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or railroads by Nature's own hand, the reservoirs of water for canals to use them. Already, the farmer, far in the inoods of Ohio or Indiana, may ship his produce at his own reach Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore or New , and every mile of its transit shall be by canal, steamboat -car.-North American Review.

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THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.

BY ISAAC P. SHEPARD.

I ask not Fame; 'tis fleeting

As breath of balmy eve;
With glory's phantoms cheating,
'Twill naught but sadness leave:
A surer good I would possess,—
A joy that liveth ever;

That when is past the world's caress,
Despair may seize me never.

I ask not gold; it bindeth
To earth the spirit down;
Its hireling slave ne'er findeth
Save but a demon's frown.

It is the Tantalus of hell,

Immortal minds tormenting,

And wise are they who break its spell
Ere life's last hour repenting!

I ask not power; it stilleth

The soul's best thoughts of God;
Wide earth with woe it filleth,
And sways an iron rod.

Soft beauty's charms I would not crave,
For which are millions sighing;
They pass away, as sinks the wave
Along the sea shore dying?

I ask not friends; there liveth
But few who bear the name;
For boasted friendship giveth
A swift, unstable flame:

If want is far, and hopes are bright,
Men smile, with others smiling;

But when comes near misfortune's night,
They pass away reviling!

'Tis not of earth, the treasure
That satisfies the soul;
Its value naught can measure
From north to southern pole.
The seraphs round the holy throne,
Its keeping well might covet,
For none of all the treasures known
In Heaven, is prized above it!

(Translated from the German.)

THE WORTH OF WOMAN.

Honored be woman! she beams on the sight,
Graceful and fair, like a being of light;
Scatters around her, wherever she stays,
Roses of bliss o'er our thorn-covered ways;
Roses of Paradise, sent from above,

To be gathered and twined in a garden of love.
Man, on Passion's stormy ocean,
Tossed by surges mountains high,
Courts the hurricane's commotion,
Springs at Reason's feeble cry.
Loud the tempest roars around him,
Louder still it roars within;

Flashing lights of hope confound him.
Stuns him life's incessant din.

Woman invites him, with bliss in her smile,
To cease from his toil, and be happy awhile;
Whispering wooingly-come to my bower;
Go not in search of the phantom of power;
Honor and wealth are illusory-come!
Happiness dwells in the temples of Home.

Man, with fury stern and savage,
Persecutes his brother man,
Reckless if he bless or ravage,
Action-action-still his plan.
Now creating-now destroying-
Ceaseless wishes tear his breast;
Ever seeking-ne'er enjoying-
Still to be-but never blest.

Woman, contented in silent repose,
Enjoys in its beauty life's flower as it blows,
And waters and tends it with innocent heart;
Far richer than man with his treasures of art.
And wiser by far in her circle confined

Than he with his science, and flights of the mind.

Coldly to himself sufficing,

Man disdains the gentler arts,
Knoweth not the bliss arising
From the interchange of hearts.
Slowly through his bosom stealing,
Flows the genial current on,
Till by age's frost congealing,

It is hardened into stone.

She like the harp that instinctively rings,
As the night breathing zephyr soft sighs on the strings,
Responds on each impulse with ready reply,
Whether sorrow or pleasure her sympathy try;
And tear drops and smiles on her countenance play,
Like sunshine and showers of a morning in May.

Through the range of man's dominion,
Terror is the ruling word,
And the standard of opinion,
Is the temper of the sword.
Strife exults, and pity, blushing,
From the scene despairing flies,
Where to battle, madly rushing,
Brother upon brother dies.

Woman commands with a milder control,
She rules by enchantment the realm of the soul;
As she glances around in the light of her smile,
The war of the Passions is hushed for a while,
And discord, content from his fury to cease,
Reposes entranced on the pillows of peace.

CHYMIFICATION OF FOOD.

Dr. Castle, of New York, has presented some facts on the powers of the digestive apparatus. He says

"Roasted meats are more nourishing than boiled meats, and these afford more nourishment than salted or prepared meats. In the culinary preparation of fresh meats, beef should be roasted till just a rare spot, as minute as practicable, is left in the centre. So with boiled meats, with the exception of veal and pork, which should be well done.' I will here mention how long a time different meats, variously cooked, remained in the stomach before they are digested. Dr. Beaumont for several years had an ample opportunity to ascertain this fact,-of which he availed himself,-in the case of a man named St. Martin, who had received a gunshot wound in the stomach, by which means, for several years, he was a close observer of the process of digestion or chymification of the food in the stomach of this man. The time occupied in digesting each article of food was as follows: Roasted beef, 3 hours and 30 minutes; broiled beef, 3 hours; boiled beef, 4 hours; showing that boiled meat occupies a longer period to be digested than the others: -and the reason may be accounted for in the fact that the nourishing portion is boiled out, leaving a large mass of excrementitious matter to be acted upon. Thus is the period extended upon salted meats-salted beef requiring 5 hours; pork recently salted, 61 hours; fresh roasted pork, 6 hours; fresh pork boiled, 3 hours; roasted mutton, 3 hours; boiled mutton, 4 hours; broiled mutton, 3 hours; veal, fresh, 5 hours. These meats were eaten with a due proportion of bread and vegetables. This table shows that broiled meats digest quickest, and the most easily, occupying from 3 to 3 hours; next, roasted meats; next, boiled and salted meats, requiring from 6 to 6 hours."

SALE OF DEAD LETTER CONTENTS.

We learn from the Washington correspondent of the Baltimore Clipper, that, on the 16th instant, was sold by auction, in Washington, at least a cart load of contents of dead letters and bundles. Among the many articles were, a beautiful badge made of cassia seed, fish hooks and lines, stockings, gloves, nightcaps, hats, razors and straps; paints, in bottles and boxes; sacking for beds, aprons, spectacles, suspenders, vest buttons, bead bags and purses, miniatures, gold and brass breastpins and rings, a pack of cards, a box of tools (rather small), silver crucifixes, handkerchiefs, book markers, calicoes, from a yard to a frock pattern; medicines, from a box of "golden pills" to a box of castor oil and a bottle of Bull's Sarsaparilla. Books, including two copies of "Mother Goose," and a dozen Bibles and Testaments, in German and in English; Prayer Books, Graham's Magazine, grammars, sheet music, &c.

A Dutchman's pipe was in the collection of curiosities; also, a garment, similar to a robe de chambre with a black velvet belt, sewed fast and trimmed at the edges with gold paper. It was, doubtless, a theatrical costume, intended for an amateur. Who would think such masses found their way into the mails?

THE CAPACITY OF THE WEST.

From the Alleghanies to the Rocky mountains, from the frozen lakes of the North to the tepid waters of the Gulf of Mexico! Every soil, every climate, every variety of surface. Of all the great products of the world, coffee is the only one which does not, or may not, grow there. Take the people of Britain, Ireland, France, Holland, Germany, Italy and Spain, and place the whole in the valley beyond the Appalachians, and it would continue to ask for "more." Ohio alone, without sinking a pit below the level of her valleys, could supply coal equal to the amount dug from the mines of England and Wales for twenty-five hundred years, and Ohio is but a pigmy, in the way of bitumen, compared with Western Pennsylvania and Virginia. Iron abounds from Tennessee to Lake Erie, and forms the very mountains of Missouri and Arkansas. Salt wells up from secret store-houses in every northwestern state. Lead enough to shoot the human race extinct, is raised from the great metallic dykes of Illinois and Wisconsin. Copper and silver beckon all trusting capitalists to the shores of Lake Superior. And mark the water-courses, the chain of lakes, the immense plains

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