has occasioned the rapid extension of people, wealth, and property through the wide circuit of the United States, but the extent of its navigable rivers; those rivers on which the transcendent utility of steam navigation was fully established? Or to come nearer home, What would England be without her extent of coast, without her facility of carriage? There are many still in the vigour of their faculties who have witnessed the progress of this country during the memorable reign of George III.—a period of rapid progress in numbers, in wealth, in power, and in all the arts, with which no other period will bear one moment’s comparison. How much of this was owing to our turnpike-roads—to our canals? What would Birmingham, in particular, be without them? What would be the value of the mines of Staffordshire, in the very centre of the island, and without a navigable river? But the art and industry of man has surmounted every difficulty. Birmingham is not only connected with all the kingdom by a system of excellent roads, but has a water-communication with London, with Liverpool, with Bristol, with Hull; and it is from the opening of these canals that you must date its great prosperity. In 1760, Birmingham had less than 30,000 inhabitants: by the last census it had 106,000; it has now probably 130,000. Connected with the ocean, it is connected with the world; its name is known wherever the name of England is known; its useful and ingenious productions are spread over the civilized and the uncivilized regions of the globe. But how is it that roads,—how is it that canals, have produced such wonderful effects? Solely by affording the means of easy, of safe, of regular, of rapid, of economical communication. Which of your productions could have been sent over Europe, which to America, to India, to China, loaded with the weight of land-carriage from hence to the nearest of our ports? At least how few could have been either sent or sold! But how superior in all the particulars I have mentioned are railways to canals or turnpike roads! The ease, the smoothness, is that of one smooth bar of iron revolving on another; the motion of the best built carriage, on the best constructed road, is comparatively rough and jarring. You move with no more fatigue than from sitting in your chamber. Then for regularity,—here are no interruptions from drought, none from frost, none from snow, none from tedious periodical repairs. In safety,—inquire, and you find in the last six months upwards of 100,000 persons have passed between Liverpool and Manchester without an accident. Can you say the same of any equal length of turnpike-road? As for rapidity, this is truly astonishing,—this sets all competition at defiance; this almost realises the extravagant demand of the poet, that the gods would annihilate both space and time. It will condense the whole population of the kingdom, as to all purposes of