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SCENES IN MY NATIVE LAND. By Mrs. Sigourney Boston: James Munroe & Co.
This is a sort of a Guide Book to various aural spots in our country, with the addition of appropriate poetry, in the author's own vein of gentle piety. Much information respecting persons things of interest is given en passant; and out cordially recommend this book as a present young people or old ones.
COMMON AND SCRIPTURAL PROVERBS EXPLAINED. Boston: James Munroe & Co.
We hardly know to what class of readers we commend this book. Amplification is the him vice of the day; and we think pithy proverbs stand better on their own merits than upon any body's explanation or enforcement. An old book called “Sancho, or the Proverbialist,” used to be favorite with us. That was designed, if we remember aright, to show how easily proverbs might mis-applied.
HUNT’S MERCHANTS’ MAGAZINE. — This sterling and standard periodical for January is richly freighted with articles of value and interest to the merchants and statesmen, and indeed all who de. sire solid and profitable information. We annex the table of contents in part as follows;-1st, The Manufacturing Industry of France in 1844, translated from the French of M. D. L. Rodet; 2nd, The China Trade, by the Editor; 3d, The Sewerage of New York, by George B. Butler, Esq. 4th, Rail-road iron and the Tariff, by J. E. Bloomfield; 5th, Treaty of the Germanic Confederation, by Henry G. Rice, merchant, of Boston; 6th Annals of American Commerce. Thirty pages of the number are devoted to the Monthly Commercial Chronicle; Mercantile Law Cases; Commercial Regulations; Rail-road, Canal, and Steamboat Statistics; Commercial Statistics; Nautical Intelligence; Mercantile Miscellanies, and the Book Trade.
We cannot resist the temptation of extracting the closing paragraph of the able paper, which appears in that Magazine under the head of “Monthly Commercial Chronicle.” It refers to the future prospects of the nation in regard to our trade in the Indian and China Seas. The prediction at the close of the extract has been uttered from the pulpit by a distinguished divine in this city, almost simultaneously with its appearance in the Magazine.
“There is but little doubt that the United States are destined ultimately to command all the trade in the Indian and China seas. The supply of cotton in the United States, including Texas, is far beyond what the wants of Europe require. The wants of China are, however, such as will absorb almost a limitless quantity. The cotton goods manufactured in the United States already supersede those of all other countries in those markets, and American lead has entirely supplanted the English. The English government hope, by commanding the exclusive route to China over Egypt, by way of the Nile and the Isthmus of Suez, (to effect which, a negotiation is now pending between that power and the Pacha,) to obtain news several weeks earlier than it can be had in the United States; an advantage which will give her merchants control of the markets. The diplo. macy may succeed temporarily in this, but the march of events will ultimately give the United States the mastery. Her population is pushing, with a vigorous, rapid, and unceasing march, along a line 1,200 miles in extent, westward, towards the shores of the Pacific. The occupation of the vast territory known as the Oregon, is already going forward; and twenty years will not have elapsed, before a powerful state will have sprung up on the shores of the Pacific. The great tract of the Oregon is drained by the Columbia river and the San Francisco, which debouch upon the ocean at a point six days, by steam, distant from the Sandwich islands — a group the independence of which is guaranteed; whose population is 100,000, mostly American; the surface, 8,000 square miles; of a soil the most fruitful, and a climate unsurpassed in salubrity. These islands are situated in the middle of the Pacific, on the great highway from Oregon to China. The great whale fishery of these regions is conducted mostly by Americans, numbering 200 vessels, whose annual product is about $5,000,000. This fleet, in the summer months, cruise between the islands and the coast of Japan, for sperm whale, and carry on a large trade in furs, &c., which are now sold in China, and the proceeds, in tea, sent home to the United States. The whole of this vast trade, and that of China, via the Sandwich islands, will be commanded by the State of Oregon. Those persons are now living who will see a railroad connecting New York with the Pacific, and a steam communication from Oregon to China. For the last three centuries, the civilized world has been rolling westward; and Americans of the present age will complete the circle, and open a western steam route with the east.”
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Notes:
This review was specifically rejected as being by Poe by W. D. Hull.
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[S:0 - NYEM, 1844] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Criticism - Literary (Willis ?, 1844)