ter displaying the wealth and resources of Philadelphia, concludes by observing:

"The property at stake, then in the city and county of Philadelphia, amounts to near two hundred millions of dollars!

"Foreign commerce, during the golden days of neutrality, and a monopoly of the best share of the western trade, have heaped together, in this small district, so vast a treasure. But our foreign commerce is less extensive and less gainful now, and rivals to the north and south are about to deprive us of our home trade. We must defeat their efforts, we must maintain, protect, and increase these riches. We can and will bafile the attempts of our neighbours. We have a motive in the defence of our property; we have the means in that property itself; and nature points out to us the road; a road, broad, fair, safe, and interminable! If we follow it, we shall not only retrieve our lost ground, but insure to ourselves, without the possibility of rivalship from any quarter, the most brilliant career and highest destiny. We may command at one and the same time, the trade of the Great Lakes-of the Ohio-half the Mississippi-the whole of the Missouri-three parts of Pennsylvania, and one third of New-York;-and in such event --an event in train to be realised-we shall see the expectations of the great founder of our city fulfilled. We shall behold storehouses and commercial streets lining the banks of the Schuylkill, and receding east, until they meet those of the Delaware, and thus cover the vast area marked out by Penn, as the ground-plot of his city of brotherly love.'

In sober earnest, we are induced to consider such enthusiastic declamation as inconsistent, to the last degree, with any thing like candid discussion. Great Britain and the United States may be rivals; New-York and Pennsylvania should never be. The citizens of these two great influential states may emulate the exertions of each other, but forming, as they actually do, the point of the moral arch of the United States, they must give mutual support.

We must close this article by recommending it to our fellow citizens, individually, of every state in our widely extended confederacy, to adopt the language of Governor Clinton, as his motto, and to exclaim, when any useful practicable plan is proposed, “From a full persuasion that the prosperity of our country will be best advanced by multiplying the markets for our productions, and by an intimate and beneficial connexion between the different members of the confederacy, I CONSIDER IT A SACRED DUTY TO OVERLOOK LOCAL CONSIDERATIONS, and to promote to the utmost of my power, this, and every other plan, which may be subservient to these important objects."

C- -es.

to communicate the following sketch of discoveries, in addition to those you have already seen, for publication. Yours, &c.

C. S. RAFINESQUE. I. IN GEOLOGY.-I have made a new and complete map of the valley of the Ohio, or its ancient bed, from Pittsburg to the mouth of the Wabash. I have ascertained that the falls of the Ohio were once much below their actual site, be tween Salt river and Sinking creek, where the river runs through a narrow and deep valley of less than half a mile, being confined between a chain of large hills, which take the name of Silver Hills in Indiana, and Barren Hills in Kentucky;

II. IN MINERALOGY.-I have discovered or observed several rare substances, such as globular geodes of chalcedony, some of which are perfectly solid inside; a variety of beautiful variegated onyx clays; many stalactites of the most singular shape, like flat horns, branched corals, organs, &c.; a beautiful chrystal of carbonate of lime, the fascicles hexagonal, club-shaped, and articulated; the lithographic stone, the typographic marble, &c. III. IN BOTANY.-I have collected about 700 species of plants in the western states, while only 200 had been stated to be found there. Among those are more than 12 new genera, and about 80 new species, undescribed by the late authors, even by Pursh and Nuttal. I beg leave to select the descriptions of one among these new genera, and of three new species.

N. G. NEVROSPERMA. (Nat. fam. of Cucurbitacea, in the sexual system Monoecia Diadelphia.) Monoical. M. flowers. Calyx 5 partite, corolla 5 partite, stamina 5, diadelphous, 2 filaments in the centre, 2 glands between them, one filament bears 2 anthers, the other 3. Fem. flowers. Calyx and corolla similar, ovary inferior, adherent, oblong, verrucose on 8 rows, a thick trifid style, surrounded by 3 glands, 3 bilobed stigmas. Fruit, a verrucose berry, 3 locular or monolocular by abortion, 3 to 9 seeds, surrounded by a fleshy arilla, elliptical flat, margin truncate, surface nervose, reticulate.

Nevrosperma cuspidata. A smooth vine, stems slender, angular, leaves petiolate, petiols canaliculate, lucid, palmate, sinuate-dentate, teeth cuspidate, flowers axillary, solitary, on long tortuose peduncles, with a reniform cucullate bractea. Obs. A fine annual plant, native of the country west of the Mississippi, cultivated in Kentucky, under the name of Balsam Apple, as an efficient vulnerary. I have collected specimens and seeds of this plant.

1. N. Sp. Asclepias vanillea. Stem simple, pubescent above, leaves opposite,

minate, smooth, ciliolate, umbels axillary erect, auricules, ovate, obtuse, cucullate, split inside, cornicules equal to them, curved inside. A fine small plant about a foot high; the flowers are of a lilac colour, and smell like Vanilla or Helio, trope. It grows in Kentucky, near Green River.

2. N. Sp. Dodecatheon angustifolium. Leaves lanceolate or oblong cuneate, acuminate, entire, flat, very smooth, scape elongated, multiflora bracteas, lanceolate, peduncles shorter than the flower, anthers longer than the corolla. It grows near the Wabash, in the prairies. It is the third species known of this interesting genus.

3. N. Sp. Cuscuta aphylla. Stems evanescent, flowers in large and thick glomerules round the stems of other plants, sessile, crowded, bracteolate, calyx 4 fid, corolla tubulose, short, 4 fid, 4 jutting stamens without appendages, ovary oboval, two long filiform styles with capitate stigmas. A paradoxical plant, which, when in blossom, appears destitute of stems and leaves; it surrounds the stems of many singenesous plants in the prairies of Indiana and Illinois, near the Wabash, and in the barrens of Kentucky, near Salt river and Sinking creek.

IV. IN ZOOLOGY, my discoveries are particularly important, consisting of about 25 new undescribed quadrupeds, 30 new birds, about 32 new reptiles or snakes, lizards and turtles, 64 new fishes out of 68 which inhabit the Ohio, 3 new crustacea, 40 new insects, nearly 100 new living shells, fluviatile and terrestrial, and about as many fossil shells, about 12 new living worms and polypes, and more than 100 new fossil ones. Among so many undescribed beings, it must follow, that several may constitute new genera, and I have accordingly ascertained already 2 N. G. of birds, 12 N. G. of fishes, 1 N. G. of shrimps, 10 N. G. of shells, and 8 N. G. of polyps, &c. but many more N. G. may afterwards be perceived among them. I propose to select 8 N. G. and 10 N. Sp. in order to convey an idea of the whole.

dorsal, acal, and abdominals with 2 oblique black bands. A wonderful fish of the Ohio, from lialf a foot to one foot in length, but very slender, the lower jaw alone is mobile, the teeth are unequal, and on 4 rows, the head is nearly square, the abdominal fins have 6 rays, the dorsal 9, anal 10.

5. N. G. TELIOPS. (A Shrimp. Natural family Phronimia.) No antens, head distinct, with two sessile oblong eyes above it, 6 legs with nails, unequal, the posterior larger, abdomen naked, unarticulated, tail a pencil of hairs. Living in membranaceous angular tubes with two openings. Tilops bicolor. Brown, eyes gray, abdomen green, head squared, truncate, shorter than the thorax. Living in a quadrangular pyramidal tube, transversely rugose. A very singular animal, found by Mr. Clifford, in the springs of New-Bedford, Pennsylvania. It has some afinity with the genera Cerapus and Phronima. Length merely one-fourth of an inch, or less. It is doubtful whether the tube is formed by this animal or

another.

6. N. G. POTAMIPHUS. (A Worm. Nat. fam. Amphitritia.) Body cylindrical and wrinkled, with a few pair of lateral flat appendages, head without tentacula, surrounded by a large circular membrane, tail mutic. Living in an ariacions tube, cylindrical, formed of sand, open at both ends, the upper end operculated, or, hav ing a mobile covering. Potamiphus opercularis. Head blackish, round, appendages oblong, obtuse, tail obtuse, circular membrane flat, entire, tube slightly tapering behind, grayish, granular; operculum reniform, striated, membranaTube about three-fourths of an inch long. Found at the falls of the Ohio. Mr. Clifford has found 3 new species in the springs of New-Bedford, very similar to this genus, but he did not see

ceous.

opening and no operculum, whence they belong, probably, to the natural family Sabellaria, and form a peculiar genus, to which the name of Lithiphus may be given.

7. N. G. LITHIPNUS. Tubes more or less crooked, not angular, formed by very hard silicious sand or gravel, connected by a hard gluten, only one naked opening; 3 species.

5. N. Sp. Lithiphus arcuatus. Cylindrical, arcuate, blackish, diameter onesixth of the length, surface granulated, length about half an inch.

6. N. Sp. Lithiphus difformis. Nearly straight or flexuose, rather flattened, opening round, covered outside with large unequal gravels, commonly 5, two on each side and one at the end. Length about half an inch, breadth little less.

7. N. Sp. Lithiphus helicinus, Spiral as an helix, with 3 spires, an ombilic and an oral mouth. A most singular species, which would be mistaken for an helix, unless closely examined; but it is formed by a conglomeration of fine particles of sand. Diameter one-eighth of an inch, rather flattish above, and conical depressed underneath.

8. N. G. ELLIPSTOMA. (Univalve Shell. Nat. fain. Neritinia.) Shell oval, obtuse, mouth oblique, elliptical entire, thick lips, the inner one plaited, smooth covering the columella and ombilic, decurrent and notched outside the mouth, below the columella. Three species.

8. N. Sp. Ellipstoma gibbosa. 4 spires, a large knob behind the outward lip. From the Ohio and Wabash, length haif an inch.

9. N. Sp. Ellipstoma zonalis. 3 spires, smooth, 3 transverse, zones violet. Kentucky river.

10. N. Sp. Ellipstoma rugosa. 5 spires. smooth, sutures wrinkled. Ohio river.

what confidence can we repose in the oral history delivered to us by savages without the use of letters and continually engrossed in war or in the chase?

The field of inquiry is then limited in

defaced or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time, tanquam tabula naufragii, when industrious persons, by exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deInge of time. The antiquities of our country have always appeared to me more important and to deserve more attention than they have heretofore received. We have indeed no written authorities or documents to recur to, except the ancient French and Dutch writers; and it is well known that their attention was almost solely absorbed in the pursuit of wealth, or in the propagation of religion, and that their sentiments were shaped by reigning prejudices, regulated by preconceived theories, controlled by the policy of their sovereigns, and obscured by the darkness which then

covered the world.

To rely entirely on the traditions of the aborigines for authentic or extensive information, is to lean on a broken reed. Those who have interrogated them must know that they were generally as ignorant as the inquirer; that the ideas they communicated, were either invented at the moment, or were so connected with palpable fable as to be almost entirely unworthy of credit. Having no written auxiliaries to memory, the facts with which they were acquainted, became, in process of time, obliterated from the mind or distorted by new impressions and new traditions. If, in the course of thirty years, the Buccaneers of St. Domingo

closed against us. The monuments which remain, afford considerable room for investigation. The languages, the persons, and the customs of the red men may be made use of to illustrate their origin and history; and even the geology of the country, may, in some cases, be successfully applied to shed light on the subjects of inquiry.

Having had some opportunities for personal observation and not a few for inquiry, I am induced to believe that the western parts of the United States were, prior to their discovery and occupation by Europeans, inhabited by numerous nations in a settled state, aud much further advanced in civilization than the present tribes of Indians. Perhaps it is not too much to say that they did not fall far short of the Mexicans and Peruvians when first visited by the Spaniards. In my illustrations of this subject, I shall principally confine myself to this state, occasionally glancing beyond it, and avoiding, as far as possible, topics which have been heretofore discussed.

The