most potent monarch, to the most humble peasant, anxiety of heart is, to a greater or less extent, universal. These contrasts are not more wonderful than true. What may be the issue in Europe, is beyond human ken. Order may follow chaos, and on that hope we must now rest; but such upheaving of the masses must have had a deep and adequate cause. In the meanwhile, the operations of industry must be paralyzed to a greater or less extent. All great public works, if not suspended, cannot be otherwise than retarded.

The people of the United States, whilst spectators of the European theatre, are the great actors in America. Disciplined as my mind has been, by attention to both theatres, for more than half a century past, the great events of the moment excite unabated interest. Memory bears me backwards to the consummation of the United States' Independence, and to the outbreak of the French Revolution. Well do I remember hearing, in 1789, and succeeding years, the very exclamations now reiterated in our prints, and reverberating in our public assemblies, and private conversation. As far as Europe is concerned, there is deep and salutary cause of reflection, and much cause of apprehension; but, as in the days of its youth, so in its advanced maturity, there is solid ground of hope for the United States. With me there has been no pause of thought, or mistrust indulged, through fifty years, as to the progress of the United States. Occasional events, however, have from time to time excited a more than ordinary interest in passing events. This was in an especial manner the case, when I read the "Address of Mr. Whitney, before the Legislature of Pennsylvania, on his project for a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific."

In the second paragraph of his address, Mr. Whitney observes: " In order that you may the more clearly understand my explanations, see our actual position on the globe, as compared with the other parts of the world, and see the object and intent of this great work; that of bringing the commerce of all Europe, with all Asia, across this continent, I have prepared, and beg to refer you to a skeleton map."

This skeleton map places America in the middle, and most admirably exhibits what is most eminently to be desired, that the whole people of the United States should all see and appreciate, the great advantage of relative position possessed by America, in general, but of North America, in particular. This great, indeed, I venture to say, greatest of all, not only geographical, but political problems, I had, however, discussed in part, many years past. In the city of Washington, 4th December, 1845, the subjoined matter was penned by me, and in the latter part of the same month was published in the New Orleans Bulletin.

America, contrary to the opposing continent, has its extreme length along the meridians of the earth, and including Greenland, stretches farthest towards the Northern, as it does in the other direction, towards the Southern Pole. If we limit its accessible length on the northern extreme, by latitude 80°, and by Cape Horn, south, America stretches over 135° of latitude. The extreme eastern capes of South America, from Augustine to San Roque, and the parts of East Greenland inhabited by civilized people, are very near the same meridian, 35° west of London, and 42° east of Washington. The coast to the south and north of Bhering's Strait, is the most western part of America; about 167° of longitude west of London, and 90° west of Washington.

The elongated form of America, and its extent between the frozen ex

tremes towards both Poles, and with a mean breadth of about sixteen hundred miles, and great excess of productive soil, give to it, as affording the resources of civilized life, a decided superiority to the opposing continent. Every habitable zone is embraced in its extreme length, and the mean width, on the latitudes being so much less, America opposes fewer obstacles to a direct passage over it, from ocean to ocean, than does either Africa or Asia. America equalling Asia in extent of area, rivals, if it does not exceed, Europe, in the advantages bestowed by nature; as America possesses all that is common, with other advantages peculiar to itself, and, therefore, give it a preference even to Europe. Crossing all the Northern Temperate and Torrid Zones; all the Southern Torrid, and 33° of the Southern Temperate Zone, all the cultivateable latitudes of the earth are embraced. Bathed on the two opposite sides by the two great highway oceans, Europe, Asia, and Africa are faced on the east, and Asia and Oceanica on the west. Thus formed and situated, America must become, and thenceforward remain, the highway of nations.

One of the most, if not the very most important, and also most difficult problems in Physical Geography, is to determine how much of the land area of the earth will admit a given mean density of population. To reach the solution of this problem to any near determinate exactness, is hopeless; but we may, however, reach very interesting determinate results. The whole curve superficies of the earth, is so near, that we may assume it at 197,000,000 square miles; of which extent, about 47,000,000 are land; consequently, the relations of surface, as to land and water are, about as one land and three water; of the land surface, in round numbers

When making up the matter for my Geographical Dictionary, I put in requisition all the element at my disposal, a good part of which were of the most accredited geographical authority, and was led to the subjoined conclusion, as to the capability of the land part to sustain population :

General aggregate of land area..

.square miles

47,700,000

From which deduct for frozen regions, deserts, &c. :—

31,700,000

Amount of habitable land to any density worthy notice.......

Adrian Balbi, a skilful and scrupulous geographer, calculated that, in 1830, the aggregate of mankind was, from the best data, 771,000,000; a number which, though I assume it, I must observe, is greater than his own data would have justified, and which on 31,700,000 square miles, gives a distributive population of a small fraction over twenty-four to the square mile. Showing, in fact, that when the whole earth is taken into one point

of view, it is only commencing to be peopled; an observation most emphatically true, as I shall show, as regards America. When compared as to relative surface, America is naturally more favorable to dense habitation than even Europe, and must eventually sustain a far greater mass of human beings than, compared in regard to relative surface, any of the other great land sections of our planet. An inspection of the above tables discloses the curious fact, that America comprises, with its share of deduction, the forty-seven hundredths of all the land surface of the earth, admitting density of population worthy statistical application. We must here naturally inquire, what would be the population of America, were it in possession of its proportion of seven hundred and seventy-one millions? The answer to this question is in amount, three hundred and sixty-two millions three hundred and seventy thousand, or a small fraction over twenty-four to the square mile; and that not much above the mean density already reached by the existing organized States and territories of the United States.

On more than one occasion, I have demonstrated, from the ratio of former increase, that the population of the United States has a regular increment of a small fraction over 3 per cent annually, and that the aggregate quadruples in a little less than fifty years. To all general purposes, however, we may regard a semi-centenial quadrupling, as established by existing data, and as probable for the next century, from 1850.

There frequently occur, in the progressive history of the world, movements which are mighty when apparently alone, to operate on the fate of nations, and, to ordinary observation, seem as if they were isolated accidents, whilst, in reality, they are only parts of a mighty whole-waves in the flood of time. The discovery of America was an instance; the landing of English colonies two centuries past on the eastern shore of North America, another.

The second was one consequence of the first, and new elements were infused into human history. The independence of the Anglo Saxon colonies came in due time as a part of the progress of events.

But the regular increase of the new nation was of a nature not to arrest attention, though the paramount and most abiding result of all the other events, and the operation of the greatest, most salutary, and extensive revolution of modern ages.

When I look back to 1781, and when with my parents the Alleghany Mountains were passed, and when savages were murdering pioneer families within two hundred and fifty miles of the spot where the capitol of the Union now stands, and when the Ohio River was the ne plus ultra, I can at some moments scarce believe the changes real, but which I have lived to see accomplished. The date was eleven years prior to the publication of the fifth census, by which the aggregate population of the Union fell short of four millions. Who then thought of steam vessels, turnpike roads, and, much less, railroads, of electric telegraphs, with States and territories rising in the vast interior, and finally, the whole basin of the Mississippi becoming the middle region of an empire extending to the Pacific Ocean, and embracing an area exceeding in extent that of all Europe, and possessed by a population of twenty-two millions of the most active portion of mankind?

Well do I remember to have heard the project of steam navigation ridiculed as the extravigance of madness; railroads, at a still later period, a subject of vulgar wit. Such an idea as that of electric telegraph, if it had been suggested, sixty, or even fifty years past, would have been condemned as

impious. But time and its mighty works went on, and with increasing power. The name of Dewitt Clinton was made the theme of rude jest and political abuse, but his genius and perseverance united the Atlantic Ocean to the sea of Canada.

If such have been the great results of the last sixty years, what have we to hope for the next twenty-three years, when the population, by the census of 1870, will report an aggregate exceeding forty millions? It is no hazard to predict that railcars will then bear along, not only on Whitney's, but on other roads not now thought of, Senators and Representatives of States adjoining States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. It is not in the laws of nature that I can live to behold the completion; but when completed, and allowance made for accumulated means, what I have anticipated for the next twenty-three years, will fall short, very far short, of what I have stated in this paper, and already have seen accomplished. The people of the United States have never formally adopted and undertaken a design, and failed in its accomplishment; nor have they yet formed and carried to completion a design but what has eventually added to the prosperity and grandeur of the nation. The very idea is, indeed, extatic, of the most free and happy people on the earth, speaking one language, and filling a zone of two thousand miles, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and creating means of motion vying with the winds, and means of intelligence rivalling light. Fame, like all other desirable objects to be obtained, must be paid for, and that at a high price. But to stand in the list of public benefactors, with Robert Fulton, Dewitt Clinton, and Professor Morse, is surely above all price. Every one of these I have heard named, the two former especially, with scoff and derision. Rich and well deserved is their meed of reward. Clinton has deeply engraved his name on the face of his country. Fulton has changed the commercial history of the world; and Morse has given the rapidity of light itself to human intelligence. Such names, once recorded on the book of fame, are not again to be erased-they are the property of all after generations.

In pursuit of a plan, which, if realized, will add a feature more to the face of earth, Mr. Whitney differs essentially from all former and similar designs, not only in the magnitude of conception, but in creation of means of accomplishment. He requires no money from the national treasury, or tax on the people. On the contrary, would add to the national wealth and power, by bringing into cultivation millions of acres of land, which, without such road, must long remain desolate, give steady and profitable employment to our own citizens, and to the foreign emigrants.

The public lands being the means proposed, now is the golden moment to commence; and if commenced before the soil is partially settled on, the rapid success of the plan is sure. The moment I can read the act empowering Mr. Whitney to enter on the work, no more doubt of its success will remain on my mind, than I have that the steamboats, turnpike roads, the great canals of New York, and electric telegraphs, have succeeded, and added incalculable power to civilized man. Proceed now, and the realization will, in all human probability, advance, as have the other great improvements named in this paper.

In conclusion, there is no doubt with me, that the most operative cause of European troubles, is the too great density of population. Human labor has there overstocked the market. On Alglo Saxon North America, it is a most felicitous circumstance, that for a long-coming period, though the increment

of human life is 3 per cent annually, the expansion must find ample space. Open the way, therefore, to the march of a column which is conquering acute nature over altogether the most important section of the earth-the zone of North America between the two great oceans, and between 30° and 50° north latitude.

Washington, D. C., July 2d, 1849.

W. D.

⚫ THAT no man has a right to use the trade-marks, letters, or symbols of any kind which another has previously got up, or been accustomed to use in his trade, business, or manufacture, may now be regarded as the settled law of Great Britain, and of most, if not all, of the United States. Such violation of another's rights, subjects the offender to damages and costs. This doctrine has been repeatedly recognized by the courts of New York. It does them honor, and, in part, justifies the poet's panegyrick

"High o'er all elate,

Sits sovereign laws, repressing ill,
Rewarding good."

The law of trade-marks was ably discussed in the Merchants' Magazine for April, 1846; but since that period, its principles have been further illustrated by recent decisions. Courts invested with equitable jurisdiction, will restrain the deceptive and fraudulent use of trade-marks, by summarily checking his operations by injunction; and will, after hearing the parties, decree an account of the sales made, for the purpose of ascertaining the damages to which the complainant may be entitled. To assume the trade-marks of another, indeed, is to filch from him his good name, and the advantages deriveable from it. It is to wrest from industry its legitimate reward. Before, however, a court of equity will interfere by an injunction, in the case supposed, the complainant must make out clearly that his trade-marks have been wrongfully assumed by the defendant. If it be doubtful whether or not the defendant has pirated the trade-marks of the complainant, irreparable injury might be done to the former, by suddenly arresting his business operations before a final decision upon the rights of the parties. This is illustrated by a recent English case, decided in the English Court of Chancery, December 11th, 1846, in which the proprietor of the "Pictorial Almanac" complained that a similar publication had been put forth by one who had wrongfully imitated the picture on the cover of the genuine work. The alleged imitation was so clumsy, that it was doubtful whether any one would be deceived by mistaking the one almanac for the other; and it was also doubtful whether the resemblance of the two was accidental or designed. The chancellor held, in this case, that to prohibit the publication complained of, in advance of a final decision in respect to the rights of the parties, would, in such a case, be inequitable, especially as defendant agreed to keep an account. If the defendant should have come off victor at last in the Chancery suit, it would probably have been a sorry boon to allow him to publish his almanac at the termination of the law's delay. Therefore, when the case presented by the complainant, is a doubtful one, the question of granting an injunction against the defendant should be reserved until the rights of the parties have been determined.