we had not one sick since we touched the land here." He affirms that if it "had but horses and kine in some reasonable proportion, I dare assure myself, being inhabited with English, no realm in Christendom were comparable to it. For this already, we find, that what commodities soever Spain, France, or Italy, or the East parts, do yield to us, &c., these parts do abound with the growth of them all, and sundry other rich commodities, that no parts of the world, be they West or East Indies, have, here we find the greatest abundance of."

When we contemplate North Carolina at the present day, we recognize the features here described. There is on the coast the same long line of low sandy islands, probably formed by the deposits of sediment, where the fluvial waters from the interior are checked in their course by the opposing current of the Gulf stream. With the excep tion of the fine harbor of Beaufort, there are the same difficult inlets which terrified these early voyagers, and on their maps were marked with figures of sinking ships. Inside of the range there are the same broad and shallow seas, most abundantly supplied with fish, and those other inhabitants of the deep, which are alike calculated to minister to the necessities and luxuries of mankind. On the "main" there are lands not inferior in fertility to the famous Deltas of the Nile, or the Mississippi. Cultivation for one hundred successive years, in the most exhausting of the grain crops, has not diminished their productiveness. Though it has cost something to render these swamp lands suitable for cultivation, yet no agricultural investment ever made in America, perhaps, yields a better return; and this fact affords. another illustration of the truth, that Providence has decreed that the best things in life shall cost labor to attain them. And yet, up to this time but a small proportion, many persons think not one-fiftieth part, of the swamp lands in the eastern portion of the State have been put in cultivation. When, after the manner of Holland, all this region shall have been reclaimed, the entire present population of the State might be removed to it, without being able to cultivate the half of it. Almost every portion of it, too, is penetrated by navigable streams. Passing inward a hundred miles, or more from the coast, we reach that belt of pine land, which was formerly regarded as only valuable for its timber, and naval stores generally, but which latter experiments show, may, without difficulty, be rendered highly productive. By the application of marl or lime, it has been ascertained that most of this region can be made to yield abundant crops both of cotton and the cereals. Westward of this, there stretches for two or three hundred miles a moderately elevated, undulating country, presenting almost every variety of landscape, soil and production. At its extreme borders, there rises up a mountainous region, with bolder scenery and a more bracing climate. Few of our citizens realize the extent of this district, or are aware of the fact that it is three hundred miles in length, and has probably more than thirty peaks that surpass in altitude Mount Washington, long regarded as the most elevated point in the Atlantic States. Though this region does not present the glacier fields and eternal snows of the Alps, yet their want is amply atoned for, by a vegetation rich as the tropics

themselves can boast of. Rocky masses, of immense height and magnitude, and long ridges and frightful precipices are to be found; but the prevailing character of this section is one of such fertility that the forest trees attain their most magnificent proportions on the sides, and even about the tops of the highest mountains. There, too, are to be seen those strange, treeless tracts, which the aboriginal inhabitants supposed to be the foot-prints of the "Evil One," as he stepped from mountain to mountain. Their smooth, undulating surfaces, covered with waving grasses, suggest far different associations to the present beholders. The landscape is variegated, too, by tracts of thirty and even forty miles in extent, covered with dense forests of the balsam fir trees, appearing in the distance dark as "the plumage of the raven's wing," and green carpets of elastic moss, and countless vernal flowers, among which the numerous species of the azalia, the kalmia, and the rhododendron, especially, contend in the variety, delicacy and brilliancy of their hues. From the sides of the mountains flow cold and limpid streams along broad and beautiful valleys. Though such a region as this can never weary the eye, its chief merit is, that almost every part of it is fitted to be occupied by, and to minister to the wants of man.

Our State, from the seashore to its western limit, is probably as well watered as any equal extent of territory on the face of the globe; and, in all the middle and upper portions, the supply of water power is inexhaustible. In fact, there are single rivers, such as the Catawba and French Broad, or "Racing river" of the Cherokees, which are sufficient to move the machinery of a State. Throughout our entire territory there are no barren wastes, and rarely a square mile to be found which cannot maintain its proportionate share of population. In all its parts, too, the variety, magnitude, and beauty of its forest trees, fully sustain the encomiums of those early explorers. While the seaboard counties have those peculiar to that region-like the cypress, juniper, live-oak, and the gigantic pines of the swamps, fit to become the "masts of great Admirals"-and the mountains such varieties as are suited to a hardier climate, the State, as a whole, seems to contain representatives of almost all the trees of the North American forest, in their fullest and grandest development, and to afford in the greatest profusion all manner of timber and beautiful woods for the uses of the artificer.

When we look beneath the surface of the earth, there are abundant objects of interest. North Carolina has the distinction of being the first of all the governments of the world that ordered a geological survey of its territory; and she has, in my opinion, a greater variety of mineral substances than any single State of the Union. Not only does she present the diamond, platinum, gold, silver, and many other substances, interesting to the man of science for their rarity, or attractive to the lovers of ornament for their beauty, but she possesses in great abundance those minerals which add most to the wealth and permanent prosperity of a State. Though her coal measures are not perhaps as extensive as those of some of the other States, yet they are

sufficiently so to be inexhaustible; while the coals are of the very best quality for fuel, for the making of gas, and for the manufacture of iron. With respect to the ores of iron, I think she may fairly claim to be the first of all the States, because she has not only all such ores as they possess, in the greatest abundance, but she is the only one known to contain the rare and valuable "black band ore," and that in quantities vastly surpassing the deposits in Scotland itself. When, therefore, we look to the coal measures on Deep river, and find all these ores in the greatest abundance, overlying or between the coal seams themselves, and consider all the advantages of this locality, we can hardly doubt the correctness of the opinion expressed by the most experienced miners and manufacturers of iron, that, when proper outlets are opened, by the completion of the works of improvement now in progress, iron can be there made and transported to Wales, and sold at as cheap rate as that for which the Welsh manufacturers now afford the article.

Extensive beds of valuable marl are ascertained to exist over almost the entire eastern portion of the State, and afford the means of making fertile most parts of that section. Recent examinations have brought to light to so great an extent, lime, copper ores, and other valuable minerals, as to satisfy every one that North Carolina is eminently fortunate in her geological formations.

The agricultural productions of the State are not less varied than its surface and soils. I know of no article grown in New England or New York that cannot be obtained with less labor and at lower rates in the mountain regions of North Carolina. Whatever the middle and western States of the Union yield, can be produced in abundance, not only in the central parts, but, in fact, all over our State. While tobacco may be profitably grown in almost every portion of it, some of the northern counties produce varieties equal, and probably superior, to what old Virginia herself, or any other part of the world, grows. Cotton of fine qualities is produced in the lower counties, in as great quantity to the acre and with as high profits as in the southwestern States. The progress this culture has of late made with us, when we consider the large area suitable to it, renders it probable that, at no distant day, North Carolina will take rank among the first cotton. States of the Union. The rice of the Cape Fear is esteemed equal to the best in the world, and its culture may be largely extended in that region. The lowland counties of the east and northeast, as producers of breadstuffs, are destined to be to the adjacent regions what Egypt was in the time of the Pharaohs.

The grape is indigenous in every part of the State, from Currituck to Cherokee: and among the hundreds of native varieties that are from time to time brought to light, after the neglect and waste of centuries, there are doubtless many which will equal, possibly surpass, the delicious Scuppernong of the Albemarle region, and the famous Catawba of Buncombe. With such indications, and our favorable soils and climate, why may we not in time approximate the vintages of France and Germany?

Mr. Webster once remarked to me in conversation, that he did not believe that we should ever be able to obtain good wine from the Atlantic slope of the American continent. The reason given by him was this: the prevailing winds of the temperate region being from the west, as in the United States they came from the land, a much higher degree of heat was felt in the summer than in Europe, where they blew from the Atlantic Ocean. Hence he thought the extreme heat of the summer here would bring about too soon an acetous fermentation, unfavorable to the production of good wines. If this view should present an insurmountable difficulty with respect to wines made from foreign grapes, that ripen in the heat of our summers, it nevertheless. would not exist in the case of the natives, which do not usually come to maturity until the greatest heats of the summer are past, namely, in the months of September and October. In fact, in a district of a few miles in extent on the Tryon mountain, where neither dew nor frost is ever known, and which is remarkable for the variety and excellence of its native grapes, they are often found in fine condition in the open air, as late as December.

In the wine districts of France, there are embraced in all about eight thousand square miles, a considerable portion of which consists of rocky steeps, and terraces, unfitted for the production of the cereals, and yet the yield in wine is of the value of more than fifty millions of dollars annually, while the product of brandy is from ten to twelve millions.

It thus appears that the whole yield from these eight thousand miles of territory is equal to about one-half of the average value of the cotton crop of the United States for the last five years. There is doubtless in North Carolina a much greater amount of land than this, suitable to the growing of grapes, and may we not hope, one of these days, to become a great wine producing community?

With the single exception of the sugar from the cane, I know of no agricultural product of the Union which is not suited to our State. I do not merely mean to say that they may be produced, but that they all find in our limits their appropriate soil and climate, and can be successfully cultivated to an extent greatly surpassing the wants of our own people. All the domestic animals existing in the United States thrive within our borders. Though the sheep may be advantageously reared in almost every part of the State, he finds his best climate and most attractive food in the mountainous region, while the blood horse can be most successfully raised in the sandy districts of the lower country.

The climate of North Carolina as a whole is eminently favorable. I know that different opinions prevail in many quarters, and so much is said in these days of northern energy and southern indolence, that you will doubtless pardon a few remarks tending to dispel a singular popular delusion. I maintain, then, that during nine-tenths of the existence of man on the globe, as historically known, the destinies of the world have been controlled by nations occupying territories having as warm climates as our own. According to the settled opinion of the learned, when man was first created, he was placed by Providence in

such a climate, and it would be singular indeed, if, when he was commanded to multiply and replenish the earth, he should have been placed by his Creator in an unfavorable location. Egypt, where man seems first to have attained a high state of civilization, and India, had tropical climates. The four great Empires of antiquity were, in their centres, subjected to ranges of temperature as high as ours. Babylon and Persepolis were nearer the equator than the most southern point of North Carolina, while Nineveh was below its northern limit, and the hearts of the Assyrian and Persian Empires were subjected to a warmer climate than ours. And Greece and Rome, too, were lands of the olive, the vine and the fig tree, and possessed temperatures as high as our own. What people ever exhibited more spirit, energy, and enterprise than the Greeks in their Persian wars and Asiatic invasions? Where has the world seen such an example of long-sustained strength and energy as was manifested by the Romans, when they held for so many centuries the best portions of the known world from Scotland down to the great African desert? After the decay and fall of their Empire, there began under the tropic of Cancer a movement headed by Mahomet, which swept over the earth with the rapidity of a flame of fire, subjecting the principal parts of it to its control. A high state of civilization was kept up for centuries at Bagdad and Cordova, the capitals of the principal branches of the Saracenic dominions. After their decline and the overthrow of the Greek Empire of Constantinople, the period of Spanish ascendency began. It thus appears that it is only during the last two or three centuries that the so-called northern nations have had control of the world. The extraordinary popular error which so generally prevails on this subject is due, doubtless, mainly to the fact that to the minds of the majority of men the present is everything, and the past however long it may have been, goes for nothing. It in part, too, may be accounted for by the well-known circumstance, that the old Roman Empire in the period of its decay was overrun by bands of Barbarians from the north. But at that time the strength of the Romans was gone, having been destroyed by their vices, and the despotisms to which they had been subjected. In fact, they had long ceased to be a military people, or to bear arms, and had been accustomed to hire these Barbarians to defend them. That they should have fallen a prey to them is no more wonderful than that a decrepit giant, after a century of vice and dissipation, should have been overpowered by a stripling. There can be no doubt but that any one of the half a dozen such armies as the Roman Republic could keep in the field at the same time, would have been able to beat any horde of barbarians that ever crossed the frozen Danube.

I would not disparage or undervalue the intellect, talent, energy and courage exhibited by the northern nations in our day. But Homer still stands the monarch of poetry. All attemps to equalize others with him but serve to show their lamentable inferiority. Demosthenes and Cicero are still the models to which the sudent in oratory is pointed. Who has exhibited more capacity for metaphysical science than Aristotle, or greater genius for mechanical philosophy than Archimedes?