The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1859-09-02

HE UPPER MISSISSIPPI-IHE RIVER AND
CoUNTRY.--Rev. James F. Clark, a well
known minister of the Unitarian denomina-
tion visited this city in July and has written
an account of his visit to the Christian En-
guirer of New York. His description Of
the general features of the country, which
are alike on both sides of the river, in Wis
consin and in Minnesota, and of the river
itself, is interesting and truthful, and the
similitude he discovers in our prairies to
the famous Roman Campagna, and of the
bluff scenery on the Mississippi to that on
the Rhine, is confirmed by all who are &C
quainted by personal observation with the
characteristics of each. To make this known
throughout the country, we only need the
pencil of Church, to portray these scenes
in series Of pictures, and the time will come
when the American landscape painter will
regard this as the most fruitful field for the
exercise of his genius. We proceed to make
a few extracts from the letter of Mr.. Clark !:
But what lovely country is this All of one
day travelled in Italy; all of the next day on
the Rhine. Italy, minus its beggars, priests,
and vineyards; the Rhine, minus its castles
and cathedrals. For the rolling prairie of Wis
cOnsin reminds one of the Roman Campagna /;
and the long level plains bounded with pictur
esque ridges of hills, rolling up, like the APP
pennies, abruptly out of the long levels into
steep cliffs, and shaggy submits, send one back
to the Umbrian hills and to Assist, as seen from
Perugia, for comparison. Still more striking.
ly does the Mississippi above Prairie du Chem
resemble the Rhine. 1t foams and flows as
nobly, it bears on its maternal bosom the same
floating RATS of lumber, and it rolls on between
the same files of attending peaks, standing 81.
lent on either side, crowned with masses and
towers of limestone, which might easily do duty
of moonlight night as robber castles, or as
long fortress walls of masonry. There are no
vineyards, indeed, and no peasant girls with
blue eyes, and hands offering flowers, but
though Byron saw the last do not remember
any such beneath the Drachenfels, or in the
dirty streets of Bonn. Instead of vineyards we
have here immense wheathelds; instead of pea
SAINT girls, reaping machines and threshing ma.
chimes and screaming steam.engines. But not
the Rhine has more beautiful scenery, nor as
delicious air. One drinks health in with every
breath.
ST. PAUL, ST. ANTHONY, AND MINNEAPOLIS
Three cities, the first below the Falls and the
largest, stand around the point where only for
thousands of miles is the river navigation inter-
1upted by rapids and falls. The Falls of st.
Anthony are grand and beautiful. But the at
mosphere seems made to cure all diseases; it
exhilarates like champagne. In the night the
stars shine so distinctly, and SO like points of
fire without rays, that you fancy yourself look.
ing at them through telescope.
THE FALLS OF MINNEHAHA.
The Falls of Minnehaha are about four miles
from st. Anthony. A large brook pours its
water over a ledge of rock in one symmetric
sheet into a circular basin. When the Indian
called it " laughing water" he became poet.
The stream bounds forward like merry child,
bends into beautiful curves of crystal, RACES
not against stones, but is clear sheet like
melten glass even to where it bounds over the
edge, into the basin beneath, grit with bushes
and fowers-and then runs on as before, in
clear leaps and dives, with not foam.feck,
transparent to the bottom.
UNITARIANISM IN ST. PAUL.
The Unitarians in st. Paul are not many; but
meet regularly, having the advantage of the
gratuitous services of Rev. Frederick R. New
ell, who is engaged in business here, but
breaches to them every Sunday in hall. They
have in him an earnest and honest minister,
who serves them, not for hire, but from love to