SPECTATOR'S LISRA_RY.

TIAP11.8,

navels-hi Storni America ; Gbological Obserretione oft -the:united states, Nei •

nada, anti-Nova SeoUl. ByChasies hyoll BaO, Anthos of" The Prim:106W

of Geology." In two volumes ituprayx •

DTPLOYLCY,

The Negotiations for the Peace of the Dardanelles, in 1808-14.witbi Despatches's and- °facial Documents. By the Right •lieueurable Sir Robert Adair, G.C.B. Being a Sequel to the Memoir of his Misidon.to Vienna in.1806.. In two volumes. Tongs/Ian and Gs,

Eftexcencer. Goggle,

Memoirs of the Pretenders and their Adherents. By John Heneage Jesse, Author of "Memoirs of-this Court . of' England:" '"'Oeorge.Setwin and Ids* Con temporatiet,'" fbe; In two volumes, L YELL'S • TRA*RDS, NORTiff, AubtRISICJi.

To .a.considerable exthnt MR. ETELVII,Travels in-Northilnerien coin- . bines the mixture of scientific observation and general remark, the effects of whose absence we.noticed in the last review- of the American Ex. ploring Expedition. The result of- this combination is -highly favour.. able to the principle then; advocated : we -have the cream of the traveller's/. original observations, instead-of a minute-day-by-day narrative ofevery,. thing and everybody he met-with, to be followed by an equally detailed': account of his scientific doings. Relegating particular discussions to scientific journals, Mr. Lyell in this -volume confines the geology to its,; larger features, whichmay interest every one—as the probable age of' the falls of Niagara deduced from the. gradual wearing- away of' the- channel from the rocky heights- at Queenstown ; or to the more striking features of the science, which may attract any one with the slightest knowledge of. the- facts observed. in the more: primitive regions of the countries he-visited, where some of the wonders of the antediluvian period vrereworking out before his eyes. hi like manner, Mr. Lyell has sunk the regular narrative of his journey ; noting his movements from place to place. with great brevity, unless there is., something impressive to.describe, and confining his observations on life- and manners to points which are really- interesting and characteristic: His book is rather.a transcript of the-results-which-the-journey has left- upon his own mind, than the waste-book in which common- tourists: or travelling bookmakers enter their daily rough memorandums of every thing that occurs.

This plan of mingling science and general' observation does not inter- fere with the structure of the narrative, because it is-in reality following, the natural working of the writer's mind,, and theway in which he collected: his matter. It is of necessity open to this objection---the person who has no knowledge of geology will find himself often baffled in an attempt. to follow his author, even should he feel any interest in the subject. Passing this unavoidable- drawback, we regard the work as one -of the best books of travels that has appeared for some years.: the matter. well selected-; the style -easy, finished; and: endowed with a quiet anima- don; the manner- straightforward, offhand, and courteous though con. elusive,- like that of &man of. the world-;- whilst, perhaps as a consequence • of all this, the narrative is rapid, rather inducing a wish for more than a. sense of weariness. Mr. Lyell had also some peculiar' advantages for travelling in America : his solid reputation introduced him to families to which more ephemeral notoriety might not have access; and his wide experience of European travel enabled him to consider. with full know- ledg.e 'the advantages and drawbacks of American travelling-accommodi.. don—or rather the advantages, for it seems all good.

The conclusions Mi. Lyell has-himself come to are more favourable to- the Americans than those of any late writer, or perhaps of any writers. except Mr. Abdy and the Honourable C. A. Murray. The impression. he leaves upon the reader's mind is perhaps stronger than that by those travellers, because, with equal means of judging; he-seems, to speak with. more authority. The causes of appearances' are investigated, as well as the appearances described ; a new and-more explanatory lightis thrown, upon things that have excited much opprobrium in. Europe—as Repudia-e tion, and Democratical lawlessness, as well as upon society and manners:: Upon these last two points Mr. Lye!' is more tolerant and favourable than many with less opportunity and less experience. Like Murray and Abdy,, he describes the five and easy manners of the mass of the Americana as the result of their social condition and the- Democratieal feeling of equality, rather than of any formed desire to "show off," as has-been' imputed to them. They are familiar and peculiar, rather than coarse or vulgar ; though both traits may no doubt be met with, as in other- places. It may be gathered from his remarks, as from Abdy'a more direct state-' merits, that there is in America a respectable class of society, holding themselves, like the old-fashioned families of this country, aloof from mere' lionizing strangers, and still more from common literary or commerciaL travellers. Hence, as Mr. Lyell intimates, the accounts which we-read respecting the behaviour and conversation of, people in public -convey.. ances and ordinaries should be taken with some reserve, and no more be held as characteristics of all the community than similar records would be. at home. This quiet, withdrawing, and we imagine rather aristocraticall class of gentry, seem as devoid of turgid enthusiasm as the same descrip.• don of people here, and as little likely to be found at any wild gathering as an old English merchant or country gentleman to- be caught figir. ing at Exeter Hall. They were even more sceptical than Mr. Lyellr for the arrival and Ming of Dickens taking place. during our traveller'S, residence at Philadelphia, he fell in with the popular view, but remarks- " I find several of my American- friends • are leas disposed than I am to sympathise with the movement,- regarding, it as more akin to lion-hunt- ing than hero-worship. Our author confirms the assertion of De Teague-, ville that this class of persons withdraw from politics : but they surely must exercise some influence in the state, as ballast- if as nothing more. Mr. Lyell depicts the social, moral', and economical results of slavery, in as dark a light as any Abolitionist ; but paints the individual picture.— Site treatment and contentment of the slave—very favourably. The tour of our author occupied about-a twelvemonth, from -July 1841

to August 1842. In that time he visited Halifax, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, proceeding as far South as Savannah in Georgia ; crossed the Allegheny range, and travelled West to "Big Bone Lick," (a natural feature a little beyond Cincinnati in Ohio) ; the Lakes, Montreal, and 'Quebec, forming his Northern boundary. Some of these places, however, Mr. Lyell visited several times, on geological journies governed by the season of the year.

The great quantity of matter in these volumes renders selection a task of no difficulty. We will endeavour to make our extracts as various as possible, so as to convey an idea of the topics Mr. Lyell handles, and of the information to be found in his pages. Here are some examples of the effects of free trade in currency, which the late Lord Sy- denham truly characterized as free trade in swindling. "Wishing to borrow some books at a circulating library, [in Philadelphia,] I presented several dollar-notes as a deposit. At home, there might have been a ringing of coin upon the counter, to ascertain whether it was true or counterfeit: here, the shopwoman referred to a small pamphlet, reedited 'semi-monthly,' ,called a' detector,' and containing an interminable list of banks in all parts of the Union, with information as to their present condition, whether solvent or not, and whether paying in specie, and adding a description of 'spurious notes.' After a slight hesitation, the perplexed librarian shook her head; and, declaring her be- lief that my notes were as good as any others, said if I would promise to take

I them back again on my return, and pay her in cash, might have the volumes. "It often happened, that when we offered to buy articles of small value in shops, or fruit in the market, the venders declined to have any dealings with us unless we paid in specie. They remarked that their change might in a few days be worth more than our paper. Many farmers and gardeners are ceasing to bring their produce to market, although the crops are very abundant, and prices are rising higher and higher, as if the city was besieged." * •

"I had hired a carnage at Frederick to carry me to Harper's Ferry, and thence to Hagerstown on the main road across the mountains. When I paid the driver, he told me that one of my dollar-notes was bad, a mere personal note.' I asked him to explain; when he told me that he had issued such notes himself. A friend of mine at Baltimore,' he said, who kept an oyster-store, once proposed to me to sign twenty-five such notes, promising that if I would eat out their value in oysters he would circulate them. They all passed, and we never heard of them again.' 1 asked how he reconciled this transaction to his conscience? He re- plied, that their currency was in a very unsound state, all the banks having sus-

ded cash payment; and their only hope was that matters would soon become so bad that they must begin to mend. In short, it sneered that he and his friend had done their best to hasten on so desirable a crisis.

The universal smash induced by this system of "full currency" was the main cause of the non-payment of the dividends on the State debts. Mr. Lyell was at Philadelphia when the first idea of suspension came into the public mind ; and he gives this account of it, followed by an examin' a- don of the whole subject, but too long for us to quote. "One morning we were told that the Governor of Pennsylvania had come in great haste from Harrisburg, in consequence of the stoppage of one of the banks in the city, in which were lodged thefunds intended for the payment of dividends on State Bo !rids due in a few days. On this -emergency, he endeavoured to per- suade other banks to advance the money- but in vain, such was the general alarm and feeling of insecurity. The consequent necessity of a delay of payment was announced; and many native holders of stock expressed to me their fears that, although they might obtain the dividend then actually due, it might be long be- fore they received another. At the same time, they declared their conviction that the resources of the State, if well managed were ample; and that, if it depended on the more affluent merchants of Philadelphia and the richer portion of the mid- dle class generally to impose and pay the taxes, the honour of Pennsylvania would not be compromised.

"It was painful to witness the rain and distress occasioned by this last blow, following, as it did, so many previous disasters. Men advanced in years, and retired from active life, after success in business, or at the bar, or after military service, too old to migrate with their families to the West and begin the world again, are left destitute; many widows and single women have lost their all; and great numbers of the poorer classes are deprived of their savings. An erroneous notion prevails in England that the misery created by these bankruptcies is con- fined chiefly to foreigners: but, in fact, many of the poorest citisens of Pennsyl- vania and of other States had invested money in these securities. In 1844, or two years after my stay in Philadelphia, the Savings Bank of New York pre- sented a petition to the Legislature at Harrisburg for a resumption of payment of dividends, in which it was stated that their Bank then held 300,000 dollars, and had held 800,000, but was obliged to sell 500,000 at a great depreciation, in order to pay the claimants, who were compelled by the distress of the times to withdraw their deposits." •

"The loss Or temporary suspension of the interest, even of one-third of the above-mentioned debt, in a country like Pennsylvania, where there is a small amount of capital to invest, and that belonging chiefly to persons incapable of exerting themselves to make money—a country where property is so much divided, and where such extensive failures had preceded this crisis—inflicts a far deeper wound on the happiness of the community than the defalcation of a much larger sum in Great Britain would occasion."

In like manner the more general views on slavery are too long for ex- tract, but we will take some isolated sketches.

"In order to see the bed of clay containing the bones of the mastodon at Hey- ner's Bridge, it was necessary for me to be on the ground by daybreak, at low tide. With this view, I left Savannah in the middle of the night. The owner of the property kindly lent me his Black servant as a guide; and I found him provided with a passport, without which no slave can go out after dusk. The exact streets through wtuch he was to pass in his vray to me were prescribed; and had he strayed from this route he might have been committed to the guard house. These and other precautionary regulations, equally irksome to the slaves and their mas- ters, are said to have become necessary after an insurrection brought on y Abo- litionist missionaries, who are spoken of here in precisely the same tone as incen- diaries or beasts of prey, whom It would be meritorious to shoot or hang. In this savage and determined spirit I heard some planters speak who were mild in their manners, and evidently indulgent to their slaves. Nearly half the entire popula- tion of this State are of the Coloured race, who are said to be as excitable as they are ignorant. Many proprietors live with their wives and children quite isolated in the midst of the slaves; so that the danger of any popular movement is truly aPPallipe FREE AND EASY SLAVERY.

The Negroes, so far as I have yet seen them, whether in domestic service or on the farms, appear very cheerful and free from care, better fed than a large part of the labouring class of Europe; and though meanly dressed, and often in patched garments, never scantily clothed for the climate. We asked a woman in Georgia whether she was the slave of a family of our acquaintance. She replied, merrily, " Yes, I belong to them, and they belong to me." She was, in fact, born and brought up on the estate. On another occasion, we were proceeding in a well-appointed carriage with a hinter, when we came unexpectedly to a dead halt. Inquiring the cause, the

Black coachman said he had dropped one of his white gloves on the road, and must drive back and try to find it. He could not recollect within a mile where he had last seen it: we remonstrated, but in vain. As time pressed, the master, in despair, took off his own gloves' and, saying he had a second pair, gave them to him. When our charioteer had deliberately put them on, we started again.

POOR WHITES IN A SLAVE STATE.

On entering the station-house of a railway which was to carry us to our place of embarkation, we found a room with only two chairs in it. One of these was occupied by a respectable-lookine woman, who immediately rose, intending to give it up to me ; an act betraying that she was English; and newly arrived, as an American gentleman, even if already seated, would have felt it necessary to rise and offer the chair to any woman, whether mistress or maid, and she, as a matter of course, would have accepted the proffered seat. After I had gone out, she told my wife that she and her husband had come a few months before from Hertford- shire, hoping to get work in Virginia; but she had discovered that there was no room here .for poor White people who were despised by the very Negroes if they laboured with their own hands. She had found herself looked down upon even for carrying her own child, for they said she ought to hire a Black nurse. These poor emigrants were now anxious to settle in some free state.

NATURAL GASOMETER.

Sailed in a steam-boat to Fredonia, a town of 1,200 inhabitants, with neat white houses, and six churches. The streets are lighted up with natural gas' which babbles up out of the ground, and is received into a gasometer, which I visited. This gas consists of carburetted hydrogen, and issues from a black bituminous slate, one of the beds of the Hamilton group of the New York geologists, or part of the Devonian formation of Europe. The lighthouse-keeper at Fredonia told me that, near the shore at a considerable distance from the gasometer, he bored a hole through this black slate, and the gas soon collected in sufficient quantity to explode when ignited.

INNS IN CANADA AND FAMILIES IN THE STATES.

I ventured on one or two occasions in Canada, when I thought that the inns did not come up to the reasonable expectations of a traveller, to praise those of the United States. I was immediately assured, that if in their country men preferred to dine at ordinaries, or to board with their families at taverns, instead of culti- vating domestic habits like the English, nothing would be more easy than to have fine hotels in small Canadian towns. This led me to inquire how many families, out of more than fifty which we had happened to visit in our tour of eleven months in the United States, resided in boarding-houses. I found that there was not one; and that all of them lived in houses of their own. Some of these were in the Northern and Middle, others in the Southern and Western States; some in affluent, others in very moderate circumstances: they comprised many merchants as well as lawyers, ministers of religion, political, literary, and scientific men. Families who are travelling in the United States, and strangers, like ourselves, frequent hotels much more than in England, from the impossibility of hiring lodgings. In the inns, however, good private apartments may be obtained in all large towns, which, though dear for the United States, are cheap as contrasted with hotels in London. It is doubtless true, that not only bachelors, but many young married couples, occasionally escape from the troubles of housekeeping ni the United States, where servants are difficult to obtain, by retreating to boarding- houses; but the fact of our never having met with one instance among our own acquaintances inclines me to suspect the custom to be far less general than many foreigners suppose.

SCOTCH SETTLERS LI NOVA SCOTIA..

Not a few of the most intelligent and thriving inhabitants are descended front Loyalists, who fled from the United States at the time of the declaration of in- dependence. The picture they drew of the stationary condition' want of cleanly habits, and ignorance of some of the Highland settlers, in parts of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, was discouraging, and often so highly coloured as to be very amusing. They were described to me as cropping the newly-cleared ground year after year without manuring it, till the dung_ of their horses and cattle accumu- lated round their doors, and became, even to them, an intolerable nuisance. They accordingly pulled down then log-cabins and removed them to a distance, till several of their more knowing neighbours offered to cart away. the dung for a small remuneration. After a tune, when the Highlanders perceived the use to which the manure was put, they required those who removed it to execute the task gratuitously; and my informants thought that the idea might possibly occur to some of the next generation of applying the material to their own fields.

NOVA SCOTIANS AT HOME.

It is no small object of ambition for a Nova Scotian to "go home," which means to "leave home, and see England." However much his curiosity may be gratified by the tour, his vanity, as I learn from several confessions made to me is often put to a severe trial. It is mortifying to be asked in what part of th; world Nova Scotia is situated—to be complimented on "speaking good English, although an American"—to be asked "what excuse can possibly be made for Repudiation "—to be forced to explain to one fellow-countryman after another "that Nova Scotia is not one of the United States, but a British province." All this, too, after having prayed loyally every Sunday for Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales—after having been so ready to go to war about the Canadian Borderers, the New York Sympathisers, the detention of Macleod, and any other fend!

SCIENTIFIC ZEAL DI NOVA SCOTIA.

I never travelled in any country where my scientific pursuits seemed to be better understood, or were more zealously forwarded than in Nova Scotia, although I went there almost without letters of introduction. At Truro, having occasion to go over a great deal of ground in different directions, on two successive days, I had employed two pair of horses, one in the morning and the other in the after- noon. The postmaster, an entire stranger to me, declined to receive payment for them although I pressed him to do so; saying that he heard I was exploring the country at my own expense, and he wished to contribute his share towards scien- tific investigations undertaken for the public good.