Boston is situated at the head of Massachusetts bay, on a peninsula about four miles in circumference, and is about three miles in length, and one mile and twenty-five rods, where widest, in breadth, and is connected with the main land at the south end by a narrow isthmus, called the Neck, leading to Roxbury. The town is built in an irregular circular form round the harbour, which is studded with about forty small islands, many of which afford excellent pasture; and are frequented in summer by numerous parties of pleasure. The harbour is formed by Nahant Point on the north, and Point Alderton on the south, and is so capacious as to allow five hundred vessels to ride at anchor in a good depth of water, while the entrance is so narrow as scarcely to admit two ships abreast. The entrance is defended by Fort Independence, belonging to the United States, on Castle Island, and by Fort Warren, on Governor’s Island. There is another fort, called Fort Strong, on Noddle’s Island. Alterations and additions have of late years greatly improved the appearance of Boston. The streets, which were formerly almost without an exception narrow and crooked, have been in a great degree rendered wide and commodious; the old wooden structures have in the greater part of the city been replaced by handsome buildings of stone or brick. In the western part, particularly, there is much neatness and elegance. The splendour of the private buildings here, is not equalled in any other part of the Union. The literary institutions of this city are of the first order. The public libraries contain 70,000 volumes. The Boston Athenæum is the finest establishment of its kind in the United States; its library contains above 25,000 volumes, and a reading-room, in which the most esteemed periodicals, from all parts of the world, may be found. If we add to these the library of Harvard College, in the neighbourhood, of 40,000 volumes, making the number of books within the reach of the citizens 110,000, it must be allowed that Boston offers to the scholar a more advantageous residence than any other spot in the western world.