for the most part, monotonous, until we arrive at Hamburg, where we take leave, for a time, of the pleasant harvest-fields and scenes of agricultural industry, and penetrate the region of mountains. Here the Kittating or Blue Mountain range crosses our course, and, as far as the eye can see, traverses the country in bold and majestic ridges, sometimes sloping gradually into the valley below, and again rising in towering grandeur to the overhanging clouds.

HAMBURG, 75m. is situated on the left bank of the Schuylkill, near the Blue Mountain, and about a mile from the railroad. It embraces a population of about one thousand, and, being situated in Berks county, is composed mostly of Germans. The surrounding country is a rich agricultural district, and the village is at least very pleasantly situated. The trade of the place is unimportant. But let us hasten on, for

Here we have a tolerable specimen of the scenery the traveller may expect for some time to come-for he is now in the midst of those bold parallel layers of mountain, broken and distorted into irregular fragments, which constitute the outlines of the great Apalachian system, and which, under various local names, traverses several States, and divides the lakes and rivers, east and west of it, into separate

systems. The scenery here is bold, wild and picturesque, while the whole country looks like a vast

"Ocean into tempest tossed."

At some places, the mountain sides are steep, rising from eight to twelve hundred feet almost perpendicularly, at the foot of which flows the Schuylkill, or some of its tributary streams. The red shale, which support the outlayers of conglomerate rock, decomposes under exposure to the atmosphere, and the effects of rain, snow and frost, and the debris, borne off by the streams winding round the mountains, leave the conglomerates, and more durable rocks, reposing in awful cliffs and precipices, frequently overlooking the valleys below. Sometimes the mountains slope gradually from their base to the summit, and the harder rocks are strewn over its surface in the wildest confusion, in pieces of all sizes and shapes. The smallest of these stones are carried down the mountain sides by heavy rains, and the noise which the descending mass makes, as the stones are pushed along by the impetuous torrent, is both exciting and novel. It is thus that the narrow valleys have been gradually formed, which will be more minutely illustrated in our geological treatise, which we shall very soon commence. What can be more interesting to the eye of the traveller-to the man of care and business, "doom'd, for a certain time," to the daily rounds of city-life-than the change of scene which these bold, rolling mountains afford? Where is the invalid, accustomed to the dull monotonous scenes of level plains, or breathing the low and impure atmosphere of the populous city, who would not be invigorated, mentally and physically, in the midst of this primeval terrestrial ocean?

Thrice happy he! who, on the sunless side
Of a romantic mountain, forest-crowned,
Beneath the whole collected shade reclines;
Or in the gelid caverns, woodbine wrought,
And fresh bedewed with ever-spouting streams,
Sits cooly calm; while all the world without,
Unsatisfied, and sick, tosses in noon.

Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery thickets hail!
Ye lofty pines! ye venerable oaks!

Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep!

Delicious is your shelter to the soul,

可

As to the hunted hart the sallying spring,
Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides
Laves, as he flows along the herbaged brink.
Cool, through the nerves, your pleasing comfort glides;
The heart beats glad; the fresh expanded eye

And ear resume their watch; the sinews knit;

And life shoots swift through all the lengthened limbs.

Before leaving this place, which is a point of divergence, it is proper that we should have an understanding with the reader. If the traveller desires to proceed to Wilkesbarre, or to Mauch Chunk, it would be advisable for him to leave the car, and place himself in the train for Tamaqua, twenty miles distant, where stages run directly to the place mentioned. For our part, we must proceed to Pottsville, fifteen miles distant, from which place, dear sir, we'll join you at Tamaqua, and then

Follow thee

With truth and loyalty.

We would cordially invite you and your carpet-bag to accompany us, but that there is no railway communication between the two places, and we have a horror for stages in warm weather. So, farewell!

Well, leaving Port Clinton, we go puffing, and blowing, and thundering amid the wildest mountain scenery, but still keeping by the side of the Schuylkill, which gradually becomes smaller as we approach its head waters-(though we can't see that there is anything “un'natʼral” in the circumstance.) We pass two unimportant post stations-Auburn and Orwigsburg-the former a promising candidate for village importance, and the latter a mere off-shoot of its unfortunate god-father, two miles distant-formerly the seat of justice of Schuylkill county. Eighty-nine miles from Philadelphia is SCHUYLKILL HAVEN, containing a population of nearly three thousand. It is the principal depot for the shipment of coal, both by canal and railway. Lying in a beautiful valley, it affords the only belt of tillable