"It is simply what it professes to be. Mr. Hammer, do us the favour to step this way. Are you selling to-day?" "Not much, sir. Only a hundred or two lots on this island, and some six or eight farms, with one western village." "Can you tell us the history of this particular piece of property, Mr. Hammer?" "With great pleasure, Mr. Effingham; we know you to have means, and hope you may be induced to purchase. This was the farm of old Volkert Van Brunt, five years since, off of which he and his family had made a livelihood for more than a century, by selling milk. Two years since, the sons sold it to Peter Feeler for a hundred an acre; or for the total sum of five thousand dollars. The next spring Mr. Feeler sold it to John Search, as keen a one as we have, for twenty-five thousand. Search sold it, at private sale, to Nathan Rise for fifty thousand, the next week, and Rise had parted with it, to a company, before the purchase, for a hundred and twelve thousand cash. The map ought to be taken down, for it is now eight months since we sold it out in lots, at auction, for the gross sum of three hundred thousand dollars. As we have received our commission, we look at that land as out of the market, for a time." "Have you other property, sir, that affords the same wonderful history of a rapid advance in value?" asked the baronet. "These walls are covered with maps of estates in the same predicament. Some have risen two or three thousand per cent. within five years, and some only a few hundred. There is no calculating in the matter, for it is all fancy." "And on what is this enormous increase in value founded?--Does the town extend to these fields?" "It goes much farther, sir; that is to say, on paper. In the way of houses, it is still some miles short of them. A good deal depends on what you _call_ a thing, in this market. Now, if old Volkert Van Brunt's property had been still called a farm, it would have brought a farm price; but, as soon as it was surveyed into lots and mapped--" "Mapped!" "Yes, sir; brought into visible lines, with feet and inches. As soon as it was properly mapped, it rose to its just value. We have a good deal of the bottom of the sea that brings fair prices in consequence of being well mapped." Here the gentlemen expressed their sense of the auctioneer's politeness, and retired. "We will now go into the sales-room," said John Effingham, "where you shall judge of the spirit, or _energy_, as it is termed, which, at this moment, actuates this great nation." Descending, they entered a crowd, where scores were eagerly bidding against each other, in the fearful delusion of growing rich by pushing a fancied value to a point still higher. One was purchasing ragged rocks, another the bottom of rivers, a third a bog, and all on the credit of maps. Our two observers remained some time silent spectators of the scene.