Thus, independent of her system of railroads, New York City possesses uninterrupted natural connection with the interior of the State, whence a new system of communications is given off by the Lakes to the extreme west and north of our whole territory. To the northeast, New York extends her relations by the sheltered avenue of Long Island Sound,--alluring through a strait of comparatively smooth water not only the agricultural products which seek export along a double water-front of two hundred miles, but the larger results of that colossal manufacturing system on which is based the prosperity of New England. To a great part of this class of values Long Island Sound stands like a weir emptying into the net of New York. The maritime position of New York makes her as easy an entrepot for Southern as for foreign products; and in any case her share in our Northern national commerce gives her the control of all trade which must pay the North a balance of exchange. The Hudson, the Sound, and the line of Southern coasting traffic are the three main radii of supply which meet in New York. Another important district paying its chief subsidy to New York is drained by the Delaware River, and this great avenue is reached with ease from the metropolis by a direct natural route across the Jersey level. Though unavailable to New York as a navigable conduit, it still offers a means of penetrating to the southern counties of the State, and a passage to the Far West, of which New York capital has been prompt to avail itself by the Erie Railroad, with its Atlantic and Great Western continuation to St. Louis. This uniform broad-gauge of twelve hundred miles, which has just been opened by the energy and talents of Messrs. McHenry and Kennard, apparently decides the main channel by which the West is to discharge her riches into New York.--But we are trenching on the subject the capital's artificial advantages.