by an ambush; here was the scene of Brant's career, the formidable ally in the French, and the dreaded foe in the revolutionary war. Not far inland. at another point, is the town of Steuben and the grave of the gallant Baron, whose military tactics, acquired under the great Frederic, were of such essential service in the discipline of the raw continentals. To that spot, then a wilderness, he proudly retired, after the war, and lived contentedly in a log-hut, desiring no visitors but the German peasants he had caused to emigrate, who tilled the soil, and such of his old brother officers as 'accident or inclination brought to the secluded farm. There he passed the last years of his life and was buried in a spot previously selected by himself. A curious accident has transmitted the name of the brave and childless soldier. When the roll of his regiment was called, on one occasion, he heard the name of Benedict Arnold responded to. "Forward two paces," exclaimed the indignant Baron; "where did you get that name?" Honestly, sir; I was born in Connecticut, and it's no fault of mine." "It will be," replied Steuben, "if you bear it longer; henceforth take mine and answer to Steuben." The man obeyed, and a numerous posterity, as well as the town where many of them reside, have made the honorable appellative & household word in the region where the punctilious veteran breathed his last.

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A young squaw-one of the miserable remnants of a once large and powerful tribe, who figure so prominently in the annals of the old French war, the massacre at Schenectady, and the writings of ethnologists-entered the cars about ten miles from what is called the Oneida reservation: for, even in this populous region, a few acres of their once boundless domain are preserved for the débris of the race to dwindle away before the rapid encroachments of civilization. This Indian girl was a fine specimen of her deteriorated tribe; her coarse but abundant black hair, high cheek bones, heavily moulded jaw, and her forehead bore the aboriginal stamp; a most lustrous eye of the deepest jet alone gave animation to her massive features; a gravity all but morose brooded over her countenance, and a latent subtlety and animal fire seemed to gleam under

her dark skin and in her furtive but sharp glances. She wore an immense black beaver hat, and several ells of fine blue cloth served as a mantle. She offered her embroidered moccasins and purses for sale with a mute and proud air, and then passed to the platform and left this flying installment of pale faces at the first station. The incident excites a curious sensation in the traveler unfamiliar with such a casual bringing together of the two extremes of life and history-the child of the wilderness and the triumph of modern science, the descendant of a vanquished and fading people and one of those daily caravans that sweep over the site of the primeval forest, a century ago marked by the savage trail, and silent, but for the hunter's rifle and the panther's

scream.

Not less bewildering is the contrast between names and places in this region. To-day I have passed through Verona and Rome; and the scene conjured to the mind's eye by the conductor's vociferous announcement formed a singular accompaniment to the actual prospect. Instead of the ancient and vast amphitheatre where I lingered years ago in the feeble twilight of an Italian spring day, a canal barge freighted with lumber scented the air with that odor of fresh cut pine and hemlock which conveys so vividly the idea of the new and the temporary; destined probably to be transformed, by a few days' labor, into a frame dwelling, compared with which the venerable and stately palaces of Palladio seem to belong to another globe as well as a distant age; and instead of Juliet's mossy sarcophagus, the newly-chiseled headstones in a grave-yard, whose dates scarcely reach back further than an ordinary life-time! A flock of dirty geese cackled on the green at Rome, as if to remind us that their fellows saved the ancient capitol; but the mean range of wooden buildings and the dingy tavern dispelled such retrospective illusions. The only noble object in view was a magnificent elm, and the distant woods looked fresh and beautiful. Nature thus links herself with reminiscences in this new land more genially than its human symbols; she is always venerable and coincides with the imagination in all its vagaries. A motley group of German emigrants waiting for the train hinted the great phenomenon of the

country and the times: the refuge this continent affords the famished peasants of Europe-the law of emigration and blending of races on a fresh and limitless arena, where space and laws permit the most free of social, economical and political experiments. This adoption of classical appellations for American towns, however, is a serious absurdity: it wounds the sense of the appropriate, and introduces a pedantic conceit amid her freshest associations of nature and enterprise. Some of these names were adopted by pioneers, surveyors, and commissioners, and others, as in the case of Utica, decided by lot. The bad taste and incongruous ideas in which they originated is less excusable from the fact, that the Indian names of river, valley, lake and mountain in western New York were remarkable for their significance and beauty. How much more musical and appropriate would be the name of Mohawk and Ontario than Rome and Verona! In some instances the local names have been retained. Oneida and Seneca preserve the watch-words of the forest kings, and have an historical and traditional interest dear to poet and annalist; while Geneva has nothing but its lake to recall Switzerland, and Syracuse is a reproach to the memory of Archimedes-by her neglect of the latest and best scientific processes for the evaporation of her salt.*

At Utica is located an asylum for the insane, of great celebrity; its extent and arrangements are impressive. Built of Trenton limestone, and the front adorned with massive pillars, there is but one feature in the external view of the grounds and edifice which diminishes the satisfaction of the spectator,

and that is so easily remedied that one is astonished at its existence. The gateway is awry, and many an inmate, with a large organ of order, must feel cerebral irritation, when, gazing from under the noble portico, his eye takes in this deformity. On the parlor wall is a remarkable specimen of card-work, a trophy of the patient ingenuity which so often coexists with mental aberration. In several of the wards, the absence of that mephitic exhalation which belongs to similar institutions elsewhere, was explained by a recent improvement in ventilation: an enormous fan, moved by steam, drives a current of fresh air constantly through passages in the walls; they likewise serve to convey the pipes for furnaceheat; and thus it is found easy, not only to regulate the temperature, but to increase, to any degree, the atmospheric supply-an obvious benefit, both on the score of health and cheerfulness, is the result. The garden, laundry, and chapel are equally indicative of superior comforts. This establishment is eminently curative in its aim and discipline, and it is highly creditable to the humanity of the state; yet the intensely painful associations which surround lunacy, under the most favorable circumstances, weighed upon mind and sense, as we threaded the corridors and looked into the rooms. Here stood a confirmed hypochondriac, the incarnation of woe; there chattered a wildeyed and voluble maniac, whose animal spirits seemed excited by the effervescence of his brain; now came dancing in a newly-arrived lunatic, held by two keepers; now a German harangue, and again a medley in English, half political and half reli

gious, rose above the moan of imbecility, or the low garrulity of maudlin age. The delusions of some of the quiet inmates are of a singular caste. One placid woman is waiting for the escape of her soul from a deep well, and a crazy lawyer is trying to settle a dispute between Moses, the divine legislator, and Henry Clay. A remarkable experiment has been successfully tried here, in the publication of a journal made up of contributions by the patients. It is a sad, yet hopeful record of wayward fancies, crude speculation, and rhetorical extravagance; yet often exhibiting, however, unity of conception, good sense, and a consistent style, in which no trace of morbid feeling or irrational logic can be detected. The "Opal" is well-named: like that manytinted stone, the work reflects, in varied hues, the light and shade of imaginative and thoughtful, but clouded intellects. One patient describes his own case with the precision of a scientific diagnosis; another ably criticises the President's message; a third draws up the programme of an imaginary entertainment; here is a chapter of romance, there, fragments of verse; now, a transcendental oracle that would not disgrace Emerson or Alcott; here one complains of sounds that disturb his sleep, and there, another writes a bombastic Fourth of July oration. As we read, a trembling consciousness is awakened of the undefinable limit between reason and madness, and a mournful conviction of the great comparative extent of mental disease in the United States, directly traceable to the fevered lives, the eager struggle for gain and office, the excitable habits and perpetual emulation of our people.

A gentleman here showed me the sculptured fragment of a temple brought from ancient Utica; endowed with memory and observation, what an Arabian tale such a relic might breathe from the old scene of Cato's suicide to its rural and busy namesake. This is, indeed, no "pent-up Utica;" for the town lies as open as the day in the lap of a charming valley, with stream, rails, and turnpike radiating from its unrivaled and straggling vicinage. The town was founded in 1808. Antecedent to canals, the internal communication was through a creek to Oneida lake, and Oswego river, and thence to lake Ontario. When De Witt surveyed the region, and

laid out a carriage road from Albany to the Genesee country, it struck this spot, and formed the nucleus of a thriving settlement, on the site of Fort Schuyler, one of those frontier posts so often mentioned in the annals of the fur trade and the French and revolutionary wars. In 1845 the population was over twelve thousand; in 1850, more than seventeen thousand, and now it numbers twentyfive thousand. The main street intersects the other thoroughfares at obtuse angles, owing to the direction of the original road; down its long vista, at this season, the finest meadow slopes refresh the eye, with the broad sweep of the Dearing hills, dotted with wooded knolls. It was an offshoot of an earlier town, that of Whitestone, about four miles distant. An instance of the primary emigration from New England to these more fertile districts is visible, in another little rural town, about the same distance from Utica, called New Hartford, in memory of the Connecticut home of the new settlers, to which place it bears some resemblance, in the fine specimens of elm-trees which shade its neat dwellings. The delicate leaves of the maple flaunted their pale green leaves in the sunset, as we rode through the quiet hamlet; children were playing on the emerald sward; and the fragrance of locust blossoms filled the air. Utica is no less alive with prosperous elements than the environs with moral beauty. The new city hall, built of the clay-tinted Milwaukie brick, and without the ambitious and superficial ornaments so common in such edifices, is a rare example of good sense, in material, arrangement, and finish. A freestone Presbyterian church, also, has a spire, which is of celestial mould, pointing upward with the true language of meek and unearthly aspirations. A citizen of horticultural taste has reared one of the choicest graperies, on a limited scale, anywhere to be seen. He annually gleans thirty varieties, and has introduced a new seedling, which readily sells in England for a guinea the graft; its fruit is as large as a plum, rounded, and of rare flavor; it ripens in August in the open air. Every year this enterprising vine-grower holds a feast of grapes; they are disposed in festoons on the walls, heaped in glass bowls on the tables, and bunches are passed from hand to hand with the profusion of a Bordeaux or Tuscan vintage.

Another old inhabitant, of more studious tastes, has worked for years, in the manner of Roget and French, in England, to develop the latent significance and harmonize the rich elements of our vernacular tongue; essays on the philosophy of language have been given to the world from his domestic retirement -the rational fruits of elegant leisure thus occupied in the intervals of a banker's daily routine. One more example of wise culture and private usefulness may be cited, in the person of as genuine a lover of art as ever grew up in the shadow of the Vatican, or within hail of the Dresden gallery. He has cherished a native painter so heartily, that, after wandering for years through France and Italy, he returned to resume a secluded career near the hospitable mansion of his first patron. There, on the walls, are copies of Correggio, Raphael, Guido, family portraits and original sketches; while, in the broad porch in summer, and at the fireside in winter, the favorite theme is art and its triumphs. Her genuine and worthy followers always receive there a fraternal welcome; and more than one of the distrustful worshipers at her lovely shrine have carried thence the word of recognition, which has cheered

them on to future renown. It is thus, in a young and commercial land, that the apostles of art and the lovers of beauty, though widely separated and rarely encouraged, create around them a sphere that redeems material life, and touches the mind of the workday world to finer issues. It is the season of flowers, and, from my window in the mansion of this village Medici, I look down upon a wide lawn, where flower-beds present a mosaic of nature's most vivid tints-the scarlet verbena burns against the cool emerald of the grass; yellow lilies gleam with dew; groups of peonies flaunt in the morning breeze, and rosebushes exhale a delicious odor; while, skirting parterre and turf, are lofty hemlocks, bristling firs, and drooping elms-the whole vivid with umbrage and radiant with floral charms. end of the long adjacent avenue pants the locomotive; beside yonder lane cattle are browsing; along the garden path yellow-birds are pecking; the shrill note of the cat-bird resounds; the pendent nest of the oriole hangs unmolested on the shrub; syringas and lilacs embalm the air: all is quiet and shade, although a few moments' walk brings you into the midst of traffic.

At the

THE

HE Professor, and the Doctor, and Nimrod, and Jacques, and John, and Bruno, and I, went forth to geologize. We armed ourselves, individually, with tooth-brushes and clean-shirts, and, collectively, with a hammer, a pick-axe, and a covered two-horse wagon. Putting the former into the latter, we were ferried over the Elk-eye, and journeyed for a while down the banks of the beau. tiful river.

Turning then towards the hill-country, we forthwith began to crawl up and thunder down the sides of the steep and narrow ridges that rib the land. There had been rain for some days previous, and we had a wearisome time of it, toiling through the deep, fat soil of the rich valleys, which lay crowded in between the barren hills, as the sweet meat lies near the big bones of a roasted ox. Noon found us, consequently, only twenty miles from home,

at a place called Plymouth, doubtless because it was on the top of a high hill, a dozen miles from the mouth of any stream whatever, and where, in fact, nothing but the clouds could empty. It just occurs to me, however, when I bethink me of the good dinner they gave us, and of the way we ate it, that the first syllable of the name may be a verb in the imperative mood, governing the second, which we will presume to be a noun in the objective case; an hypothesis which at once vindicates the discrimination of the founders of the town, and relieves the narrator from the sad necessity of deforming his chronicle with ungracious censures. It is, furthermore, exceedingly grateful to the narrator's feelings to be able to record that, though his companions and himself were at that time in total ignorance as to the true etymology of the word Ply Mouth, (which he takes great plea

sure in restoring to its primitive manner of writing,) they rendered obedience to the exhortation it conveyed in the most astonishing manner. Bidding adieu now to gastronomy and philology, be pleased, companionable reader, to go with us on our way towards Corinth, where we meant to pass the night. But it was not so to be. The roads grew heavier, and delays were

numerous.

Once, as we were pitching and ploughing down a hill, a steep bank on our right, and a deep ravine on our left, the treacherous soil yielded beneath the left hand forward wheel, and had well nigh sent us to the bottom of the gully.

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"Whoa!" roared the Professor. Get up!" responded the Doctor. "My shins!" bewailed Nimrod, (who had set out for the bottom on his own hook).

"Oh, my!" murmured Jacques. "Gerohittikins!" suggested John. "Darn it!" blasphemed Bruno. "Bless me!" remonstrated I. Whereupon we proceeded safely down the hill. Thus, through much mud and manifold misfortunes, we struggled on towards Corinth. But, as has been already intimated, we did not get there.

Halting about dark in front of a twostory log-house, we learned that our classic stopping-place was still eight miles away, and the chance of our reaching it, with whole necks, extremely slender. In this view of the case, we promptly decided to pass the night in the two-story log-house. The physically active members of the expedition then unharnessed the horses, while the rest of us sought occasion to make ourselves generally agreeable indoors.

Our stopping-place appeared to be a sort of extemporaneous tavern, for, besides our party of seven, we found that our host proposed to entertain a medical man of the neighborhood, a fat and facetious gentleman named Hunter, and a Celtic gentleman of spiritualistic tendencies. There may have been likewise some ladies, but being at the time absorbed in science, we could not give particular attention to the sex.

After supper a controversy arose between the spiritualist and the younger members of our party, in reference chiefly to spirits and strata. Our antagonist assured us, on the authority of Dr. Hitchcock and sundry peripatetic

tables, that man dwelt on the earth some fourteen or fifteen thousand years ago. The authenticity of the disclosures attributed to the frolicsome furniture, we could not gainsay, but we did venture to question the correctness of his account of Dr. Hitchcock's views. A summons, however, to name the chapter and page where other opinions were expressed, and to give the language of the author, put us all to silence.

This gentleman further communicated some astonishing facts concerning a mighty battle that was fought in those parts thousands of years before Adam's time, and also concerning a plate of biscuit taken by the spirits without leave from a bakery in Corinth.

On hearing a recital of the latter evidence of the capabilities of the ghostly wonder-workers, we at once professed ourselves believers, being under the apprehension that they might, in pity for a continued want of faith, think proper graciously to possess themselves of our pocket-books, a special degree of favor to which we were not ambitious of being received. The biscuits were transported to the country residence of the spirits, and doubtless there satisfactorily disposed of, for it is beyond question that spirits with hands to pick and steal, and feet to run away, have likewise teeth to masticate and stomachs to digest. We gathered from the same source that fossil men and women were oftentimes picked up thereabouts, and it was straightway privately agreed, between Bruno and me, that, inasmuch as our route would take us near the line of the Sarah Jane and Epaminondas railroad, we should, while in the neighborhood, make fossil Irishmen our specialty, more particularly as Jacques had in like manner devoted himself to bituminous shale, and Nimrod to gray squirrels.

Our minds being set at rest on this subject, we went to bed, where, albeit somewhat promiscuously stowed together, on beds and on the floor, we slept in peace; our scientific reputation, it may be, and a dread lest we might be given to entomology as well as to geology, keeping all noxious intruders at a distance.

Before we were safely asleep, however, we came near being hopelessly involved in another controversy with the Doctor-not our Doctor, but the Corinth