Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-04-17
RAILROADS AND CANALs.-PoETRY NO FICTION

FROM THE EVENING POST.
Messieurs Editors 1t is more than eighty year
ago that Darwin wrote:
'.Soon shall thy power, unconquered Steam afar
Drag the swift barge and drive the rapid or"
JOEL BARLOW wrote his epic poem Of theH Vision
of Columbus seventy years ago. In tie Paris
edition, Book TX, from page 253 to 26., he por
trays The future progress of society witt respec
to commerce, discoveries, and the opening O canals.
From it make the following extracts. rhe Erie
Ohio, and Illinois canals are foretold:
s'Now round the yielding canopy of shade
Again the Guide his heavily power dispad.
Far as the angelic Power could lift the ey,
Or earth or ocean bend the yielding sky,
Around the chief in fair expansion rise,
And earths whole circuit bounds the leve'd skies
The Hero lookd: beneath his wond ringeyes
Bright streamers lengthen round the seasand skies;
The countless nations open all their store,
The sails in mingling mazes, sweep the ar,
And commerce trumphs DER the rage ofwar."
q In distant glory, where the watery way
Spreads the blue borders of descending dy,
Unfolding flags from every current SWEEP
Pride of the world and daughters of the deep.
From arctic heav'ns, and deep in southern skies,
Where frost recedes as blooms of culture rise--
Where eastern Amur's length ming current gdes,
Where California breaks the billowy tides
Peruvian streams their golden margins boast.
And spreading Chill leads the channeld osast
The plnfons swell till all the cloudlike train,
From pole to pole, o'ershades the whitening main
He saw, as widely spread the unchannelled plain,
Where inland realms for ages bloom'd in vain,
Canals, long winding, ope watery fight,
And distant streams, and seas and lakes unite
Where Darien's hills o'erook the gulphy tide,
BY human art the ridgy banks divide;
Ascending sails the opening pass pursue,
And watt the sparkling treasures of Peru.
Janeiros stream from Plata winds its way,
Madeira greets the the waves Of Paraguay
From rich Albania, tower'd the falling sun,
Back thro' the midland numerous channels run,
Meet the far lakes their beauteous towns that lave,
And Hudson join to broad Ohio's wave.
From dim Superior, whose unfathom'd sea
Drinks the mild sunbeams Of the setting day,
New paths unfolding, lead their watery pride,
And towns and empires rise along their side;
To Mississippfs source the passes bend,
And to the broad Pacific main extend"
The prediction Of DARWIN relative to railways is
more singular than the description by BARLOW ofthe Erie
the Ohio the Wabash, and Illinois canals. BARLOW
Poem, written he states page 1885, previous to the lat
war;" (meaning the Revolution,) is a remarkable Pre-
duction He has certainly the right with General WASH
ISoToY and General SCHUYLER to claim the paternity
the Erie canal
FULTON you may recollect adopted DARwIS's idea
the Lady Clinton Barge" attached to his first exper
ments in steam the North River. But am admonisl
ed not to trepass further the value Of your columns
further than to mention that Col j. STEVENS Of Hobokcr
said in 1911 should be surprised seeing stear
carriages propelled at the rate Of forty and fifty miles pc
hour, and can see nothing to hinder one from movn
these ways with the velocity Of hundred miles
hour" J.E.B