The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-06 00:00:00

PROGRESS OF AMERICA.
THE TOWN OF CINCINNATI.
A visitor to Cincinnati gives the following description
of the extension of the iron and other trades in this
flourishing town:—
" The iron founderies here are numerous, and some of
them immense establishments. The work turned out is
as good as in the east, and almost as various in kinds.
The steam printing power-press is one of the articles re-
cently turned out, and the manufacture of locomotives has
just been commenced, The framing of models for new
wo: k is already a large business, and every new invention
from Europe or the east is aimed at with a skill and per-
severance that is sure to master every difficulty in the
way of invention or imitation. Every kind of iron
handicraft is wrought, from the colossal wheel to the
screw, and from a complete engine to the finest w!re.
The rolling mills deal with iron as a carpenter would
with pine boards, or a cabinet-maker with the furniture
of a parlour. Iron, indeed, is made by machinery to
assume all the shapes and forms which the wit of man
can devise, and is now as easily worked as wood,
and almost with the same expedition. The rapidity
of reducing the melted ore to the finest wire will
amaze all those who have not seen the process of
redaction. Locks, catches, bolts, bars, coffee•mills,
kettles of every kind, shovels and tongs, stoves,
lamps, large and small engines, sugar•machinery,
all the paraphernalia of a private kitchen, or a
hard-ware store, are manufactured in quantities suffi-
cient to supply the west, and with means equal to the
wants of the country, it it were necessary. Uncle Sam
may soon be supplied with muskets for the western di-
vision from this quarter, if he desire them, and as for
hinges notwithstanding every hinge passes through
twenty-seven hands, enough can ba made in a single
manufactory here, too hang all the doors in Christendom.
Of wire, too, I have seen enough made here, if their
were workmen enough for the task, to put a girdle round
the earth in forty minutes.' These Mammoth
workshops are more valuable than so many mines
of gold and silver to the city—they convert
the rudest substances into the most useful in-
ventions. They are, indeed, great utilitarian store-
houses whence come many of the means of civilisation, the
plough and all the implements of husbandry—the wheel
and its endless revolutions—the screw and its super-
human power, the complete machine that cheapens all
the comforts and luxuries of life—the many utensils of
one's household, and without which what is now easy
labour would be the severest servitude—Cincinnati is
now the scece, I believe, of every sort of iron manufac-
ture, and in seeing what is done here in iron alone every
day of the week, I have only learned more to be amazed
at the enterprise of so young a city, and at the same
time more and more to appreciate the goodness of Pro-
vidence in covering the earth, not only with the fairest
fruits and flowers, but in burying beneath its surface
what seems to be almost as necessary to one's happy ex-
istence.

" With such a start no city in the west can overtake
this, even where there are no local advantages. What
is true of iron is true of many other branches of business.
Everything is upon the go-ahead principle. If I should
write a chapter upon the world of porkdom, and do
justice to my subject, you would be more amazed, and
hardly credit what one might say of the extent of this
and other branches of the provision business here. The
uses to which a hog might be put I never dreamed of
till I came to Cincinnati. Literally from his tail to his
snout, from his hoofs to his bristles, from his blood to
his bones, and from his fat to his lean, the hog is a most
useful animal. Not so much as a paw or a hair is
wasted, and the reforms in this particular are equal to
the reforms in any branch of business of this improving
and utilitarian world.

EPIDEMIC FEVER, FROM BAD

DRAINAGE

A most important practical illustration of the serious
evils that result from bad drainage is furnished by a
paper published in a recent number of the Pharmaceutical
Times, a journal which seems likely to become of essen-
tial service to all who desire to apply the discoveries of
modern chemistry to arts, agriculture, or manufactures.
The town, and especially the vicinity of Nottingham have
been lately visited by an epidemic lever, which has raged
to such an extent as to excite the attention of the authori-
ties, who appointed a medical commission to examine the
state of certain drains or dykes running from several ma-
nufactories in the neighbourhood. The manufactories are
chiefly engaged in making starch and leather, and the
refuse matter from these preparations is discharged'into
the various drains which wind through the parish. The
matter of these drains has been carefully analysed, and
the Commissioners have come to the conclusion that the
fever has been produced by pestilential exhalations from
these drains, which, being left uncovered and uncleansed,
exhale certain noxious gases, the result of decomposing
animal and vegetable matters. The analysis of
these noxious effluvia, and of the mud from whence
they proceed, proves them to be of the same nature
as those that abound in a great number of low districts
in large towns (including parts of the metropolis)
where drainage is wanting, and refuse matter is allowed
to remain and rot in the street ; and of the same
nature indeed (only more concentrated) as those unplea-
sant .effluvia to which even well-drained houses (accord-
ing to the present system of drainage) are subject when-
ever the river is swollen by rain or high tiles. This latter
fact suggests the propriety of considering some scientific
and more effectual method of removing sewage matter
than permitting it to flow into the river, a plan not
less wasteful than imperfect and injurious to public
health. In connexien with this subject it may be ob
served that an effect quite as injurious to the health,
though somewhat of a different kind, is produced
by the vap-Jur of damp soils, which, though it may be
void of noxious odorous gases (and therefore not so dis-
coverable), is, nevertheless, a corrupter of the atmos-
phere, and extremely hurtful to the human economy,
when breathed through that medium. Its effect is to
produce in certain constitutions an insuff,rable languor
and depression of spirits, a sense of extreme wretched-
ness, and, where the cause is undiscovered and continues
to operate (which is constantly happening), a variety of
bodily ailments, all characterised by excessive general
debility. While, therefore, the subject of sewage
drainage is exciting so much attention, it should not be
forgotten that soil drainage is quite as essential to the
public health.