which our own State does not supply. In 1840, the Western States took from their mines more than 4,000,000 bushels of coal; 3,500,000 being from the State of Ohio, and the balance from Indiana, Illinois, and a small quantity from Iowa. It has before been stated, that 19,000 tons of bituminous coal were received at Cleveland in 1844. In October last, bituminous coal was selling in New York at $2,75 per ton, and was scarce at that price. Now the same article from Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, may be had in Cleveland for $2,25 per ton. Great quantities of this article will hereafter be required for the purposes of steam navigation on the lakes, while the demand for it in all our cities and towns will be constantly increasing. But it will be by no means confined to the domestic market found in the West. It is not unlikely that it may make its way to the seaboard with great profit both to the miner and to the interests of commerce. It will be seen, by referring to the prices at Cleveland and New York, that Western coal can be transported, at a profit, far into the interior of New York, and perhaps to the Eastern cities. A continued change of commodities is going on between the East and the West. The West may exchange the treasures of her mines for the fruits of the East. While, during the past season, one vessel from Buffalo bore to the West two thousand barrels of apples, another brought back three tons of copper from the mines of Galena. The fruit trade is yet new and small, while that of minerals can hardly be said to have begun. But the increase of the latter will be the most rapid. Copper is said to be abundant on the shores of Lake Superior, and there is also found in the same neighborhood an abundant supply of calcareous spar,which is used in fluxing the metal. A shaft may be sunk in the earth, and a vein of precious ore reached almost in a day, while years are required for the production of a tree. The orchards and gardens of Western New York may be made, by means of commerce, to yield a product of coal, of copper, or of lead, as well as silver coin or a bank bill. There is yet another great element which must enter into a calculation of the future commerce of the lakes. Every vessel that arrives at their eastern extremity, laden with the products of the West, returns with a swarm of hardy immigrants. VOL. II.-NO. II, Most of them are able to gather enough from the poverty of their own land to lay the foundation of wealth in this. With the full perfection of their physical powers, they land upon our shores; and they are not prevented by the false refinements of society from employing their energies in the cultivation of the soil. Within a few days, three merchant vessels have arrived at Boston with nearly a thousand steerage passengers, one-third of whom were Russians. About thirty thousand emigrate from Germany annually. Twenty-four thousand five hundred have emigrated from Bavaria alone in a single year, taking with them seven millions of florins, or about three millions of dollars. The overflowing population of the northern and middle portions of Europe is finding an asylum here. There is a field here for their labor, with ample room for their posterity. The liberal policy of our country, in inviting to her shores, by the low price of her public lands, and the easy conditions of citizenship, the industrious citizens of foreign countries, is widely known even to the ignorant of the Old World. The last census showed that the increase of population in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa, was nearly a million and a half in the preceding ten years. With such an influx of such a population, there are for this country some disadvantages and some dangers. They are for the most part uncultivated and ignorant, forming elements of society easily moulded for evil results by unprincipled demagogues--an order of native citizens very thick and busy in that favored region. They are, however, industrious, and their industry is greatly needed in the vast extent of territory from the lakes to the Rocky Mountains. We believe, moreover, that there is a certain vitality in the existing constitution of things in this countryespecially from so much unoccupied room for all forms of enterprise-which will pass off with safety the present evils attendant on this illiterate influence at the polls; and that in the course of two or three generations the descendants of the immigrants will be well-informed enough to entertain right ideas of this government and of their own interests. At any rate, they must long form an important element in our calculations of the growing commerce of the lakes; meanwhile, let them and the blessed patriots that seek to rule 14 them, be commended together to the watch ful "onlook" of the prudent and the wise. A remark or two relating to Buffalo will finish our observations. At this point is the entrance from the East upon the great chain of lakes, the present and future commerce of which it has been the purpose of this article to consider. Here is the great gateway through which passes the tide of immigration to the west; and here will be one of the receiving and distributing offices of the surplus productions of the soil, and the immense treasures that will come from the mines of that vast region. The crude ores or the more refined metals may here be arrested in their progress, and wrought by our manufactories into articles of use and beauty, and again be started on their march to the East, or be returned and scattered over the regions from which they came. tion. The first invoice of cotton, of 45,216 lbs., was received here in December last; now the steam-engine is doing its work, and the spindle and the loom are in moFrom this time the manufacture of cotton is to be one of the branches in which the industry of the city is to be employed. Here, too, the lead of Wisconsin and Illinois will be stopped for a season, and undergo, at the hands of enterprise and labor, a change which will fit it for use. White lead is extensively manufactured, and it finds a ready market. There is, in short, at this place, every facility, except a great abundance of capital, for engaging in almost any branch of manufactures and commerce. There are the materials for the erection of every variety of buildings, and for every branch of the mechanic arts-the various metals requisite for the construction of every kind of machinery, and the wood or coal necessary for its manufacture or its motion, when completed; and if steam shall not prove the most profitable agent by which to carry on their varied operations, there is at hand a water-power extensive enough for all the works of a great manufacturing city, and as unfailing as Lake Erie itself. The Lakes and the Erie Canal, we suppose, will never fail to be the highways on which will be brought to her the abundant supplies of every variety of raw material; and the same channels, with the railroads that will radiate to every point, will diffuse her manufactures to different and distant parts of the country. 66 In How great and rapid will be the growth of the West, may in some degree be imagined, when it is remembered, that in 1818 the first steamboat was built on Lake Erie; and that in 1826, the first steamboat entered Lake Michigan, going on a pleasure excursion to Green Bay. In 1832, the first steamboat reached Chicago—and in 1834, but three trips were made there, and two to Green Bay. Now a steamboat leaves daily for Chicago, a circuit of nearly a thousand miles, and a voyage to Green Bay is a not unfrequent occurrence. the spring of 1841, there were at one time in the harbor of Buffalo, one hundred and forty steamboats and vessels, all actively employed in receiving and discharging cargoes. There were also, on another occasion, sixty vessels with full cargoes, lying along the South pier, waiting for a favorable wind." There are sailing to and fro from the port of Buffalo, the present season, two sloops, six propellers, thirty-five brigs, thirty-six steamboats, and one hundred and thirty-eight schooners-in all, two hundred and seventeen vessels. The arrivals and departures, up to the first of June this year, have been twelve hundred and eighty-eight; and during the last six days in May, the arrivals and departures were one hundred and seventynine. Fifty arrivals in a day have often been known. We have made, thus, the circuit of the Lakes, giving facts and figures whereever they could be obtained: and regretting, that on many points, they could not be more full and perfect. We beg permission to leave our readers where they joined us. Buffalo, like Byzantium, is the connecting point between two portions of a great country, each vast enough in its extent and its resources, to form an independent empire. Her destiny is connected with the Lakes, as Venice was wedded to the Adriatic; and as once every year those nuptials were celebrated anew, so each returning season will unite in fairer and stronger bonds this modern city and the waters of Lake Erie, and give to her at some future time, the title-not the less honorable that she will bear it after another--" THE CITY OF THE SEAS." THE GENIUS AND SCULPTURES OF POWERS. [IT is a matter of deep gratification to every American of intellect and refinement when one of our countrymen achieves deserved fame in any of the higher walks of Art. Our enterprise and successful efforts in the practical arts-what we may call our physical achievements are acknowledged on all hands. In an incredibly short space of time, we have subdued almost a continent of wilderness, filled the cultivated country with villages and cities, and all the forms of human industry, and obtained reputation by some of the most important practical inventions which any people have produced. These things we say are acknowledged. They are more-they are evidently a matter of wonder to other nations, though they are very liberally disposed to disguise such impressions. We have also attained distinction in many important fields, more purely of human thought. Some of the most eminent scientific men, philosophical reasoners, statesmen and orators, that have appeared in any country, have arisen and found their entire growth on American soil. In several paths of literature, works have been produced among us not unworthy of abiding praise. It was naturally to be expected that the Fine Arts would have a slower growth; coming, if at all, after nearly everything else was perfected. Yet in these, as in whatever else is of the physical or intellectual life of men, the American mind has shown its capacity. It had long ago "dreamed dreams and seen visions," which found no "enduring shape" for want of that earnest and continued toil, without which the brightest and fullest insight into the whole world of the Ideal is nothing. But we believe the time has now come in this country, when labor is to be expended on ideal concep. tions; that the forms which arise to the gifted in the "stillness of their musings," shall find, through intense and long effort, "a local habitation and a name." There is, at least, genius and desire enough; it only remains for the people of this country to give sufficient encouragement. And we think that this also is being afforded-in a word, that the era of ART is beginning, on the Western Continent. Whatever aid can at any time be given by this Journal to hasten such an era, will be earnestly extended; and we believe there is not a paper of any kind in the country, which will not be willing to make some effort to the same end. Surely it will be a happy thing for us, when we shall be lifted a little out of this material life which, from the necessities of our rise as a nation, has so long surrounded and walled us in. In our last number, we gave a notice-though altogether inadequate-of an ivory Statue of Christ, the work of a Genoese Monk, which we consider to be in all respects the noblest creation of art ever brought into this country. We are yet more gratified in presenting here some passages, furnished us by Mr. C. E. LESTER V. S. Consul at Genoa, respecting the works of an American Sculptor, Hiram Powers, who has achieved a reputation in this antique and most difficult art not less fortunate for his country than it is honorable to himself. A volume, by Mr. L. on this general subject, entitled "The Artist, the Merchant, and the Statesman." will be published in a few weeks, and will be found, we believe, full of interest for all who are looking for the coming of a new age.] ONE of the greatest pleasures I promised myself in visiting Florence, was the hope I felt of being admitted to the confidence and the friendship of Mr. Powers. I had never seen any of his works, but I had heard so many of our countrymen, and so many European Sculptors who had seen and studied them, speak of him with enthusiasm, I felt certain I should not be disappointed. And yet it seemed impossible, that America, where the arts have had no foundation to build on, and where they have never been warmed into life and perfection by the genial influences that surround them in the Old World, should send forth a sculptor who would be recognized at once in Europe as the true successor of Michael Angelo and Thorwalsden-for the general con cession of the great artists of Italy is, that Mr. Powers has no living rival in any country. This was the opinion of Thorwalsden himself, who is regarded as the greatest sculptor since Michael Angelo-nor have I heard any person question the justness of his opinion. When I first came to Florence, I was kindly and warmly greeted by Mr. Powers, as all my countrymen are; and I regard it as one of the most fortunate circumstances of my life, that I was afterwards honored by his intimacy and friendship. I passed many of my days, and most of my evenings with him for several weeks; and from the flow of his brilliant conversation, seldom interrupted, I was able to gather both the varied incidents of his life, and the many valu able opinions, not only on the noble field of sculpture, which is his own, but on each of the kindred arts, for which a naturally strong and clear-sighted genius has gifted him with an equal judgment. There are few men of his times who have studied more intensely than Mr. Powers. It is true, his youth lacked all classical associations and pursuits, and his education was likely to make him anything but a sculptor. But he was born with a germ that was sure one day to develop itself; and I regard it as fortunate for him, and for his country, and for art, that his childhood was passed under the pure, chaste influences of the country-where his natural genius was left free to unfold itself, and follow its own impulses. I have heard some persons express great regret that he had not been early brought under the influence of Art-for if he has proved himself capable of such astounding works under all these disadvantages, what would he not have achieved had he been brought at an early period under the genial influence of the works of the great masters. But I conceive this to be a false estimate, and I think the history of art clearly proves it. It exalts the teaching of the master above the guidance of Nature the close air of the hot-house above the divine atmosphere of heaven. I doubt not many a genius, as pure and lofty as his own, has been crushed and deadened by the smothering influences of artificial and conventional systems. And besides, all human experience can be safely appealed to in confirmation of this opinion. For it is one of those facts which lie upon the surface of history, that, without an exception, the Great Teachers of mankind have been taught in the School of Nature. What had schools, or academies, or masters to do in the forming of such men as Homer, and Dante, and Shakspeare- of Brutus, of Cromwell, and Washington-of Gali leo, of Fulton, and Franklin. It seems long settled by human experience, that the men God sends into the world to reform their age, cannot be instructed by it. They are heaven-commissioned and heaven-guided-like Moses and John the Baptist, they are taken from the deserts, and trained up by a Peculiar Care. So deeply am I persuaded of these facts, that I am convinced Mr. Powers's astonishing achievements in art are to be attributed as much to the circumstances of his early life, as to his original, gifted genius. His strong propensity to the art of sculpture was a portion of his nature. The first bust he ever saw awoke it at a glance, and kindled a desire into a passion, which was to be the great fact of his life. This passion once stirred could not be quenched, and long years of disappointment with all their obstacles that seemed strong enough to annihilate the hope of any other man, only influenced his soul with a still deeper enthusiasm. One of the first busts he made was General Jackson's, and it is perhaps his best. The Eve also was his first statue, although Thorwalsden declared that, "any other man might be proud of it as his last." It will not be pretended there is any very close analogy to be drawn between the advancement of science and the progress of art; they move, indeed, almost necessarily, hand in hand. But here the analogy fails-for while the achievements now in the natural sciences become the inherited possessions of the next generation, each artist is obliged to begin for himself, if he ever expects to Win renown. The schoolboy is now familiar, in his tenth year, with all those great facts which cost Kepler, and Newton, and Galileo so much study, and patient and persevering investigation; and the young astronomer begins where those great Pioneers of Science stopped. But the Fine Arts are not graduated by any such scale. The domain of the Sculptor, and the Painter, and the Poet, admits no school-novice to its possession, without he be gifted with genius, and consecrate himself to the toil. The sceptre of the artist cannot be transmitted to a successor of his own choosing The like the tiara of St. Peter, as it should be, the succession is in God. young aspirant for fame in the Arts, stands before the Statue of Moses or the Apollo Belvidere-and the Pupil of Galileo looks up through the ether fields and he sees the Medicean stars. But the parallel can be carried no farther. The latter finds his work done, and he goes forward with a bold and firm step, for he knows his foundation is immovable, and he cannot miss his way. But the young Sculptor finds that the first step he takes is upon enchanted ground; and although he may be guided in some portion of his path by the lights of those who have gone before him, yet if he would have the bright name he aspires to, he must abandon their track, and soar into a new region, where the fancy of Phidias and Michael Angelo never flew. And although the young Astronomer may kindle some faint light in some distant field of space, and leave some new table of calculation to save toil, or transmit some beautiful instrument to his successors, yet he does not hope to discover any new satellites wheeling in beauty around the orb of Jupiter; nor leave a name that will contend with that of the Florentine Prisoner, for the admiration and gratitude of the world. He is guided in all his calculations by the unvarying principles of a fixed and even a mathematical science. I have brought to this illustration the noblest of all the natural sciences, and contrasted it with the noblest of all the fine arts, to show how widely they differ from each other in their progress. The votary of the one may send his fancy beyond the reach of the telescope, to wheeling systems that have not yet transmitted their twinkling light to the fixed stars; but this has little to do with the practical business of the Astronomer. His landmarks are established along the heavens, and he is in a measure confined by the very principles that guide him. But the Sculptor lives, and moves, and dreams in an ideal world. However bright and airy the visions of his fancy may be, he may make them live and almost breathe in the marble. Like the poet, he may choose his own theme, and let fancy follow her own guidance,—while the Astronomer, like the Historian, must inhabit a real world, nor ever treat his imagination to any in vention or dream. But while the sculptor is bound by no limits beyond which he cannot pass, the vastness of his field and the very idealism of his art only increase his difficulty. The whole domainof truth, and victory, and fiction have been in all ages open to the Poet; and the Homers, the Virgils, the Dantes, and the Shakspeares, have never exceeded, the Phidiases, the Praxitiles, the Michael Angelos, and the Thorwalsdens. Many a writer has refined upon these matters; but I believe it is generally conceded there have been but four great schools or eras in sculpture-the Grecian, the Roman, the Italian of the middle ages with Michael Angelo for a founder, and the modern European headed by Thorwalsden. But the declaration of the great Dane, that "the entrance of Powers upon the field constituted an era in art," is already more than verified. Such an opinion, I am aware, will be a startling one to many of his countrymen, although in Europe it finds general concurrence. It may be well to illustrate it by a few considerations: In busts, Mr. Powers is universally believed, in Europe, to have surpassed all his predecessors of any age, and nothing is hazarded by making this unqualified assertion. In a No. of the Giornale Arcadico, at Rome, (1841,) Signor Migliarini, a Professor attached to the Grand Ducal Gallery of Florence, in a learned Essay upon the State of the Arts, did not hesitate to declare that Mr. Powers' Busts were superior to any others, either ancient or modern. This compliment came from a very unsuspicious quarter-for the spirit which had for ages elevated the Italians in the Fine Arts above all other modern nations, still lives, and they concede the palm to a foreigner only when they can deny it no longer. And besides, Professor Migliarini is universally regarded as one of the most sound and even severe judges of the Italian school. Another thing should be noticed. The Journals of the Arts, in Italy, are entitled to more consideration in such matters than could, perhaps, be extended towards those of any other nation. Favoritism has little to do with their criticism, for these writers never resort to the practice, so common in England and our own country, of taking shelter under anonymous signatures from the consequences of their ignorance, their carelessness, their insincerity, and their favoritism. This practice has perhaps been the origin of more evil than any other system of literary shuffling could have produced-and it has entailed upon us the most humiliating and contemptible system of criticism that ever disgraced a people. We may thank our "father-land" for this, as well as many other things that have deformed our social, our literary, and our political system. In such a state of things, the critic has nothing to lose, and often much to gain, by abuse on one side and puffs on the other. But in Italy the case is different. The opinion of the Professor in Art, publicly expressed, passes under a severe and trying scrutiny; and a surer road could not be taken to infamy than a dishonest criticism. In addition to the quotation of this high authority, I might allude to many others of less reputation. I will only make an extract from the London Court Journal for May 8th, 1841-which is supposed to express, at least in regard to foreign artists, |