&c. &c.

The several avenues which connect the vil-a continuation of a like increase. The village is lage with the interior, among which Maspeth governed by a board of nine trustees, possessing avenue, Division avenue, which is the dividing the power of opening streets, apportioning taxes, line between Brooklyn and the village, and extends to the Jamaica and Brooklyn turnpikes, and the Jamaica and Newtown turnpikes are the most prominent, and conduct the traveller through numerous scenes of romantic interest.

The principal streets which intersect each other at right angles, are opened and regulated, and several are paved.

The distance between the most populous porThe new turnpike, just completed, which skirts tions of Long Island and the city of New York, the margin of the East river until it reaches is much lessened by the new avenues recently Ravenswood, at a distance of four miles, furnish-opened to the Village, and which has greatly ining a view of the establishment for the support and education of pauper children under the control of the New York Common Council, is a beautiful drive, passing through a checkered landscape of hill and dale, meadow and thicket, and giving occasional glimpses of Long Island sound on the one hand, and New York bay on the other.

But in our utilitarian age and country, the useful takes precedence of the ornamental, and the rapid increase of Williamsburgh must be the result of its local adaptation to the requirements of economy and convenience, rather than to its claims on the taste of the wealthy portion of our population.

Connected with New York by two ferries, one between Peck slip and South Seventh-street, and the other between Grand-street in New York, and the foot of Grand-street, Williamburgh, with boats constantly plying, the manufacturer and mechanic can conduct his business and reside at Williamsburgh at a reduced expenditure, and at the same time enjoy most of the benefits resulting from a residence in the metropolis. In addition to the ferry accommodations above named, the new ferry from Houston-street in New York, to Grandstreet, Williamsburgh, will be in operation in a few months.

The village covers an area of about one thousand acres divided into eleven hundred lots, each twenty-five by one hundred feet. There have been erected since the year 1836, between four and five hundred dwellings and several manufactories. There are six churches erected for the accommodation of the Reformed Dutch, Episcopal, Methodist, and Roman Catholic congregations. There are also within the village and on its immediate boundaries, nine rope-walks, one glue manufactory, four hat manufactories, and one in process of erection, two tanneries, two distilleries, two ship-yards, one carpet manufactory and two establishments for grinding spices, and also several schools and one lyceum, numbering about fifty members, together with one Fire Insurance company, the business of which is extensive and profitable.

The population has increased about two thousand since 1836, and the numerous dwellings under contract and in process of erection indicate

creased the travel across the different ferries, and there is little doubt that the lapse of a few years will give to Williamsburgh a population, whose numbers will entitle it to rank with what Brooklyn was a short period since.

THE FAMILY MEETING

BY CHARLES SPRAGUE.

[The following lines were written on occasion of the accidental meeting, a few evenings since, of all the surviving members of a family, the father and mother of which (one eighty-two, the other eighty years old) have lived in the same house fiftythree years.]--Boston Courier.

We are all here!
Father, Mother,
Sister, Brother,

All who hold each other dear,

Each chair is filled, we're all at home,
To-night let no cold stranger come;
It is not often thus a:ound
Our old familiar hearth we're found.
Bless then the meeting and the spot,
For once be every care forgot;
Let gentle peace assert her power,
And kind affection rule the hour;
We're all, all here,

We're not all here!
Some are away--the dead ones dear,
Who thronged with us this ancient hearth;
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth,
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Looked in and thinned our little band:
Some like a night flash passed away,
And some sank; lingering, day by day;
The quiet graveyard--some lie there
And cruel Ocean has his share--
We're not all here.

We are all here!
Even they, the dead, though dead, so dear,
Fond memory, to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view.
How life-like through the midst of years
Each well-remembered face appears;
We see them as in times long past,
From each to each kind looks are cast;
We hear their words, their smile behold,
They're round us as they were of old,
We are all here.

We are all here!
Father, Mother;
Sister, Brother,
You that I love with love so dear,
This may not long of us be said,
Soon must we join the gathered dead,
And by the hearth we now sit round,
Some other circle will be found.
O then that wisdom may we know,
That yields a life of peace below;
So in the world to follow this,
May each repeat in words of bliss,
We're all, all here!

HELL GATE.

"Here, where we rest the gentlest waters glide,
There, hurry on a strong impetuous tide;
But yonder, gods! with tenfold thunder's force,
Dashing the war-ship in its whirlpool course."

stream of the tide setting that way, and forming eddies in the flood passage, which at that time is rendered unsafe. The Pot on which there are ten feet at low water, shows distinctly by the whirlpool, as also the Pan which is a part of the Hog's Back."

On the slack of the tide in the strait, the young anglers venture to bring their boat over the chasm, and while two of them with their oars keep the boat in the position required, others throw out their lines and draw from the depths below, fine, large, white-nosed black fish, or the striped bass. This sport lasts only about fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. The boat is darted with skill and velocity to the shore, on the slightest indication that the whirlpool is awakening from its momentary repose.

Vessels are frequently wrecked in this strait. When the artist sketched the view given in this number, there were two stranded vessels in sight, a faithful view of them has been presented by the engraver to give spirit, truth, and nature to the scene. The one in the distance on Rhinelander's reef, is the British Brig Evelina of Halifax, the one in the foreground is the Schooner Lexington of Kennebeck, both shipwrecked within a few days of each other. The vessels alongside are lighters in the act of removing the cargoes.

MODERN fastidiousness, which often, with pharIsaical inconsistency, strains at a gnat and swallows a camel, has endeavored to impress us with a belief that our Dutch ancestors were too puritanical to give such a name as Hell-Pot to a natural whirlpool as the one found in the East river, seven miles from the city of New-York. This is not reasoning correctly. The Teutonic nation from which the Dutch descended were possessed of a wild and powerful imagination, and gave poetic terms to every natural phenomenon. The Maelstrom on the coast of Norway, is the name of a whirlpool which varies but little in signification from the one given to the same thing in the East river. Scylla and Charybdis, between Sicily and the main land of Italy, have also a miraculous origin in the legends of Rome; the former, now a ledge of rocks of great height, was an enchantress changed by Circe, a more powerful and more wicked spirit, to this mass of stone, on which unfortunate voyagers might be wrecked and dashed to pieces when they steered too near her dreadful coast to get rid of Charybdis, now a direful whirlpool, but once an avaricious woman, The aborigines had numerous tales of wonder condemned in her change to a ravenous and in- in regard to this whirlpool, which they had learn satiate appetite for devouring her prey. In every ed to pass with skill and safety, but not without nation where a Syrtis is found, it is in the ima- some superstitious fears of evil spirits. The first gination of the people of the country, in some European settlers had a different, but not a much measure, connected with their legends, in its inferior love of the marvellous, than that which name, at least, with infernal spirits. This is the red men had cherished. They heard the natural. The early Dutch settlers were as likely moanings of evil spirits before the storm, and in to indulge their imaginations as other people. It it their triumphant roar at the havoc they had was indeed, when first discovered, a wonder, and made, of property and human lives. The drownis so now. He was a brave man who first ven-ed of all times, who had found a grave in this tured to examine Hell Gate and pass it. Wash- rush of waters, added the cry of danger as a ington Irving has told the story in a playful way. warning for those crossing their oozy bed. His description is a piece of easy and felicitous humor. All the other descriptions of it that we have seen, are sufficiently dull to put one to sleep. Spafford in his very clever Gazetteer of the state of New York, says: "Horll-gate, Hurl-gate, or Hell-gate is a narrow and difficult strait in the East river, eight miles above New-York, formed by projecting rocks that confine the water to a narrow and crooked channel, and causing strong eddy currents."

The following description from the American Coast Pilot is a brief and business-like account of this singular passage-way. "Hell Gate, and the narrow pass, leading into Long Island Sound, at the time of slack water and with a leading wind, may safely be attempted with frigates; small ships and vessels, with a commanding breeze passed at all times with the tide. On the flood, bound into the sound, you pass to the southward of the flood-rock, which is the southernmost of the three remarkable rocks in the passage. On the ebb you go to the northward of the Mill rock, the

Schipper Adriaen Block's yacht being at an anchor near the east end of Blackwell's Island, this poetry is supposed to have been written on the occasion.

The English frigate Huzza, during the revolu tionary war, in attempting to pass Hell Gate to get to sea by the Sound, struck the rocks and was so much injured that after sailing a few miles she sunk in deep water. It was supposed that she had a rich military chest on board, destined for some British port. This general impression induced some enterprising men to examine the sunken vessel by means of diving bells, but either they were under a wrong impression in regard to the money on board of her when she went down, or were not able to make thorough examination, for they found no money. The better opinion now is, that the treasure was landed before she sailed. Frigates however have passed the strait in safety. Two French frigates were blockaded in the harbour of New-York, by a British squadron during the French revolution. By the aid of a trusty pilot, watching the most favorable winds and tides, they attempted the dangerous naviga tion with success. One of the vessels struck the rocks once, and the other twice, but neither of them received any essential injury. Thousands were watching this adventurous enterprise with anxiety, but with different feelings; enmity has its hopes and fears, as well as friendship. Party

VIEW OF HELL GATE, FROM GREAT BARN ISLAND.

THE

NEW YORK

LIG LIENARY

spirit was then raging with more fury than the waters of Hell Gate.

The shores on either side of the strait are beautiful, and in their sunny quietude, viewed on a summer's morning, form a pleasing contrast to the agitation of the waters, and the roar they make when the tide is low, and the rocks are visible. It is conjectured by some philosophers that Long Island was once a part of the main land, and that in some violent agitation of nature, these rocks which had perhaps been at the head of an estuary, began to give way to the omnipotence of the waters, which went rushing onward, conquering and dividing the heretofore main land.

Picturesque Beauties of the Hudson.

THE WESTERN "BARRENS."

uted in this state, would be adequate to the neces sities of the settlers. Its apparent scarcity, where the prairie prevails, is now considered not to be so great an obstacle to settlement as has been generally imagined. Substitutes have been found for many of the purposes to which timber is generally applied; and the rapidity with which prairie, under the hand of care and cultivation, becomes converted into forests of timber, affords a sure guarantee for the future. The kinds of timber most abundant in the state are oaks of the various species, black and white walnut, ash of the several varieties, elm, sugar-maple, honey-locust, hackberry, linden, hickory, cottonwood, pecan, mulberry, buckeye, sycamore, cherry, box, elder, sassafras, and persimon. In the southern and eastern parts of the state, yellow-poplar and beech may be found. Near the Ohio are cypress-trees, and in several counties clumps of yel On the Calumet, near the low-pine and cedar. south end of lake Michigan, is a forest of small The underwood growth consists principaltrees. ly of redbud, pawpaw, sumach, plum, crab-apple, grape-vines, dogwood, spicebush, green brier, hazel, &c. The trees in this state are very luxuriant in their growth, and are frequently found of a stupendous size, particularly the cotton-wood and sycamore, The black-loon the alluvial soil of the rivers. cust, a native of Ohio and Kentucky, may be cultivated from the seed, with less labour than a nursery of apple-trees. Of rapid growth and affording valuable and durable timber, it strongly commends itself to the attention of our farmers. It forms one of the cleanliest, most beautiful, and pleasant shades; when in the spring-time of its blossom, it presents a rich and attractive appearance, and sends into the surrounding atmosphere a delicious fragrance. And here we might properly call the attention of our farmers and agriculturists generally, to the subject of nurseries of fruit and ornamental trees. With a soil remarkably adapted to their cultivation, and a country rapidly increasing in wealth, and the consequent conveniences and luxuries of life, the enterprising arborist would receive the most grateful encouragement and profit for his labours; increase, in this new and rapidly advancing state, the sources of beauty and pleasure, and enjoy the gratification of witnessing, in many a decorated yard and blushing orchard, the rich and blooming monuments of his industry and taste. Nothing contributes so much to the beauty and attractions of the village-yard or cultivated farm, as well-selected ornamental trees in the one, and the extensive orchards of the nnest fruittrees in the other. Art, with all its power to charm. may embellish, but it cannot supply so great a source Chicago American. of abundant enjoyment.

BARRENS are a species of country of a mixed character, uniting forest and prairie. They are covered with scattered oaks, rough and stunted in their appearance, interspersed with patches of hazel, brushwood, and tough grass. They appear to be the result of the contest which the fire is periodically continuing with the timber. The appearance of this description of country led the early settlers of the state to suppose that the scantiness of the timber was owing to the poverty of the soil; and hence the title, thus ignorantly given, and calculated to convey erroneous notions to our Eastern farmers, became of universal application to this extensive tract of country. It is ascertained, however, that these barrens embrace as productive a soil as can be found in the state-healthy, more rolling than the prairies, and abounding with that important requisite to desirable farms, good springs. The fire visits these barrens in the fall, but, owing to the insufficiency of the fuel, is not able to destroy, entirely, the timber. The farmer may settle, without hesitation or fear, in any part of this species of land, where he can find timber sufficient for his present purposes and wants; for the soil is supposed to be better adapted to all the interests of agriculture and the vicissitudes of the seasons than the deeper and richer mould of bottom and prairie land. Where the fire is prevented from its ravages, (as it easily can be by the occupant of the soil,) heavy timber springs up with a rapidity which would be incredible to the northern emigrant. High insulated bluffs, of a conical form, and exhibiting the appearance of connected ridges, rise up from the bottoms, along the rivers which meander and fertilize them: they are from one to three hundred feet in height. Knobs of land, stony and often rocky at their summits, are found along the rivers in some sections of the state, separated by deep ravines. The prairies are often intersected by ravines leading down to the streams. Deep sink-holes, American Vine.-The expedition to the Rocky which serve to drain off the waters, are found in mountains found on the borders of the Arkansas near some parts, and prove that the substance is second- the eastern side of the great desert, hundreds of ary limestone, abounding in subterraneous cavities. acres of the same kind of vine which produce the Very little that is denominated in the Eastern states wines of Europe. The vines were growing in a stony ground is found in this state. There are quar- wild state and were surrounded with hillocks of sand, ries of stones in the bluffs, in the banks of the rising to within 12 or 18 inches of the end of the streams, and in the ravines. In the vicinity of Juli- branches. They were loaded with the most deliet, and many other promising villages, an abundance cious grapes, and the clusters were so closely arranof stone can be procured, admirably adapted to the ged as to conceal every part of the stem. These hilpurposes of building; uniting durability with great locks of sand are produced by the agency of the vines, beauty and warmth. Timber, were it equally distrib-arresting the sand as it is borne along by the wind