In the hope of presenting some of its details to the reader, I procured, at an enormous expense, a Babbage calculating engine, and during three successive weeks worked it without pause upon the illimitable figures. It then became clogged, and the village Vulcan, whose impartial hand corrects at once the time-pieces and the plowshares of the neighborhood, having knocked the machinery to pieces with a sledge, declared himself incompetent to explain and unable to repair. My results therefore are maimed and imperfect, but I trust they will show that I have not exaggerated the difficulty of the process of reduction and estimation. The fragmentary portions of the estate, then, are: the entire capital stock of thirty-eight of the Banks of New York city (though here a wise policy has suggested the employment of various respectable names as those of shareholders, in order to protect these institutions from the fury of a mob); all that portion of the metropolis lying between the Twelfth and Twenty-second Avenues, from Canal Street to the suburb of Poughkeepsie, comprising of necessity the water rights and quarries; eighteen thousand millions of bullion specially deposited in the State Bank of Mississippi, to the order of the six New England Governors, trustees; the Pont-Noir mansion on Nultiel Street, surrounded by twenty-five acres of land, the very heart of the best New York residences, and variously estimated from six to eight millions of dollars; the remote but tolerably well known villages of Boston and Philadelphia in their entirety; and one undivided tenth of the stock of the Valley Bank. It was upon the last investment that Roseton chiefly drew for his expenses. 'My fancy,' said he, 'inclines me to convert Boston into an observatory, and Philadelphia into a tea-garden, and nothing but an amiable regard for the comfort of a handful of families prevents at once from carrying such plans into effect. My mansion is of necessity unproductive; and the Mississippi bullion is greatly needed where it already is. City property is a dreadful nuisance, the taxes are outrageous and the tenants pay poorly; and although the New York Banks announce dividends, yet when you come to look at their actual condition, hum, hum;--is that door shut?--just put your ear a little this way, so; there, I say nothing; there are Banks and Banks; but a building may have two doors, and what goes _out_ at one may come _in_ again at the other, eh? Mind, I say nothing. So you see, beside the East Haddam diamond mines, which are at present badly worked; and a few South American republics which are chiefly occupied in assassinating their presidents; and a border State or two that usually leave me to provide for their half-yearly coupons;--besides these resources, you see, I have really little else to look to but the Valley Bank.'