dead to the impression of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things by every method in his power. For no man can bear to be entirely deprived of such enjoyments; it is only because they are not used to taste of what is excellent, that the generality of people take delight in silly and insipid things, provided that they be new. For this reason, one ought every day at least to hear a good song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it be possible, to speak a few reasonable words.-Goethe.

POEM, BY JOHN R. RIDGE, ON THE LAYING OF THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH CABLE.

Read at Marysville, September 27, 1858.

LET Earth be glad! for that great work is done,
Which makes, at last, the Old and New World one!
Let all mankind rejoice; for time nor space
Shall check the progress of the human race!
Though Nature heaved the Continents apart,
She cast in one great mold the human heart;
She framed on one grand plan the human mind,
And gave man speech to link him to his kind:
So that, though plains and mountains intervene,
Or oceans, broad and stormy, roll between,
If there but be a courier for the thought,
Swift-winged or slow, the lands and seas are naught,
And man is nearer to his brother brought.

First, ere the dawn of letters was, or burst
The light of science on the world, men, nursed
In distant solitudes apart, did send

Midst lurking foes and dangers without end,
Their skin-clad heralds forth, to thread the woods,
Scale mountain peaks, or swim the sudden floods,
And bear their messages of peace or war.

Next, beasts were tamed to drag the rolling car,

Or speed the mounted rider on his track.
And, then came, too, the vessels oar-propelled,
Which fled the ocean as the clouds grew black,
And safe near shore their prudent courses held.
Next came the winged ships, which, brave and free,
Did skim the bosom of the bounding sea,

And dared the storms and darkness in their flight—
Yet, drifted far before the winds and night,
Or lay within the Dead Calm's grasp of might.
Then, sea-divided nations nearer came,
Stood face to face, spake each the other's name,
In friendship grew, and learned the truth sublime,
That man is man, in every age and clime!

They nearer were, by months and years-but space
Must still be shortened in Improvement's race;
And STEAM came next, to wake the world from sleep,
And launched her black-plumed warriors of the deep;
The which, in calm or storm, rode onward still,
And braved the raging elements at will.

Then distance, which, from calms' and storms' delays,
Grew into months, was shortened into days,
And Science' self declared her wildest dream
Reached not beyond this miracle of steam!

But, STEAM hath not the lightning's wondrous power,
Though Titan-like midst Science' sons it tower,
And wrestle with the ocean in his wrath,

And sweep the wild waves foaming from its path.
A mightier monarch is that subtler thing

Which gives to human thought its thought-swift wing;
Which speaks in thunder, like a God,

Or humbly stoops to kiss the lifted rod;
Ascends to Night's dim, solitary throne,
And drapes it with a splendor not its own-
A ghastly grandeur and a ghostly sheen,

Through which the pale stars tremble as they're seen;
Descends to fire the far horizon's rim,

And paints Mount Ætna in the cloudland grim;
Or, proud to own fair Science' rightful sway,
Low bends along the electric wire to play,
And, helping out the ever-wondrous plan,
Becomes, in sooth, an errand-boy for man!

This power it was, which, not content with aught
As yet achieved by human will or thought,
Disdained the slow account of months or days,
In navigation of the ocean-ways,

And days would shorten into hours and these
To minutes, in the face of angered seas!

If thought might not be borne upon the foam.

Of furrowing keel, with speed that thought should roam,
It then should walk, like light, the ocean's bed,
And laugh to scorn the winds and waves o'erhead!
Beneath the reach of storm or wreck, down where
The skeletons of men and navies are,

Its silent steps should be; while o'er its path
The monsters of the deep, in sport or wrath,
The waters lashed, till, like a pot should boil
The sea, and fierce ARION paw th' up-cast spoil!

America to thee belongs the praise

Of this great, crowning deed of modern days;
"Twas FRANKLIN called the wonder from on high-
'Twas MORSE who bade it on man's errands fly-
'Twas he foretold its pathway 'neath the sea-
A daring FIELD fulfilled the prophecy!

"Twas fitting that a great, free land, like this,
Should give the Lightning's voice to Liberty;
Should wing the heralds of earth's happiness,
And sing, beneath the ever-sounding sea,
The fair, the bright millennial days to be.

Now may, ere long, the sword be sheathed, to rust,
The helmet laid in undistinguished dust;

The thund'rous chariot pause in mid career,

Its crimsoned wheels no more through blood to steer; The red-hoofed steed from fields of death be led,

Or turned to pasture where the armies bled;

For nation unto nation soon shall be

Together brought in knitted unity,

And man be bound to man, by that strong chain,
Which, linking land to land and main to main,
Shall vibrate to the voice of Peace, and be
A throbbing heart-string of HUMANITY!

THE OLD GIANTS OF CALIFORNIA.

THERE were giants once on this coast, all the denials of savans and doubters, notwithstanding. Not less than four well-known cases have been noted of the discovery of the remains of the giant Californians of Sierra Nevadas, to wit: First-a skull bone was found in Trinity County in 1856; second-there were found in Tuolumne County, in 1860, a thigh bone and skull of a man twelve feet high; thirdthere were discovered near Jacksonville, in Southern Oregon, in May, 1862, a pair of human jaw bones of the immense breadth of seven inches; and fourth-there were discovered in 1762, near the Mission of Ignacio de Kadakaman, in latitude twenty-eight degrees north, on the Pacific coast of Lower California, the vertebræ, skull, ribs, &c., of a man eleven feet in height, which were found by one of the old Jesuit priests. These accounts, with several others on the human fossils of California and Mexico, as disinterred by the gold miners with their wonder-working water machinery, may be found in the "Notes on the Indians of California," now in the course of publication in the Farmer of San Francisco. Such remains of the ancient races ought to be preserved. The skull or other remains of a giant twelve feet high, is worth its weight in gold, in London or Paris. San Francisco Bulletin.

NORTHERN GOLD DISCOVERIES.

THE first intimation that gold existed in Eastern Oregon, Washington, and what is now Idaho Territories, by a white man, is said to have come from Capt. Pierce, from whom Pierce City since took its name. As early as 1852, while on a trading expedition with the Nez Perces, he became satisfied that this was a gold bearing country, but the hostility of the Indians prevented him in various attempts to test the truth in his belief until as late as 1860, while, in the mean time, when the captain resided in California, Mr.

Robbins, of Portland, purchased ten dollars' worth of gold dust from a Spokane Indian, in 1854, which led to prospecting in that country, and in 1855, some Frenchmen and half-breeds from Oregon, struck the Colville mines. During this year the Indian war very nearly put a stop to prospecting until as late as '58, when Captain Pierce again arrived in the country, and attempted to prospect the Nez Perces country, but found the Indians hostile, and suspended operations until 1860, when a party of some ninety men went into the Oro Fino district, and finding-as they anticipated-good diggings, they wintered there. In 1861 Oro Grande and South Clearwater were discovered, and late in the fall the rich Salmon River placers. During the year 1861 valuable deposits were developed on Powder, John Day's, and Burnt rivers, and in 1862, the greatest and most important mineral district of all was brought to light in the discovery of the Boise Basin. Meanwhile Beaver Head and Big Hole were found, east of the Rocky Mountains.-Boise News.

THE GOLDEN HEGIRA.

T the date of the discovery of America the whole amount of gold in commercial Europe was estitimated at $170,000,000. During the succeeding one hundred and twelve years, the opening of new fields of supply added about $6,387,500,000, so that had there been no loss nor shipments, there should have been at the commencement of the present century $6,557,500,000 in the commercial world. If to this we add the enormous receipts from California and Australia, developed in late years, and the continued supplies drawn from the older fields, the statement will seem incredible that instead of accumulating, the stock of gold in Europe is actually on the decrease. The inquiry then naturally arises, what becomes of the precious metal?

In a paper read before the Polytechnic Association, Dr. Stephens stated that of our annual gold product, full fifteen