CHAPTER I. Its extent,—Subdivisions,—Population,—Physical features,—Animal, Vegetable and Mineral productions,—History,—Prospective increase of Population. The Valley of the Mississippi, in its proper geographical extent, embraces all that portion of the United States, lying between the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains, the waters of which are discharged into the gulf of Mexico, through the... more...

CHAPTER I. Sequel to the "Graphite Lode."—The Fifteen Thousand Dollars, and how it was invested.—About the Yacht.—The Schooner "Curlew."—Capt. Mazard.—Guard.—The Gloucester Boys.—"Palmleaf, Sar."—Getting Ready for the Voyage.—Ship-Stores.—The Howitzer.—The Big Rifle.—A Good Round Bill at the Outset. Raed got home from Katahdin on the night of the 15th of... more...

CHAPTER ONE European Background and Indian Counterpart to Virginia Medicine European Background The origins of medical theory and practice in this nation extend further than the settlement at Jamestown in 1607. Jamestown was a seed carried from the Old World and planted in the New; medicine was one of the European characteristics transmitted with the seed across the Atlantic. In the process of... more...

THE TWENTY-FOURTH BOOK OF HOMER'S ILIAD, Attempted in English Hexameters. [It may be thought idle or presumptuous to make a new attempt towards the naturalization among us of any measure based on the ancient hexameter. Even Mr Southey has not been in general successful in such efforts; yet no one can deny that here and there—as, for instance, at the opening of his Vision of Judgment, and in his... more...

PÚSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN POET. No. I. Sketch of Púshkin's Life and Works, by Thomas B. Shaw, B.A. of Cambridge, Adjunct Professor of English Literature in the Imperial Alexander Lyceum, Translator of "The Heretic," &c. &c. Among the many striking analogies which exist between the physical and intellectual creations, and exhibit the uniform method adopted by Supreme Wisdom in the... more...

CHAPTER I WE START FOR THE WAR I, James Frisby of Fairlee, in the county of Kent, on the eastern shore of what was known in my youth as the fair Province of Maryland, but now the proud State of that name, growing old in years, but hearty and hale withal, though the blood courses not through my veins as in the days of my youth, sit on the great porch of Fairlee watching the sails on the distant bay,... more...

Preface Each Fairy Book demands a preface from the Editor, and these introductions are inevitably both monotonous and unavailing. A sense of literary honesty compels the Editor to keep repeating that he is the Editor, and not the author of the Fairy Tales, just as a distinguished man of science is only the Editor, not the Author of Nature. Like nature, popular tales are too vast to be the creation of a... more...

WILKINS ON ACCOMPLISHMENTS. A DUOLOGUE. JOHN QUILL.   Mr. Wilkins.   Mrs. Wilkins, of all the aggravating women I ever came across, you are the worst. I believe you'd raise a riot in the cemetry if you were dead, you would. Don't you ever go prowling around any Quaker meeting, or you'll break it up in a plug muss. You? Why you'd put any other man's back up until he broke his... more...

"THE SHEPHERD OF BANBURY'S WEATHER-RULES." The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to judge of the Changes of the Weather, first printed in 1670, was long a favourite book with the country gentleman, the farmer, and the peasant. They were accustomed to regard it with the consideration and confidence which were due to the authority of so experienced a master of the art of prognostication, and... more...

CHAPTER I AN UNEXPECTED GUEST When I look back on the beginning of my adventures, I can set the very day and hour when the tranquil course of my early life came to an end, when the comfortable commonplaces of my previous existence altered, when the placid current of my former life broke suddenly and without warning into the tumultuous rapids which hurried me from surprise to surprise and from peril to... more...