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By Root 16041 0

a flat-boat, with a hand or two, and explore this Continent, of which so much has been sillily said, and about which so little has been satisfactorily done? The great error lies in the vastness of the expeditions — altogether disproportioned to the end in view. Celerity is the main point in explorations of high latitudes; and celerity never yet attended the movements of squadrons, especially when encumbered with “men of science.” Let some Yankee open the way, (as, assuredly, some Yankee yet will) , and let men of science follow his footsteps, and geologize at their leisure. It is a great pity, and a “burning shame,” that the control of this important enterprize was not given to its originator, Reynolds. He is, in every respect, as thoroughly qualified, as Commander Wilkes is not. A more disgraceful — a more unprincipled — a more outrageous system of chicanery, never was put in operation, before the open eyes of an intelligent community, than that by means of which Mr. Wilkes was made to occupy the position, and usurp the undeniable rights, of Mr. Reynolds.

I have been making vain endeavors to ascertain the dimensions, (by which I mean the astronomical powers), of the Frauenhofer telescope, lately arrived. The papers, with the “Army and Navy Chronicle,” give the merely physical length and breadth, with the length and breadth of the boxes in which it came. Do you see anything more definite? What has become of the telescope, an account of which Mr. Paine furnished, some years ago, to the “Worcester Palladium”? The tube, of Russia iron, was said to be four feet in diameter, and forty-eight feet long — the concave mirror at the power-end forty-six inches in diameter — the lenses six inches and a quarter. Mr. P. stated that “owing to the form and combination of the lenses,” his instrument would have “a magnifying power of eleven thousand.” By “magnifying” power, I presume he meant space-penetrating — but it has been hitherto supposed that, for good optical reasons, the space-penetrating power of a telescope must be limited to about one thousand, eight hundred. By and by, however, all telescopes must be thrown into the shade by the prodigious instrument of Lord Russell, the speculum of which is to be six feet in diameter — or is — for I believe the telescope is now completed. If the difficulties attending the diffusion of light, are overcome (difficulties hitherto considered insurmountable) Lord Russell may see, in the moon, any buildings as large as the Capitol. It is, perhaps, a fantastic, but it is, nevertheless, a perfectly philosophical idea, that, by the aid of his telescope, he might see as far, and as well, as would an imaginary giant, the ball of whose eye should be precisely six feet in diameter, or eighteen feet round. The space-penetrating power is exactly proportioned to the area of the lens. Ceteris paribus, persons with large eyes see better and farther than persons with small ones.

The uproar which is made about Seatsfield — “the great Seatsfield” — is merely one other laughable, or disgusting instance of our subserviency to foreign opinion. His sketches are undoubtedly clever; but there are now, in America, some dozen of my own personal acquaintances who daily put forth, unnoticed, as good compositions, if not, indeed, far better. Seatsfield might have written and printed here, ad infinitum, without getting his head above the mob of authors, even were his works what the toadies of everything foreign tell us they are, but what they positively are not. A German critic, however, of no very great merit or eminence, in a big book of no very particular importance, informs us that we have a great author among us without knowing it. That is enough. The man is immortal; — he is “the great Seatsfield,” henceforth and forever. Now only imagine some of our third or fourth-rate dabblers in criticism, gravely informing the Dutch, for example, that their epic poet, Cats, is a fine genius. They — even they — would not be so besotted as to believe Americans better judges of Dutch than the Dutchmen themselves. They would reply,