The Portland daily press., 1867-07-22
n our Ind Visitors. |

only, but whole classes; and now we have
| been brought a. aquainted with half hundred
| OF so from New Hampshire, Vermont, Massa-
chusetts and Northern New York, averaging
| about hall a peck of brains apiece, and each
| type of his neighborhood, and State-some
being Presidents of Railways, others Directors
Millers, Manufacturers. Judges, Governors
and ex-Governors, Lawyers and Editors. and
all of a temper to show what they are made Of,
| and what they are good for, on the slightest
| provocation, whether as takers or doers: long
headed sagacious men, vast and eomprehen-
s've, sehemers looking forward into the future
Without quailing or winking, though, if their
| plans are carried out-as they seem likely to Ee
| the Atlantic and Pacific will rush together, and
| China, Japan and the East Indies, and all the
rest OF the world, resolve themselves into prov
inees; and emperors and kings, into factors,
shippers, agents and consignees for the people
| everywhere. ---'l 5HD 5Ai h-A
Talk about making history! Why these men
have been making poetry BY the carload
/ epics thousand miles long, to begin with, and
4 epigrams by the wheel-barrow load, project
ing their railways and steamships into China,
and promising to make all the rest of the
| world tributary to Portland; and what is still
better, for such plausible and convincing rea-
sons, founded on undeniable facts and statis-
tics that the widest dream of the whole has
come to be no laughing matter already. ss.
just look at map of the world on Merca-
tors projection, says one Of their number,
massey and ask yourselves where the short
est, and cheapest, snd safest line of intercom-
munication may be found between the East
and the West-thc Old World and the New;
and just there you find the magnificent har-
Dor of Portland, the Ogdensburg and Oswego
Railway, the great lakes, tie Niagara ship
canal, Chicago and the Northern Pacific Rail-
way. ..-. -. .,..,
And if this be not poetry, we should like to
know what is. And if it be not common sense
too, and foresight and calculation, and states
manship, such as only business men Of long
experience can afford to indulge in, without
the risk of being misunderstood or laughed at,
then we should be glad to know what is to be-
come of all our railways to the Pacific, and
our Ocean Telegraphs which, but the other
day, as it were, seemed SO far off and so vision
ary, as to be little better than symptoms of
haliucnation.
Mr.. Fort from the Oswego Board of Trade
has demonstrated, that with the Ogdensburg
Railway and the Niagara Ship Canal opened,
as they soon will be, and must be, Portland
will be brought nearer to Chicago, the worlds
graeary, than New York is now gaaEs %
And General Stewart, who has.made four diff
ferent surveys for the Niagara Ship Canal, va
rylng fromfour to sixteen miles in length, by the
direction of our Federal authorities, declares
that two cents bushel, ON the actual amount
| OF grain sent eastward noao-when they are
but beginning to show their capabilities of
soil and climate, aooald pay for the canal in fue
years though it should cost ten millions of
dollars in specie. i' 'f''iD' 'Di>sa .si-iai.
Is not that poetry glorious poetry? and not
the poetry OF conjecture either; but Of demon
stration, of mathematical syllogisms worth
more to the whole human family, than all that
was ever before achieved by such dreamers as
Homer and Virgil, and Milton, and Tasso and
Dante, with their visions of Paradise Lost, the
World of Woe and Jerusalem Delivered, to
say nothing Of Paradise Regained, of which
this great project is but new edition, or Jer-
usalem Restored; for these poets were only
poets, they were not men of business, nor states
men, nor philanthropists, and their poems were
never demonstrations. At best, they were only
problems, while these are timetables, and
commercial Statistics and QgE. D,selq syad sb
ai But God be thanked! such men aisay 8 turn
up when they are wanted. O The great treasure
houses of the earth were buried in darkness
forlcountless ages, till after the discovery of
printing, of the mariners compass, and of the
New World, way was open for steam naviga.
tion, the telegraph by land and sea to bring all
nations together; and then, of course, the
time had arrived for rummaging California,
breaking into her treasure houses, and fansack-
ing the growth Of silver and copper and coal,
and for turning up as it were fire, -" earth
burning with rubies and the precious metals,
In every part of our land. All these events
were to follow in certain order None were
to happen till they were needed Hence in
Maryland and Pennsylvania You find alterna-
tons vi coal and iron, over "a large territory,
with sand lor the furnaces and lime for the
fiuK, lying side by side, a streak of fat and
streak of lean, with forests OF charcoal, stretch
es for hundreds of miles, sh'Fi7''i 10 Y'i
just so we have way provided from tha
first, through the gorge of the White Hills into
the land of promise beyond. 1GlIs not the val
ley Of Saco River in proof? and is not the
opening through the White Hills part Of the
original plan? and altogether of piece with
the hidden treasures, and great stores of gold
and silver and iron and coal and trock-oil,
which were always overlooked, till they were
wanted, and were only found ~. when
they began to be greatly needed, so that man,
should know how to value them?
=, For ,time the sea was a hindrance to all
communication between the scattered human
family. But when change was needed-the
change came-and the great and terrible sea-
the chief mystery Of our earth-becane high
way for the nations. t9n5Tsh D33ooi 81 oj I.
For ages too, the snow and ice were him 4
drances-but how is It now?s A natural rail-
way for snow shoes and sledges -overspreadin
the whole earth, where they abound; and, like
the sea; bringing people into communication,
who but for these insurmountable barriers,
would never have known of each others exis-
tence., 4s-y l-.,-Jrffr{ 81 fsr7er,,,, cs ft,
Aud so with the, gorge of the White Hills
But the other day, it was thought impassable.
Then came road through it, rough and at
times little dangerous, but still road,
highway; and now, what next? We are to
turn it into thoroughfare, which whole COM
munities and nations are to go laundering
through, like invading armies, stormingl the 4
cloudy battlements, and carrying the outworks
OF . world with trumpsts blowing and banners
fying-and all too, in the way of business, or
pleasure. s+ d bar ,fsi,7er. 30 Erede-=, r
p But men have sometimes shown little of
the foresight We see here, in these provisions
for coming future, which lead us to 'look
through nature up to Natures God" In Lon
den, away down in the busiest and most
crowded part Of the city, behind st. Paul's,
there stands a beautiful church--perhaps the
most beautiful ever bnilt by the same archi-
tect, Sir Christopher Wren. About flve-and-
twenty years ago, the authorities wanted to
open sort of sluice-way-not a thoroughfare
: into the neighborhood of thisJchurch; and at
last, after many long consultation with archi-
tects and engineers, and many a missiying, lest
1t should be cast up to their children's chill
dren hereafter, and they should be held to an
swer for the sacrilege of their fathers, they
concluded to open a narrow passageway
through the walls of their church into neigh
boring street. To work they went, with fear
and trembling but 10 and beholdi as we say
Down East-before they had been hammering
ten minutes, they found that the architect,