Travels in the United States of America eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 124 pages of information about Travels in the United States of America.

Travels in the United States of America eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 124 pages of information about Travels in the United States of America.
raised the value of labour beyond the profits of almost any manufacture.  If they could be established with effect in any part of America, it would be in the New England states, where the population is more than double those of the south; and provision much cheaper; but the New Englanders, when they fancy themselves too populous, rather than engage in a laborious trade, prefer emigration to the Genasee[Footnote:  The Genasee is a rich tract of country, a considerable distance west of New York, much resorted to by New England emigrants since the peace with the Six Nations.  Kentucky is at least one thousand miles from the nearest of the New England states, two hundred of which are through a wilderness, which cannot be passed during an indian war, without great danger.], or even Kentucky.  The same restless, enterprising spirit, which brought their ancestors from Europe, carries them to these remote western settlements; and I have no doubt their descendants will continue the same in that direction; till the Pacific Ocean[Footnote:  A distance of more than two thousand miles from the most remote western settlement.] stops their further progress; unless, as I before observed, lured by a golden bait, they go to the south:  let the Spaniard look to that.—­The manufactories in this country that have fallen under my observation are one of rifles at Lancaster, another of musquets at Connecticut, and at German Town, in Pennsylvania, a peculiar sort of winter stockings.  An American has lately procured a patent from Congress, for cutting brads out of sheet iron with an engine.  The american iron is of an excellent quality, and possesses a great degree of malleability, which perhaps suggested the first idea of this invention.  The following extract from the advertisement of the patentee will enable you, to form some judgment of this singular undertaking:  “He begs leave to observe their superiority to english-wrought brads consists in their being quite regular in their shape, so much so, that ten thousand may be drove through the thinnest pine board, without using a brad-awl, or splitting the board.  They have the advantage also of being cut with the grain of the iron; others are cut against it.  He has already three engines at work, which can turn out two hundred thousand per day.”

Another patent has been granted for making the teeth of cotton and wool cards by an engine, which is supposed to be a similar process.

There are also manufactories of cotton, sail cloth, gun-powder, glass, &c., but of no great consequence.

Their sawing-mills are numerous, and well constructed; this circumstance, and the great quantity of timber, mast, spars, &c., with which this country abounds, enable them to build vessels considerably under what you can afford in England, though the wages of a shipwright are now two dollars and a quarter per day.  Theirs ships, in point of model and sailing, if not superiour, are at least equal to the best european-built vessels, and when constructed of live oak, and red cedar, are equally durable.  Vessels of this description are scarce.  Live oak is rarely met with north of the Carolinas:  that used in the Boston ship-yards is brought from Georgia; a distance of more than a thousand miles,

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Travels in the United States of America from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.