The situation of Buffalo is pleasing as well as advantageous. It is at the northeastern extremity of Lake Erie, and just at the entrance of the strait which carries the waters down over the Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario. Of course, this communication between the two lakes is wholly unnavigable; but the Welland Canal, which runs from Port Maitland, at the mouth of Grand River on Lake Erie, to Newark on Lake Ontario, a distance of forty-four miles, furnishes a navigable channel for vessels of 125 tons burden between these two inland seas. This canal has 334 feet of lockage, and 180,000 feet of excavation through the solid rock; and it is considered, for its length, one of the most remarkable canals in the West. The ground on which Buffalo stands

rises by a very gradual ascent from the edge of the lake up to a fine and extensive level; and while the harbour, pier, wharfs, docks, canal, and warehouses occupy the lower part of the town, all the principal streets and public edifices occupy the more elevated portion.

The city is well laid out, the streets being of ample length and breadth, and arranged with great symmetry. Main-street, which exceeds two miles in length, and is about 120 feet in breadth, is of finer proportions than the Broadway at New-York, and has on each side of it massive piles of buildings, in shops, stores, dwellings, and hotels, which may vie with those of any other city in the Union either for elegance of design, solidity of construction, internal comfort, or external appearance. Several squares are agreeably interspersed in different quarters of the town, enclosed by railings and planted with trees, on an area of beautiful lawn, while the views of the expanded surface of the lake and the more restricted area of the strait, which are seen from almost every part of the town, add great interest and beauty to the scene.

PUBLIC BUILDINGS.-HOTELS.

169

Of public buildings there are the City Hall, a theatre, and fifteen churches, of which the Presbyterian, the Baptist, the Episco

pal, and the Methodist are the principal. These are all large and substantial structures, and, like all those I have yet seen in America, they are remarkable for great neatness in their interior, and ample accommodation and comfort for their congregations, though of very irregular styles of architecture.

Of the hotels, the American is not only superior to all the others

in Buffalo, but better than any that we had yet been at since our landing in America. In all its rooms space, elegance, and comVOL. II.-Y

15,

fort were united; the drawing-rooms were furnished in the first style of a private dwelling, the bedrooms were lofty and airy, and the beds excellent. The table was the best furnished and best attended of any at which we had yet sat, though this was the feature in which it was least excellent; and all its subordinate appointments were well maintained. If good cooks could be added, it might rank with any hotel in London, Liverpool, or Bath; but the Americans, as a nation, certainly do not appear to understand the difference between well-fed and tender, and ill-fed and tough provisions, whether in fish, poultry, or flesh-meats; and their modes of preparing and serving up that which they have are so inferior to the processes used in England, that it will require many years to bring them to a standard of equality in this particular.

The population of Buffalo, now consisting of about 20,000, is almost wholly white. We did not remember to have seen 20 coloured people in the place, so thinly are they scattered; but these were well-dressed, and in an apparently prosperous condition. The bulk of the inhabitants are engaged in trade and commerce, though, of course, there are some professional men, as physicians and lawyers, among them. Dutch and German emigrants abound, and Irish are not less numerous. It is from the former that the domestic servants are chiefly taken, and the latter supply the daily labourers of the place. The general appearance of all classes indicates competency and comfort; but there is none of the style and fashion so apparent in the equipages and dresses of New-York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The private parties of the more wealthy inhabitants exhibit, however, a happy union of ease and elegance, with more of social frankness, and less of pretension and etiquette, than those of the larger cities, and therefore, to us at least, they were far more agreeable.

Among the buildings projected here, but not yet completed, is chartered University, to be called "The University of Western New-York," and an Exchange of more colossal proportions than those of London, Paris, Lisbon, or Amsterdam. The elevation of this edifice gives among its dimensions the following: Frontage, 245 feet; depth, 200 feet; diameter of the pillars of the portico, 10 feet 2 inches; height of the pillars and entablature, 86 feet; platform above the roof of the building for support of a dome, 93 feet square and 40 feet high; circular section above the square, 60 feet diameter and 58 feet high, surrounded by a colonnade of 16 pillars, 4 feet 2 in diameter and 32 feet high; dome above this, 60 feet diameter and 34 feet high; entire height from the side pavement to the centre of the dome, 222 feet. Those who are conversant with architectural measurements will at least admire the scale of this edifice as to size: it was estimated to cost 5,000,000 of dollars, or upward of a million sterling; and but for the recent derangement of all monetary operations, the sum would have been raised and the building erected before this time.

In the neighbourhood of Buffalo are some agreeable rides, and 'many pretty villas of the more wealthy citizens, some furnished and occupied, and others in a state of progress. The presence of the lake not only furnishes pleasing views in all directions, but supplies a never-failing breeze from the waters in the morning and in the evening, and makes the nights always cool, so that we suffered less inconvenience from the heat here, with the thermometer at 90° in the day, than we did at Philadelphia and Albany with the thermometer at 85°.

Besides the numerous steamvessels which are seen in the harbour of Buffalo, some of which navigate the lakes to a distance of 3000 miles, there were many schooners and brigs, and one handsome three-masted ship, of about 300 tons, employed in the navigation of these inland seas.

It has been well observed, that, notwithstanding the separate names given to all these large sheets of water, they are, after all, but expansions of the great river St. Lawrence, in its course from its original fountains to the sea. The source of this great river may thus be found on the stream called the St. Louis, which rises about 155 miles N.W. of Lake Superior, and at an elevation of 1200 feet above the level of the sea. In its course to Lake Superior it descends 551 feet, that lake being 641 feet above tide-water. It is 300 miles in length, 80 in breadth, and 900 feet in mean depth, though there are some parts in which the depth is 1200 feet. The river next descends for 60 miles through the Strait of St. Mary, from Lake Superior to Lakes Huron and Michigan, effecting a fall of 600 feet within that course. Lake Huron is about 200 miles in mean length by 95 in mean breadth, and Lake Michigan is about 300 miles in mean length and 50 in mean breadth; each of these are about 1000 feet in mean depth, the level of both being about 600 feet above that of the sea. From hence the river again passes through the Straits of St. Clair and Detroit for a distance of about 90 miles, by which it enters Lake Erie after a fall of about 30 feet.

This lake has considerably less water in it than either of the preceding, though it is still a large sea. It is about 230 miles in mean length by 35 in mean breadth; and though in some places its depth exceeds 300 feet, yet its average or mean depth is not more than 120 feet; and its elevation is 565 feet above the level of the

From hence the river passes onward by the Niagara strait of 37 miles, after a fall of 334 feet, into Lake Ontario, which is 180 miles by 30 in mean length and breadth, and its mean depth 500 feet, though in some places it has been sounded with a line of 300 fathoms without reaching the bottom. It is therefore the deepest of all the lakes compared with the extent of its surface, and Lake Erie is the shallowest. The river thus gaining its last expansion, is contracted into the strait of the Thousand Islands, and passes onward by Montreal and Quebec to the sea, forming in its course the

several lakes and straits described, and being, in this point of view, one of the grandest and most remarkable rivers in the world.

During our stay in Buffalo, and while delivering my course of lectures on Egypt there, which were well attended, I was invited to take part in a public meeting at the First Presbyterian Church, to advocate the claims of the Bethel Society of the City, for the amelioration of the condition of the seamen, boatmen, and others engaged on the adjoining waters. The church was crowded to excess, not less than 2000 persons being present in it, while hundreds were said to have gone away for want of room, so that a deep interest was evident in the object of the meeting.

Mr. Hiram Pratt, the principal banker of the city, and president of the Bethel Society, was called to the chair, and opened the business of the meeting.* The Rev. Mr. Charles, of the Baptist Church, and Mr. Hastings, of the New-York bar, proposed and seconded a resolution, after which I was invited to address the audience on the subject; and as the improvement of the condition of seamen had always been an object near my heart, I could speak with great earnestness and some knowledge of the subject on their behalf. The effect appeared to be beneficial, and the impressions left such as produced a timely and valuable addition to the funds of the institution.

I was much struck with the melancholy picture of this large and unfortunate class of men, as presented in an appeal on their behalf, prepared and issued under the sanction of the American Bethel Society, from which, as there is the strongest reason to believe its details authentic, the following extracts may be made; and, considering them to be an American portraiture of an existing class of the American community, published on the very spot where that class is best known and challenging contradiction, it is more valuable than anything from an English pen:

"The theatre of commercial enterprise in the United States is immense. With a country rich in resources beyond a parallel, fertilized by a thousand lakes and rivers, and furnished with every facility for sectional intercourse, we have become, and must remain, essentially a commercial people. Our internal arrangements for the transmission of property and for the convenience of travel are destined to an almost infinite enlargement. Our inland waters are already covered with boats and vessels charged with the freights of every clime, and crowded with a mass of human life that astonishes the beholder. But when our magnificent forests shall have been removed, and our soil fully appropriated to the productions of agriculture; when our mineral resources, nearly unexplored as yet, shall have been laid open and brought into healthful action; and especially when our population shall have become so extended as densely to cover our territories, the carrying trade will have assumed an importance and commanded an agency altogether outranking every other employment. It is destined to gather and disburse the products of an empire.

"It is perhaps impossible to ascertain with anything like precision * This gentleman has since deceased,