mohawk at Waterford; and soon after reaching Troy, the head of steamboat navigation, passes Albany, where the northern and Erie canals communicate with it, through a spacious basin. From that place to its mouth, the Hudson is navigated by a number of steamboats, sloops, canal-boats, and vessels of larger size, worthy of the principal commercial river of the United States, flowing into the Atlantic. Although it passes through a line of mountains at the Highlauds, that are commonly regarded as the Allegany range, it pursues its way with. a smooth and unbroken current, causing no interruption to navigation. It has two large expansions below that point, called Haverstraw and Tappan bays, after which it proceeds, with a breadth but little increased, till it reaches the city of New York. The tide is evident even at Albany; but the water is perceptibly affected by the brine of the Atlantic only as high as Polopel's island, at the northern extremity of the Highlands. The numerous and flourishing towns upon its banks, with the variety of taste displayed in the country-seats occupying the heights, declivities, and shores, intermingling with the beautiful and sometimes wild scenery with which nature has enriched it, and which is widely and so justly celebrated-all these, combined with the evidences of industry and wealth, displayed by the fleets of vessels of different kinds continually ploughing its waters, render the Hudson one of the most agreeable routes for a traveller. In summer, the number of travellers passing up and down this river is almost incredible: for it lies on the way between the commercial metropolis of the Union and several of the principal points to which travellers for business or pleasure direct their course: Ballston and Saratoga, Lakes George and Champlain, Canada, Niagara, and the West; while by numbers this attractive route is chosen in going to Boston, the White mountains of New Hampshire, and other parts of New England. One of the remarkable objects on the Hudson is the trap range, on its western bank, extending from Weehawken bluff far up toward the Highlands, called the Palisades. It often presents a precipitous wall, totally inaccessible from the water, except occasionally; and for some distance it rises about four hundred feet perpendicularly. MOUNTAINS.-The Allegany range enters this state from New Jersey, and crosses the Hudson at the pass of the Highlands, celebrated for its scenery, and for some important events in the Revolutionary war, and passes into New England. The Catskill mountains rise at some distance above the Highlands, about seven miles west of the river, and present a range of rocks, covered with a thin coat of forest-trees, with several peaks rising a little above the general outline, the loftiest of which, the Crow's-Nest, is about three thousand five hundred feet above the ocean. The poverty of the soil and the roughness and almost inaccessible nature of the surface, render this wild region the retreat of deer and wolves. The abundance of oak-trees is such, that numerous tanneries are found |