The Rambler in North America: 1832-1833, Volume 1

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R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1835 - United States
 

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Page 299 - IT was but the other day I was in company with a gentlemanly foreigner — a Prussian ; acute, reasonable, and polite, travelling for his instruction and amusement, to see with his own eyes, and to hear with his own ears. The conversation turned upon the difference of the criminal law in our respective countries, and the mode of procedure in criminal cases. Two things had struck him with reference to that of England ; first, the weight 'which we...
Page 106 - ... directly from the lips of the parties themselves. The small depth of water in the rapids prevented the boat from pursuing her voyage immediately; and during the consequent detention of three weeks in the upper part of the Ohio, several trips were successfully made between Louisville and Cincinnati. In fine, the waters rose, and in the course of the last week in November, the voyage was resumed, the depth of water barely admitting their passage...
Page 104 - The complete success attending the experiments in steam navigation made on the Hudson and the adjoining waters previous to the year 1809, turned the attention of the principal projectors to the idea of its application on the Western Rivers ; and in the month of April of that year, Mr. Roosevelt of New York, pursuant to an agreement with Chancellor Livingston and Mr. Fulton, visited those rivers, with the purpose of forming an opinion whether they admitted of steam navigation or not. At this time...
Page 107 - While thus engaged, our voyagers were accosted in great alarm by the squatters of the neighbourhood, who inquired if they had not heard strange noises on the river and in the woods in the course of the preceding day, and perceived the shores shake; insisting that they had repeatedly felt the earth tremble. Hitherto nothing extraordinary had been perceived. The following day they pursued their monotonous voyage in those vast solitudes. The weather was...
Page 128 - The town of Independence was full of promise, like most of the innumerable towns springing up in the midst of the forests in the West, many of which, though dignified by high-sounding epithets, consist of nothing but a ragged congeries of five or six rough log-huts, two or three clap-board houses, two or three so-called hotels, alias grogshops; a few stores, a bank, printing office, and barn-looking church.
Page 107 - ... on the surface of the water. Evening drew nigh, and with it some indications of what was passing around them, became evident. And as they sat on deck, they ever and anon heard a rushing sound and violent splash, and saw large portions of the shore tearing away from the land and falling into the river. It was, as my informant said, an awful day; so still that you could have heard a pin drop on the deck!
Page 76 - E 2 then grasp the idea of its magnitude, and that all we had seen elsewhere, and all we had expected, was far surpassed by what was then shown to us. And when, the following year, two of us turned aside by common consent to pay a second visit to Niagara, after 'having, in the interval, visited many of the great falls of Lower Canada, — cataracts in comparison to which all European Falls are puerile ; and we felt our curiosity excited to divine what impression a second visit would make — far...
Page 106 - I have heard that the general impression among the good Kentuckians was, that the comet had fallen into the Ohio ; but this does not rest upon the same foundation as the other facts, which I lay before you, and which I may at once say, I had directly from the lips of the parties themselves. The small depth of water in the Rapids prevented the boat from pursuing her voyage immediately, and during the consequent detention of three weeks in the upper part of the Ohio, several trips were successfully...
Page 8 - I should remain in America. I was, as you may recollect, no very violent politician ; and was inclined, whether from natural indolence, or dull good nature, to allow a very considerable diversity of opinion in my neighbor, as long as he took care not to contradict me. I had seen enough of mankind in divers countries to believe that no system of government is of general application, and that the government must be made to suit the people, and not the people to suit the government. I loved my own country...
Page 109 - At that time you floated for three or four hundred miles on the rivers without seeing a human habitation. Such was the voyage of the first steamer. The natural convulsion which commenced at the time of her descent, has been but slightly alluded to, but will never be forgotten in the history of the West ; and the changes wrought by it throughout the whole alluvial region through which the Ohio and Mississippi pour their waters, were perhaps as remarkable as any on record. We hear less of its effects,...

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