population of Ohio and Indiana have generally a north and south direction, connecting the fertile central region with the Ohio River and Lake Erie. Within a few years the importance of a more direct eastern communication with the seaboard has been appreciated, and several great leading lines have been projected and commenced to secure this object. That which has made most progress is the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad, commencing at Pittsburg, and extending westwardly through the most fertile and populous part of Ohio, to the new town called Crestline, on the Columbus and Cleveland Railroad, a distance of one hundred and eighty miles. From Crestline a railroad is completed to the city of Cincinnati, on the Ohio River; another has been commenced to Fort Wayne, in Indiana, which will be extended to Chicago, on Lake Michigan; another will be completed in the coming twelve months, from Crestline, through Bellefontaine and Indianapolis, to Terre Haute, on the western boundary of the State of Indiana, a distance of two hundred and seventy-five miles. The extension of this to the city of St. Louis, on the Mississippi, one hundred and seventy miles further, has been commenced. Of the completion of this entire direct continuous railroad from Philadelphia to St. Louis, a distance of nine hundred and seventy-six miles, within two years, there can be no doubt. The region traversed by this route is equal in fertility to any portion of the globe, and is inhabited by a people who have the sagacity and enterprise to improve and draw from it all that the bountiful hand of the Creator has designed for it.

The Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad is now completed to Massillon, one hundred and four miles. At Alliance, eighty-four miles from Pittsburg, it intersects the Cleveland and Pittsburg Railroad, which is completed from that point to Cleveland, making a direct railroad communication between Pittsburg and Lake Erie, one hundred and forty miles long. From Cleveland to the City of New York, by way of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the distance is now forty miles shorter than by the New York and Erie Railroad; and must consequently command the travel from the Western States to that commercial emporium.

The Pittsburg and Steubenville Railroad will connect this line with the Steubenville and Indiana Railroad, and accommodate the centre of Ohio; while the Hempfield Railroad from Greensburg, thirty miles east of Pittsburg, to Wheeling, will connect it with the southern portions of that State, through the Marietta, Chilicothe and Cincinnati

road, upon which line an unbroken guage of track may be secured to St. Louis. These form the leading eastern communications in Ohio, already alluded to; and to these, and especially the Ohio and Pennsylvania road, all the north and south lines from Cleveland, Sandusky, Lexington, Louisville, Evansville, &c., will become tributaries, concentrating the trade and travel of the great Mississippi basin, and pouring it over the Pennsylvania Railroad and the main trunk connecting the commercial and manufacturing interest of the East with the rich agricultural regions of the West.

Calculations of the amount of transportation and travel that will pass over this great highway appear, in view of these facts, to be superfluous. All its rivals are inferior in character, more expensive to work, and encumbered by a disproportionate debt. It has therefore nothing to fear from rivalry, either on the north or the south; and its business will only be limited by the capacity of a first class double track railroad.

In its present incomplete condition it yields a net revenue of more than eight per cent. upon the capital expended in its construction, and has attained a tonage, ere it has reached its western terminus, nearly as great as can be carried with regularity upon a single track road. The entire estimated cost of the road, finished with a single track and sidings, and equipments, including freight and passenger stations at Philadelphia, is $12,300,000. The whole amount of subscriptions, thus far, exceed ten millions of dollars, and the work of the Company has been prosecuted without incurring a dollar of debt. The remaining amount to complete and equip the road is now being subscribed, and presents a splendid inducement for the investment of the capital.

The following statement exhibits the receipts and expenditures of the road for the year ending 1851:

From Passengers, Mails, Express, &c. on Pennsylvania
Railroad,

From Lancaster, Columbia, and Portage Railroads,

Total Receipts from Passengers, Mails, &c.,

Total Receipts from Freight,

Total Receipts,

$315,145 33

371,164 54

686,309 78

353,255 72

The following statement will exhibit the receipts of the Company since the commencement of the present fiscal year.

ALTOONA, (two hundred and thirty-eight miles from Philadelphia, one hundred and twenty-five from Pittsburg, and elevated eleven hundred and sixty-eight feet above tide-water,) will ultimately become one of the most important places on this route. And it is a source of satisfaction to perceive that there is plenty of room, and that admirably situated, for a large and flourishing town. The surrounding country, being the rich slope of the Alleghany, is highly cultivable, and only needs an industrious farming population to clothe it in the lively colors of growing crops. Altoona contains the machine-shops and engine-houses for the western section of the road, and the hands employed in them together with the agents of the road stationed here, will be quite sufficient to people a village of more than ordinary pretensions. The Railroad Company has already erected several handsome buildings, besides the machine shops referred to, (which will soon be enlarged to twice their present capacity) and after the piece of road overcoming the mountain is finished, a large and splendid hotel will be added, with numerous other buildings for private resi

dred. It is otherwise without interest, and will probably lose some of the trade it now enjoys after this portion of the road is avoided by the Central Railroad.

The Mountain House stands on an elevation, above tide-water, of about twelve hundred feet. The ascent from this place to the summit of the mountain is nearly fourteen hundred feet-consequently, on reaching it, we will find ourselves in the region of clouds, upwards of twenty-six hundred feet above the Delaware River at Philadelphia!

Our course, therefore, is still onward and upward. Hitched to a little old rickety locomotive, of the extravagant days of Governor Ritner, ―he, of whom it was sung, in Pennsylvania Dutch

"Der Joseph Ritner is der mon

As unser Staat rigeren kon!"

we are tugged, two or three miles, over a steep ascending grade, to the foot of the first inclined-plane. Here the cars are attached to an endless wire-rope, winding round large iron wheels, placed horizontally, at each end of the plane. When all is ready, a signal is given to the engineer at the head of the plane, who immediately sets the stationary steam-engine in motion, and the rope begins its accustomed travel. It is prevented from touching or dragging the ground by numerous little wooden wheels, which revolve rapidly whenever the rope falls low enough to touch them. The ascent is soon made, and the same process is repeated at each of the other planes. At first the novelty of the operation excites some interest, but this gradually wears off, and the slow progress in travelling produces a feeling of impatience. The scenery is sometimes very inspiring; but, for the most part, the Alleghany has little of striking effect. The ascent, too, is so gradual, and the distance to the summit so considerable, that the actual height is never fully realized. The summit of the mountain forms the boundary line between Cambria and Blair Counties, and the village on its top ought to be the best place in Pennsylvania, because it is unquestionably the nearest to heaven.

Making maple-sugar, in this region of country, is one of the characteristic employments of the people-though it is carried on to a much greater extent in the adjoining county of Somerset. The quantity of this sugar, raised in this State in 1850, as appears by the census, was two million two hundred and eighteen thousand, six hundred and forty-four pounds, from which it will be seen that it is by no means an inconsiderable item of our domestic products. Indeed, we have no doubt but that this amount, large as it seems, might readily be trebled and quadrupled with profit, were the matter reduced to the common basis of a regular and systematic business. Immense districts, otherwise unproductive, might be timbered with these sugarbearing trees, and large sums annually realized from their productions without in the least depreciating the value of the trees for timber. If we are not greatly deceived, this sugar-maple business