"I am but too sensible that I can say nothing which your own pious hearts and good understandings have not said to you much more efficiently than in my best days and powers I ever could have done. That I do sympathize with your feelings under this visitation, you will not need this paper to tell you; that I pray, earnestly pray, for the blessing and support to you of the God of all consolation, you will believe; and having thus endeavored to satisfy my own heart and sentiments towards you, I will bid adieu to the subject, with my earnest and solemn supplication to the 'Father of Spirits,' that in all the trials of life, it may please him to grant you the same support, and inspire you with the same filial submission to His holy will, that have been vouchsafed you in this your first experience of parental sorrow. Believe me, with regard more than I can express, your affectionate Father,

"MY MUCH BELOVED DAUGHTER,

DANIEL SANDFORD."

"September 28, 1822.

Had you not sent me your last letter you would have deprived me of much. I have read your narrative with the deepest interest. I shall keep the letter for future and frequent perusal. Highly as I have always thought of you and your amiable husband, I esteem you both still more for the feeling and Christian conduct which God enabled you to pursue under your sore affliction. I have heard persons say, that the loss of a child is little; you know I never thought so. I remember my agony as I watched, what to all human judgment appeared the last moments of my beloved Wilhelmina, when a mere infant. Your trial has been much greaterbut you turn your thoughts from the couch of an expiring mortal to the scene of blessedness to which your angel child is removed, and are comforted.

"I am anxious to hear how you have borne the return to Fulham. I have no doubt your removal was right; and by the blessings of God, I trust you have all of you gained health and strength by it; but I am likewise persuaded, that it is better, where it is fitting, to remain on the spot, where we have suffered, till we are familiarized with our loss, and can leave it without anticipating the pain of coming back. Now, my ever beloved child, will you permit me to solicit you to turn your mind and activity, with more concentrated exertion, to the blessings which remain to you. I know that the thoughts of your dear departed child will continually find their way to your heart and to your eyes. I will whisper to you, that I could, were I to give way, abandon myself to similar recollections. No day passes without many a remembrance of my departed Ellenand I could sit for hours thinking of her, but I am well convinced that this is an indulgence in which I should restrain myself; and I will ask of you, for your own sake, to follow my example. It was

(to write with all freedom to you) but a night ago that I woke myself from one of my poor slumbers, in a sort of self-expostulation, and repeating, I cannot but remember such things were, and were most dear to me.' I confess my weakness to you, and I confess it to be weakness. No one knows these things but yourself, and my dearest Willie—there is a name which I never pronounced but to yourselves. But as I thus show you how intensely I sympathize with you, and as I am far, far indeed from blaming you in this matter, I may, perhaps, claim the privilege to warn you against the encroachments of feelings, which, if unrestrained, would alike prevent you and me from doing our duty. I know you will forgive me, and the more surely, that I am well convinced we contemplate the same interesting subject in the same spirit, a spirit of more, thank God, than resignation,-of such complete acquiesence in the wisdom and mercy of our Heavenly Father, that could we recall the objects of our unutterable affection with a word, we would neither of us speak. But we are, my dearest daughter, such weak creatures, that in the very purity and blamelessness of the sentiment, there lurks the danger. Our recollections are tinged with no undutiful or ungrateful reluctance against the will of God, and therefore we do not fear to allow them to have their way-and yet, is there no fear lest the gratification of dwelling on them, should render us, at times at least, not so attentive as we ought to be, to the innumerable and unmerited blessings which surround us, and in the midst of which is our proper sphere of engagement? I am afraid I have not written very clearly; but no eye but your own or dearest Charles' must see this, and I do not stop to weigh expressions. But I will shut up all with assuring you of my confidence in your piety and zeal to do your duty-and of my deepest, heartiest prayers to the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, that he will so order your hearts and minds by His grace, that this dispensation may work for good unto you for Christ's sake."— Vol. II, pp. 12-18.

ART. V. The Steam Engine familiarly explained and illustrated. By the REV. DIONYSIUS LARDNER, L. L. D. Second American, from the Fifth London edition. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey, & A. Hart. 8vo. pp. 325.

THE application of the Steam Engine to navigation is among the proudest of the triumphs of human genius. Like many other of the most beautiful improvements in the mechanic arts, it is equally remarkable for the long and patient industry with which it was sought, and the simplicity of the means by which it was finally accomplished.

Although vague glimpses of the possibility of propelling vessels by steam are to be met with in the published histories of the earlier state of the engine, it was not until Watt had succeeded in rendering it double acting, and in effecting a saving of fivesixths of the fuel which had formerly been necessary, that any chance of success in the attempt could be calculated upon. In 1784, Watt completed his improvements, and gave the steam engine the form in which, with little variation, it is used up to the present day. It is from that date that we are to reckon the time which was occupied in bringing the engine, in a practical form, into use as a means of improving navigation. Had any immediate progress been made in the direction pointed out by our countryman Evans, we might have dated the beginning of well grounded investigations with his invention of the high pressure engine. It is to be recorded, to his high honor, that he not only saw the advantage to be derived, in certain cases, from the use of steam of high pressure, but ascertained the mode of rendering the engine of universal application, by impelling the piston in both directions, at a date as early as Watt did. Evans' form of engine, however, remained in model for more than twenty years, and the condensing engine had been applied successfully to navigation, before he had made more than a single experiment in reference to the same object. This experiment is too remarkable to be passed over, although it was not followed by any important consequences. Evans, who was by profession a mill-wright, and whose attention was almost exclusively directed to the improvement of the grist mills, which at

one time formed so important a part of the manufacturing industry of the United States, was employed by the Corporation of the city of Philadelphia in 1801, to build a dredging machine. He proposed to work this by the high pressure engine, of which he was the inventor; instead of conveying his engine to the river Delaware, and placing it in a vessel already afloat, he built both engine and vessel at his works, situated more than a mile from the water. The apparatus being completed, was mounted on wheels, to which motion was given by the engine, and was thus impelled through the streets of Philadelphia, upon the very principle which is now universally adopted in locomotive engines. Upon reaching the water, and launching his vessel, he placed paddles on the circumference of two of the wheels, and by their action conveyed his apparatus to the place where it was to be used.

It is due to Watt himself to state that he was well aware that his engine was capable of application to navigation, and that he had in view the very method by which success was finally obtained. But, a resident of an inland town, and continually occupied in other modes of bringing his invention into use, he thought of no other case than that of canal navigation, and did not see in that a sufficient degree of utility to warrant his diverting his attention from matters of more obvious importance.

England possesses few rivers of any importance, and the largest of them are navigable for but short distances. Her internal navigable communications were therefore principally confined to canals, and in these the use of steam is attended with great practical inconvenience. In the United States, on the other hand, the inducements to apply steam to navigation were strong and powerful. From the harbor of Newport to the frontier of Florida, the early limit of our national jurisdiction, the coast is faced by islands and peninsulas, within which lie land-locked sounds, bays, and arms of the sea, affording a safe navigation, but one liable to great delay from the very circumstance to which its security is owing. Intersecting the line of coast communication, at the angle where the Hudson discharges itself, is another line of navigation, furnished by the deep channel of that river; a channel which turns or penetrates all the mountain ranges of the Appalachian groupe, and extends one hundred and sixty miles from the ocean. At no great distance to the north, Lake Champlain opens a communication of similar character, and for nearly an equal distance.

It is foreign to our purpose to speak of the judicious and im

portant public works which have been planned and executed, for the purpose of improving and completing this grand outline of communication parallel to the coast, which nature herself has pointed out. Suffice it to say, that at the present moment, it is possible to embark on the frontier of Canada, in latitude 45°, and proceed to Beaufort, N. C., a few minutes north of the 34th degree, without change of vessel, or exposure to the dangers of the ocean.

Magnificent as this communication is, it is far inferior in its extent and value, to that laid open to the use of steam, in the Mississippi and its numerous tributaries. The valley of this father of waters, from Pittsburgh on the one hand, to the mouth of the Yellowstone on the other, and from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Balize, is intersected in every direction by streams deep and steady in their course, and yet so rapid as to be inaccessible to an ascending trade, by means either of the sail or the oar. Yet this vast region is already partially occupied by a population, which, although sparse and scattered, has carried with it from its earlier seats, a taste for the comforts of civilized life, together with a relish for the luxuries of foreign growth and European manufacture. These could be supplied by no other means yet discovered, besides the steamboat; and it is in this region that steam navigation, if less perfect than in countries where the practice of the arts is more advanced, has already reached its greatest development. The number of steamboats which, at the present day, navigate the Mississippi and its branches, is probably greater than that of all those of the other parts of the globe united.

The importance of steam navigation to the Atlantic States alone, was sufficient to draw the attention of American engineers, even before civilized settlements had been pushed to the banks of the Ohio, and long antecedent to the acquisition of the mouth of the Mississippi. Rumsey and Fitch were the first to attempt the construction of steamboats. Both of them applied great ingenuity, and exhibited no little mechanical genius. Both, however, performed their experiments before the steam engine had been perfected by Watt, and were in consequence compelled to confine their views to the use of an instrument very ill fitted for their object. Fitch indeed, continued his researches after he learned that Watt had not only given a double action to the piston of the engine, but had contrived the means of rendering its reciprocating motion continuous and rotary. That the former part of Watt's invention would be of value in the plan