alluvial formation. Growth-gum, cotton-wood, oak of different species, ash, box-alder,"sycamore; undergrowth-dog-wood, pawpaw, grape and muscadine vines. The lands were covered with the Maison Rouge grant from a short distance below Monroe to the town of Columbia, on an average of three miles deep on both sides on the river. The Supreme Court of the United States last winter decided this grant to be invalid, and it is now a part of the public domain, with the exception of that which Gov. I. Johnson caused to be taken up for the State, as a portion of the 500,000 acres to which Louisiana was entitled under the act of distribution, and some private confirmations in the limits of this grant. Our Legislature have very justly made provision for these persons, who are settled on the lands located for the State, who had previously made bona fide purchases from the grantees; the residue will be in market as soon as the proper surveys and confirmations of location can be completed. The lands in the vicinity of Monroe are of good quality, though they do not run back so deep, the Lafourche overflow approaching the river at this point.

The lands on the Bayou de Siard, East of Monroe, are fine cotton lands; the front lands are generally occupied. But there are as good lands back, convenient to Monroe, yet in a state of nature, which could be bought at prices ranging from $5 to $10 per acre. There are some fine uplands still East of the Bayou de Siard, between it and Bœuf River, very desirable. The growth of these lands is pine and oak, principally; some scattering gum, hickory and walnut, in places. They produce remarkably well, and to a North Alabamian, Georgian, Tennesseean, East Mississippian, or even the Florida parishes of this State, they would be considered good cotton lands.

The Bayou de Siard is a legitimate Bayou. At low-water it has two mouths, emptying into the Ouachita River and Bayou Bartholomew. When the Bartholomew rises sufficiently, the waters from her pour through the Siard; and at such times the Siard, if cleared out, would be navigable all round to the Ouachita for steamers capable of carrying 200 bales of cotton. This Siard, with the Bartholomew and Ouachita River, forms an island, upon which are situated some of the finest cotton plantations in Louisiana; and there is yet a great portion of the island untilled. Nowhere on it would the planter have to haul his crop more than twelve miles to a shipping point.-N. O. Crescent.

2. SIDNEY SMITH ON MODERN PROGRESS.

It is of some importance at what period a man is born. A young man, alive at this period, hardly knows to what improvements of human life he has been introduced; and I bring before his notice the following eighteen changes, which have taken place in England since I began to breathe the breath of life-a period amounting to nearly seventy years. Gas was unknown; I groped my way about the streets of London, in all but the utter darkness of a twinkling oil lamp, under the protection of watchmen, in their climacteric, and exposed to every species of insult. I have been nine hours in sailing from Dover to Calais, before the invention of steam. It took me nine hours to go from Taunton to Bath, and now I can go in six hours from Taunton to London! In going from Taunton to Bath, I suffered between 10,000 and 12,000 severe contusions before stone-breaking Macadam was born. I paid £15 in a single year for repairs of carriage spring, on the pavement of London; and now I glide without noise or fracture on wooden pavements. I can walk, by the assistance of the police, from one end of London to the other, without molestation; or if tired, get into a cheap cab, instead of those cottages on wheels, which the hackney-coaches were at the beginning of my life. I had no umbrella. They were little used and very dear. There were no water-proof hats, and my hat has often been reduced by rains, to its primitive pulp. I could not keep my small clothes in their proper place, for braces were unknown. If I had the gout, there was no colchicum. If I was bilious, there was no calomel. If I was attacked by ague, there was no quinine. There were filthy coffee-houses instead of elegant clubs. Game could not be bought. Quarrels about uncommuted tithes were endless. The corruption of Parliament before reform, infamous. There were no banks to receive the savings of the poor. The poor laws were gradually sapping the vitals of the country. Whatever miseries I suffered I had no post, to whisk my complaints, for a single penny, to the remotest corners of the empire.

GALLERY OF INDUSTRY AND ENTERPRISE.

ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS.

No. I.-CHARLES T. JAMES, OF RHODE ISLAND.

and entertain for him the highest esteem and regard. That man we shall soon introduce to the reader.

IT is our intention, in this series of papers and engravings, to present biographical sketches and portraits of such men as have made themselves prominent in the southern There was a time, and it has not long since and western states, or in pursuits immedi- passed away, when mechanic arts were conately connected with those states, for busi- sidered unworthy of the study or consideraness activity, and wide and general enter- tion of learned circles, but only suited to the prise tending to their common advancement ignorant and servile. As, however, civiliza and progress. tion advanced, new wants and desires were The Gallery will embrace merchants, created, which, being supplied, created agriculturists, manufacturers, mechanics, others-dependent all of them on the ingeetc., as we may select them from time to time, or as they may be selected for us, should nothing interfere with the full execution of our plans. They will be taken from each of the states; and only such included as shall be, in the estimation of all, distin-nishing results upon society. However great guished in the highest degree in their vocations.

It may well be inquired, if such a Gallery has not claims equally high, if not higher, than those of politicians, which have of late grown quite popular, and which are furnished monthly in the pages of the Whig and Democratic Reviews. The victories of the man of business, or the man of mechanism, over matter and circumstances, are as good as those of the legislative forum, and equally important to maukind.

nuity and industry of the mechanic, and the application of mechanical science. These gave an increased importance to the mechanic, and introduced a salutary change, which, though not yet perfected, has produced asto

the benefits conferred by this class of men in all times, their merits-except in a few cases extremely rare-have either been over. looked, or soon forgotten; whilst all pane. gyric has been reserved for the dreaming and speculative philosopher, whose mystic cant served rather to darken and corrupt the human mind, the crafty politician, and his imperious master, active in their efforts to rivet the fetters of a cruel despotism,—and the warrior chief, terrible in battle, in dealing death and destruction around, and deluging fields with human blood. Thus, men who tasked all their energies to corrupt or destroy mankind, have found places for their names on the records of fame, while the name of the mechanic who has labored with untir

In recording and perpetuating those vic. tories, and in bringing their authors from comparative obscurity into broad day, shall we not be contributing our mite to the advancement of this great age of progress, at the same time that we are stimulating indi-ing energy to benefit his species, has been vidual efforts, by inducing a high and laudable emulation, and offering the greatest reward to successful enterprise?

The name that we begin with is that of a man who, from the humble place of a mechanic, has raised himself to a high elevation, and won a reputation in an especial degree throughout all the southern states. Though not born within our limits, he has done so much in advancing and promoting our manufacturing industry, that we all know him,

suffered to go down into oblivion, "unhonored and unsung." Too much of this spirit still remains, though the mechanic is gradu ally making his importance to be known, felt, and acknowledged; and paving a way upward for himself to the highest places of society.

Within the last hundred years, more than ever before, the world has been constrained to acknowledge, and history to record, the names and merits of men who have reared

But soon becoming satisfied that he could obtain but little practical aid from them, he laid them aside, and determined to prepare himself by practice. He accordingly commenced as a practical working mechanic; and, step by step, proceeded through all the departments of the machine shop connected with the manufacture of cotton. By this method, Mr. James qualified himself not only to operate, but to build, with his own hands, any and every machine used in the cotton mill. Thus, and by the aid of the mathema. tical and mechanical sciences, for which he has an unusual aptness, and to which he has paid unremitting attention, he has been able to place himself at the head of his profession. Such was the position to which he bad attained as early as the year 1836, or thereabouts, that he was presented with the hono

noble monuments to themselves on the basis of the mechanic arts. Yet few of these, very few indeed, have been found in the ranks of the learned. By far the greater portion of those whose names stand out most prominent in the list, have been self-taught and self-made, and have raised themselves to eminence by the force of mechanical genius, and the merits of practical mechanical science. Among these we may notice particularly Hargreaves, the inventor of the spinning-jenny, and Arkwright, who converted it into the spinning-frame,-Whitney, the inventor of the cotton-gin,-Smeaton, the great civil engineer, whose works, and particularly his Eddystone Lighthouse, astonish the world,--Ferguson, the celebrated mechanic and mathematician,-Fulton, whose fame is identified with the success of steam navigation throughout the world,-Bramah, the in-rary diploma of Master of Arts, from the ventor of the hydraulic press,-Godfrey, the Faculty of Brown University, in his native inventor of what is falsely called Hadley's state. Quadrant,-Whittemore, who invented the Mr. James' style of work is peculiar to machinery for making cards,-Watt and himself. With him it is original, and grows Evans, whose names will go down to poste- out of his practical knowledge of the busi rity in connection with that wonder-workingness. He acknowledges no leader, and copies machine, the steam-engine,-and a host of others. On the whole, it is quite remarkable that professional science should have done so little for the mechanic arts. It follows in the footsteps of the practical school, and avails itself of the discoveries of practical men, but seldom leads the way. Most of the valuable and useful discoveries have been made by men who, making no pretensions to speculative science, have triumphed by the force of their native genius and practical energies. Among this class we place the man whose name heads this article.

CHARLES TILLINGHAST JAMES is now about forty-five years of age. He was born in the town of West Greenwich, in the state of Rhode Island. His father was a respectable farmer. Rather inclined to mechanics than to literary studies, he approached the years of manhood with but the rudiments of an English education; and is, emphatically, a self-educated and self-made man. Many persons consider him merely as a sound theoretical man, or at best, a practical manufacturer. This is a mistake. At the age of nineteen, he turned his attention to mechanics, with the determination to qualify himself for the prosecution of his undertaking by the study of books.

no model; and his mills are different in their general arrangement, and in many of their details, from any others in the United States. A scientific adaptation of every machine to every other machine, causing the whole to work in unison, without excess or deficiency in any one, produces complete harmony, and a perfect effect. This is the true secret why his mills do more and better work than others, at smaller cost. That they do better work is evident from the fact, that cloths made in them bear the highest value in the market, and have, in every case in which they have been exhibited at public fairs, in New-York, Philadelphia, and Boston, the latter city be ing the very focus of New England manufactures, borne off the palm; and a large number of medals has been awarded them, against all competition. That these cloths are made at smaller cost, published extracts from the books of the mills determine.

Mr. James, when his present contracts shall have been completed, will have put in operation a number of spindles considerably exceeding 300,000, being more than oneeighth of the entire number in the United States. In such extensive practical operations, with a mind ever on the alert to reme

dy all deficiency, and to bring forward and adopt all improvements, as opportunity may occur, the knowledge thus obtained must confer on him great advantages in the practice of his profession. On the other hand, he has been careful to keep himself, as far as practicable, thoroughly advised of the progress of the manufacturing business in Europe, and of the improvements made there; and to adopt such as were found to be of much practical utility. The course he has pursued has wrought, and is working, a great revolution in the manufacturing business, as respects motive power. A few persons in this country had, before he made the attempt, so far disregarded public opinion, as to undertake the manufacture of cotton by means of steam power. Most of these at tempts proved abortive; and the supposition seemed to have been converted to a certain ty, that cotton, to be manufactured at a profit in this country, must be taken to the waterfall. In the face of this almost universal conclusion, accompanied with the sneers and ridicule of some, and predictions of certain failure by others, Mr. James confidently became the advocate of steam power, and adopted it with complete success. Since that period he has erected and put in opera tion a considerable number of mills, which are driven by steam power; and which, by their doings, have fully substantiated his statements, that, for the reason that steam power may be had wherever wanted, as well as from its superiority in the manufacture of cotton, it is more beneficial to the manufacturer than water power, because it can be brought into connection with many local advantages which are unavailable to water power. The manufacture of cotton by steam is no longer an experiment in favorable locations. The business, by its means, is being extended to many sections in which it could not otherwise have been established, greatly to the benefit of such communities. All others in the United States combined, have not done as much as Mr. James, to bring about this result.

The engines used by Mr. James, as well as his mills, are originated by himself. Not withstanding the great amount of business done by him- having generally in hand three, four, or five mills, in various parts of the country-every engine and boiler, all the 43

shafting and machinery, together with the buildings, foundations, and every thing else connected with the mills, are designed and drawn in his office, either by himself, or under his immediate direction. Of all these, duplicates are furnished to the workmen in the several departments, and the originals kept on file. To his acquaintance with machinery as a practical mechanic, his knowledge of the mathematical and mechanical sciences, the business of designing and planning, and carrying out his multifarious operations,-his long experience as a manufacturer,-with the ability, and the abundant means at hand, to compare results with regard to the working of the numerous mills constructed by him, the superiority of these mills is to be attributed. With such a mind as we have attempted to describe, he has devoted about twenty-six years of his life to close and unremitted application to business; and it is by no means strange that, under such circumstances, he should have reached a preeminent standing.

His mills are, as a general thing, equalled by no others in America. Among them we notice particularly, because it is his largest, the Naumkeag Steam Cotton Mill, at Salem, Mass. This mill has now about 33,000 spindles. It is a noble establishment, and is considered, even by foreign engineers who have viewed it, as one of the greatest specimens of mechanical engineering of the age, if not the greatest. Certainly there is nothing in the United States to compare with it, and to persons curious in such matters, a visit to it is worthy of a journey of a day or two.

Another very important fact should be here stated. In all the mills constructed by Mr. James, there is no one which has been left to his general management that has not, as far as management and the mill were concerned, proved successful. It is this fact, after all, which has conferred on him his reputation as a mill builder, and caused him to become known throughout the Union. It is this that has thrown into his hands a larger amount of business in the line of his profession than was ever done by any other man in this country.

The subject of our sketch has raised up to himself many opponents in New England, by a work published by him some time since, on the "CULTURE AND MANUFACTURE OF VOI. I.