CHAIN BRIDGE OVER THE POTOMAC. In this number of the Family Magazine we present to our readers a view of the Chain Bridge over the Potomac river, two miles above Georgetown, in the District of Columbia. At some future period it may be within our power to present other views along this noble river, with those of others remarkable for their historical associations or picturesque beauties; and though we claim not to vie with works of delicately-finished engravings on metal, yet do we claim to tell a true story in a plain way, and to send forth throughout our land information from pencil as well as pen, fitted for parlour and cottage. In answer to a request for an illustration for our picture a correspondent writes:—

"You asked me to tell you something about the Potomac. When you contemplate publishing an octavo on the subject, let me know it a year or two in advance, and I will be prepared to comply with your request; only call in a friend at my elbow to help us out occasionally with a pictorial illustration

and we will make a book of it.

"Old Patawomeck, as they called it in the days of the illustrious Captain John, (and shame on us that it is not called so now,) after a long and broken course, flowing through one of the mildest and most beautiful countries in the world, from its source near the Back Bone, a spur of the Alleganies, and receiving the contributions of the Shanandoah and many other mountain streams, meets the tide water at the Little Falls, near the Chain Bridge above Georgetown, about three hundred miles from the Atlantic.-From thence it soon swells into a broad expanse of water navigable for the largest vessels of commerce. Within the view embraced by your picture, is the spot where, in June 1608, Captain Smith, with an exploring party from Jamestown, landed. Two hundred and thirty years ago, a group of Englishmen may have filled the place where now stands the city there are the same 'mighty rocks, sportsman; growing in some places above the grownd as high as the shrubby trees, and divers other solid quarries of divers tinctures; and divers places where the waters had falne from the high mountaines they had left, a spāgled skurfe, that made many bare places seem as guilded.* Ill-starred Captain John! had it been thy fortune to have explored this noble river at another season-hadst thine host at Nameraughquend but placed before thee that mystery of its waters, a canvass-back, or even his cousin-german a red neck, thou wouldst have sworn allegiance to its shores forever and Jamestown had been abandoned, surely. On the hill of our Capitol might have waved the standard of King James, and who can tell but that thy coming hither in June instead of November may not have changed the destiny of a mighty nation? and who can tell how many a long speech that same nation has now to pay for and charge to account of that

• Captain Smith's History of Virginia.

same little bird-the result of sleepless nights froL over-eaten suppers and dread of being sent no more to this its chosen rendezvous? Our aldermen and men of council should look well to this, and in their sage resolves forget not the presiding genius of their city. They should look more jealously upon the long guns that infest our river, for as surely as the canvass-back is driven from us, as surely will the "voice of the people" be heard no longer here; the high places of Washington become desolate, and the mighty swarms of great men, with bag and baggage, will settle on some other spot and build another capitol, 'over the hills and far away.'

"The view itself tells you that the bridge thrown over the river at the point of Little Falls, is a picturesque object. About ten miles above it are the Great Falls, where the vast volume of the Potomac, narrowing its channel to about one hundred yards wide, pitches perpendicularly thirty or forty feet into a hollow rock, then dashing through rocks it sweeps along for three or four miles, and again glides smoothly on its course until it reaches the rapids or little falls, where it has a gradual descent of about thirty-five or forty feet to tide water.

"In the spring, when the ice that has accumulated in the river during the winter, becomes dammed up at this point, with an immense quantity of drift timber that it has torn from the banks, one of the most exciting scenes is presented that can be imagined. At once the whole gives way with a tremendous crash and the waters rush on and sweep everything in their course. More than one bridge has been thus carried away, and the fact will account for the peculiar construction of that in your picture."

HEIGHT OF WAVES.

So awful is the spectacle of a storm at sea, that it is generally viewed through a medium which biases the judgment; and, lofty as the waves really are, imagination pictures them loftier still. Now, no wave rises more than ten feet above the ordinary sea-level, which, with the ten feet that its surface afterward descends below this, give twenty feet for the whole height, from the bottom of any water-valley to an adjoining summit. This proposition is easily verified by a person who tries at what height, upon a ship's mast, the horizon remains always in sight over the top of the waves, allowance being made for accidental inclinations of the vessel, and for her sinking in the water so much below her water-line, at the time when she reaches the bottom of the hollow be tween two waves. The spray of the sea, driven along by the violence of the wind, is, of course, much higher than the summit of the liquid wave; and a wave coming against an obstacle may dash to a great elevation above it. At the Eddystone lighthouse, when a surge breaks, which has been growing under a storm all the way across the Atlantic, it dashes even over the lantern at the summit. Arnott's Elements of Physics

ANDROSCOGGIN BRIDGE.

ANDROSCOGGIN bridge was built in 1804, and 18 usually passed in a journey from Portland to Hallo well and Augusta, on the Kennebec river. It is nearly midway between those two points: being about thirty miles from each.

idea of society, this sense of dreariness and desertion Especially is this the case when rack and mist are hovering along the border, veiling from the view those picturesque woodland-points and promontories, and those green island-groves which, when the sky is clear, swell out upon every side into the bosom vi the plain. Then all is fresh and joyous to the eye There are falls or rapids in the Androscoggin near as a vision; change the scene, and the grand, the bridge. The sides and part of the bed of the gloomy, misty magnificence of old ocean presents river is a ledge, and this generally causes a great itself on every side. The relief to the picture afford. rushing and foaming in the water. There are sev-ed by the discovery of man's habitation can hardly eral saw-mills on the river near the bridge, where a be described. large number of people are employed. Boats come up the river to within a few rods of the bridge, and vessels are built there of considerable size. Logs and rafts of boards and shingles, in large quantities, are also floated down the river from the interiour, for twenty and thirty miles.

It was near nightfall when, wearied by the fatigue of riding and drenched with mist, I reached the logcabin of an.old pioneer from Virginia, beneath whose lowly roof-tree I am scated at this present writing, and though hardly the most sumptuous edifice of which it has been my lot to be an inmate, yet with Brunswick and Topsham are old settled towns. no unenviable anticipations am I looking forward to A few people ventured to build their huts there, about hearty refreshment and to sound slumber upon the 1720. A fort was erected near the southern end of couch by my side. There are few objects to be met the bridge, on the Brunswick side. Recently some with in the backwoods of the West more unique and cotton factories have been established at this place. picturesque than the dwelling of the emigrant. After About six miles below the bridge, the Androscoggin selecting an elevated spot as a site for building, a falls into Merry-meeting bay, which connects it with cabin or a log-house-which is somewhat of an im the Kennebec, a few miles above Bath. The river provement upon the first-is erected in the following below, and after this confluence of the Kennebec manner. A sufficient number of straight trees, of a and Androscoggin, is the ancient and far famed Sa-size convenient for removing, are felled, slightly hewa gadahock.

upon the opposite sides, and the extremities notched Brunswick (and Maine indeed) is rendered wor- or morticed with the axe. They are then piled upon thy of notice also, by the location of Bowdoin Col- each other so that the extremities lock together; and lege within its bounds. It has already proved a a single or double edifice is constructed, agreeable great advantage to that state; and is continually to the taste or ability of the builder. Ordinarily the rising in respectability and usefulness. It was in-cabin consists of two quadrangular apartments, sepacorporated in 1794; and the instruction began in

1802.

SCENES AND SCENERY IN ILLINOIS.

Extract from the Far West.

WHOEVER will take upon himself the trouble to run his eyes over the "Tourist's Pocket Map of Illinois," will perceive, stretching along the western border of the state, parallel with the river, a broad carriage highway, in a direction nearly north, to a little village called Carlinville; if then he glances to the east, he may trace a narrow pathway striking off at right angles to that section of the state. Well, it is here, upon this pathway, just on the margin of a beautiful prairie, sweeping away toward the town of Hillsborough, that I find myself at the close of the day, after a long and fatiguing ride. The afternoon has been one of those dreary, drizzly, disagreeable seasons which relax the nerves and ride like an incubus upon the spirits; and my route has conducted me over a broadspread, desolate plain; for, lovely as may appear the prairie when its bright flowerets and its tall grasstops are nodding in the sunlight, it is a melancholy place when the sky is beclouded and the rain is falling. There is a certain indescribable sensation of loneliness, which steals over the mind of the solitary traveller when he finds himself alone in the heart of these boundless plains, which he cannot away with; and the approach to a forest is hailed with pleasure, as serving to quiet, with the vague

rated by a broad area between, connected by a common floor, and covered by a common roof, presenting a parallelogram triple the length of its width. The better of these apartments is usually appropriated t the entertainment of the casual guest, and is furnished with several beds and some articles of rude furniture to correspond. The open area constitutes the ordinary sitting and eating apartment of the family in fine weather; and, from its coolness, affords a delightful retreat. The intervals between the logs are stuffed with fragments of wood or stone, and plastered with mud or mortar, and the chimney is constructed much in the same manner, The roof is covered with thin clapboards of oak or ash, and, in lieu of nails, transverse pieces of timber retain them in their places. Thousands of cabins are thus constructed, without a particle of iron or even a common plank. The rough clapboards give to the roof almost the shaggy aspect of thatch at a little distance, but they render it impermeable to even the heaviest and most protracted rain-storms. A rude gallery often extends along one or both sides of the building, adding much to its coolness in summer and to its warmth in winter by the protection afforded from sun and snow. The floor is constructed of short, thick planks, technically termed "puncheons," which are confined by wooden pins; and, though hardly smooth enough for a ballroom, yet well answer every purpose for a dwelling, and effectually resist moisture and cold. The apertures are usually cut with a view to free ventilation, and the chimneys stand at the extremities outside the walls of the cabin. A few pounds of nails, a few boxes of glass, a few hundred feet of lumber, and a few days' assistance of a house-car