The Merrimack River: its source and its tributaries. Embracing a history of manufactures, and of the towns along its course; their geography, topography, and products, with a description of the magnificent natural scenery about its upper waters./ By J. W. Meader.

ITS SOURCE AND ITS TRIBUTARIE&
shire and of the adjacent waters, which on his return he presented
to the prince.
Capt. John Smith appears to have been even from childhood one
of those erratic individuals who, moving without rudder or compass
that can be observed, without visible aim or purpose, yet succeed in
the accomplishment of some beneficent object by the very vicissitudes
of fortune. A rollicking, vigorous, and ungoverned recklessness resulting in benefit to the world seems to prove these singular characteristics to have been in his case but the eccentricity of a universal
genius.
At the very door of his teens, impatient of the slow process of
acquiring knowledge at school, and disgusted with his books, he
peddled them out, using the proceeds to secure some slender means
for the accomplishment of an idea he had in contemplation even
at that early age,- a clandestine voyage to sea.
His subsequent career the world knows by heart, and as long as
the generous affection and unselfish devotion of Pocahontas shall be
recognized as a conspicuous exhibition of untutored and spontaneous
Christianity, it cannot be forgotten. Whether on an exploring expedition on the high seas, or planning the details of a colonial settlement, the same vigorous ideas and the same activity in putting in
practice are everywhere apparent. He was the founder of colonies
and the father of States. Did anything occur to derange the machinerj of government, or the material prosperity of the colony, it
appealed to Captain Smith as the only star of a last surviving hope
to rescue it from impending anarchy, starvation, or extermination at
the hands of a wily and ruthless savage foe. The story of his hairbreadth escapes, h's trials, and triumphs is not new; but it is good
and true; how he eluded the vigilance of the savages, successfully
accomplished his objects, and saved the colonists, and, when finally
made captive and sentenced to death, in his dire extremity, the fertility of resource never leaving him, he presented his executioner
that was to be - with a mariner's compass, pointing out to him the
marvellous adjustment of the needle, its invariable attraction toward
the north star; explained the vastness of the ocean, and the shape
of the earth and its motion. The murderous design was suspended,
and the superstitious Indians, overwhelmed by the magnitude of his
wisdom and the incomparable superiority of his acquirements,
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