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established, Stevens had a boat in motion with the required velocity; and, as his experiments were entirely separate from those of Fulton, he seems justly entitled to divide the honor which, by the popular judgment, is exclusively awarded to Fulton.*

The labors in hydrography of Edmund M. Blunt, and his sons, deserve especial notice. "The American Coast Pilot" was first published in 1796, and was then a small pamphlet of about eighty pages, containing an account of the chief harbors in New England, with sailing directions, and it has been, by labors and additions through forty years, augmented to a volume of about one thousand pages, giving an accurate account and directions for navigating the eastern coast of America, from Labrador to Cape Horn, including that of the West India islands.

While the country, and especially this state, has been steadily rising into great commercial and maritime importance, the government, until 1830, manifested a total neglect of hydrographical science; yet through the persevering enterprise of Mr. Blunt, there are to be found in the "Coast Pilot" as full and complete directions for the navigation of the American coast, as those furnished with the aid of government in other countries.

No actual surveys were made of this part of the American coast, until 1822, when Mr. Blunt surveyed the harbor of New York, and its eastern entrance. In 1827 he extended his surveys to Long Island Sound, and made an elaborate survey of the coasts of that arm of the sea, which has proved to be a work of the greatest utility to commerce. Some estimate may be formed of the extent of this private enterprise, when it is recollected that the coast to be surveyed was two hundred and fifty miles in length, and that many islands and bays are comprehended in the survey.

Since that time, the great triangulation of the coast, by the authority of the federal government, has been extended over the same coast, under the direction of Professor Hasler as principal, and James Ferguson of Albany, and Edmund Blunt of New York, assistants.

The charts used throughout the United States, both of the coast of the United States and the West Indies, are published by E. & G. W. Blunt, and they have entirely superseded the foreign * Encyclopædia Americana.

VOL. II.-10

charts, being original drawings, continuing the new discoveries and corrections with the general outline adopted in the English charts.

In connection with this subject, it is proper to state that directions have been given for an accurate triangulation of the Niagara river at Niagara falls.

Unhappily there is not in this, nor in any other country, a taste sufficiently general for the study of the useful arts. Occasionally a brilliant invention arrests the attention of mankind, and homage is involuntarily yielded to a discoverer who has contributed to the well-being and happiness of our race. But the laws of mechanics, although fixed, invariable, and easy of comprehension, remain unstudied and unregarded. Neglecting inquiry into the processes by which results have been attained, society is content to pay its tribute of admiration for the results themselves. Inventions are brought into general use, and curiosity concerning the inventor, and the progress of his discovery, ceases altogether; or if, like the printing-press and the steam-engine, the invention marks a new era in the march of civilization, a confused association of the author's name with his invention takes possession of the public mind, and millions repeat his praises without at all inquiring into the justice of the award. Although mechanical inventors are busy among us, we have few trophies of the genius of our citizens besides the application of the steam-engine to navigation. Mac Adam, the inventor of the well-known improvement in the mode of constructing common roads, was a native of New York, although his genius received its development in England, whence we have received his invention. Paul K. Hodge has published a work called "The Steam-Engine, its Origin and Gradual Improvement from the Time of Heron to the Present Day, as Adapted to Manufactures, Locomotion, and Navigation," which is held in high esteem. The author has the merit of having invented the steam fire-engine, a machine of great importance in populous cities. James Renwick has written several valuable treatises, among which we may mention, "The Application of the Science of Mechanics to Practical Purposes;" and also a work "On the Steam-Engine." Alexander S. Byrne has published "Observations on the Best Mode of Propelling Ships." William C. Redfield's "Essays on Meteorology," and "The Causes of Hurricanes," have attracted much attention

in that abstruse and unexplored field of science. It must be admitted that he has ably defended his theory in opposition to that of Professor Espy. The labors of Professor Davies in the science of pure mathematics, and those of Professor Mahan in that of mixed mathematics, and its applications in civil engineering and kindred departments, conducted, as they have been, at the United States military academy in West Point, are claimed as a valuable portion of the scientific property of the state. Doctor Nott's improvement of furnaces for burning anthracite coal, has been especially useful in the manufacture of machinery and in the improvement of steam navigation, as well as conducive to health and the comforts of social life. An important and valuable work has just issued from the press, entitled, "A Descriptive and Historical Account of Hydraulic and Other Machines for Raising Water, Ancient and Modern," by Thomas Ewbank, of New York. The author, who is deeply versed in mechanical science, has, by a collection of rare and curious facts in the progress of invention, presented in a spirited yet unaffected manner, attempted to disturb the popular indifference to mechanism, and to invest that science with the interest of history and the charm of romance. His extensive, minute, and accurate account of the more important engines and machines now in use, renders his work exceedingly useful to the student in that department.*

From notices of practical applications of science, we pass to a brief review of the progress of literature, and shall, for obvious reasons, dwell most upon such productions as especially illustrate points in the character, condition, or circumstances of the state. The history of the races which inhabited the American continent previously to the planting of the European colonies, is a vast field imperfectly explored. Ancient fortifications erected anterior to the discovery of America, have been found in all parts of the state. De Witt Clinton, after personal examination, described the ruins of fortifications in Pompey, Onondaga county. In several parts of that town, there are remains of ancient populous settlements. The site of the ruins is on the high ground which divides the waters which flow into Chesapeake bay, from those which seek the ocean through the gulf of St. Lawrence; and the

*Notes on the Useful Arts were received from Rufus W. Griswold, D. D.

formations between this ridge and the shore of Lake Ontario indicate an abrasion of rocks, and a recession of the waters by which the valley has been exposed. The ruins are similar to those found in the interior of the continent; from an examination of which our antiquarians have, with great unanimity, deduced an opinion that a vast population, many ages since, existed on the continent, having large towns, possessing military defences, and pursuing agriculture, and more advanced in civilization than the aboriginal nations which have inhabited the same country since the European discovery. Many interesting relics found in such ruins have been preserved in the Albany Institute, especially utensils made of pottery. There is another class of ruins which furnish traces of visits by Europeans, of which there is no historical account. The Indians found in the settlement of the colony, have no reliable tradition concerning either of these descriptions of ruins. A few rude characters etched upon the rocks are all the enduring hieroglyphics, found in the northern portion of the continent cast of the Hudson; and these are unintelligible, although the learned and ingenious Schoolcraft supposes that he has discovered a key to unlock the mystery. Monuments everywhere remain, but they bear no records of the eloquent, the wise, and the brave, who may have flourished in a long lapse of ages. Even the origin of the present aboriginal races is involved in mystery, and the curious and learned are equally divided on the question, whether the ancestors of these races were drifted upon the southern division of the continent, from the islands of the South Sea, or whether they were of Tartar origin, and found their way there by crossing Bhering's straits. Yet another theory derives the aborigines from the Northmen of Europe. This theory is based upon the resemblance of the American Indians to the Esquimaux, and between the Esquimaux and the Laplanders. Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill maintained this hypothesis. Henry Wheaton, now minister of the United States at the court of Berlin, has pursued investigations which, together with those of the Swedish antiquaries, have produced a general conviction that the Northmen visited the shores of New England several centuries before the discovery of America by Columbus; and it is argued that if the bold adventurers in the age of Eric the Red could traverse the North seas from Norway to Greenland, and thence to the American coast, spirits equally brave might have done the

same ages before. Other speculators have attempted to trace the descent of the American Indians from the Canaanites driven from Palestine by Joshua. Grotius and Martyr believed that Yucatan was first peopled by Christian Ethiopians; while some regard those races as descendants of the long lost ten and a half tribes of the children of Israel.*

The first colonial historian of the Six Nations was Cadwallader Colden, and his work is valuable although it reaches only to a very short period subsequent to the peace of Ryswick. The work is certainly good authority as a record of facts, and manifests a benevolent spirit and an inquiring genius. It is especially interesting also because it shows that each of the Five Nations was a distinct republic, while they were all bound in a confederacy with a grand central council at Onondaga. Colden, however, is supposed to have erred in adopting the French opinion, that the Five Nations had only recently occupied the country in which they were found at the time of the discovery of the continent. David Cusick, an educated Tuscarora Indian, about twenty years ago, published a history of the Six Nations, derived from their traditions. This work, which as a merely literary one is without merit, nevertheless establishes the fact, if any reliance can be placed on Indian tradition, that the Five Nations resided in the country now constituting western New York, for a very long period anterior to the first visit of the Europeans. But Cusick's chronology is almost as wild as that of the Chinese or the Hindoos, for he gives accounts of the reigns of a long line of kings, reaching through a period of thousands of years. There are two points, however, in the traditions of the Six Nations which are both curious and important, to wit, the resemblance between their cosmogony and that of the Hindoos, and the fact that the Noachian deluge is incorporated in their legends, as it has been found in those of all the barbarous nations on the eastern continent. A discourse, pronounced before the Historical Society of New York, in the year 1811, by De Witt Clinton, presents the most useful compendium of the history of the Six Nations. Sir William Johnson wrote a series of letters to Arthur Lee of Virginia, upon the manners, customs, and government of the Six Nations, but it is not known that the work is extant. The Reverend Samuel F. Jarvis, formerly of New York, but now of

*Adair, Boudinot, Miller, M. M. Noah.

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