BOOKS.

DAILY'S TOIIR IN NORTH AMERICA IN 1796 AND 1797.*

A ir.AN who could inspire Herschel and De Morgan with respect for his scientific attainments as well as for his personal character must have been a remarkable person ; and such undoubtedly was Francis Bally. The founder and President of the Astronomical Society was not only the improver of the Nautical Almanack, the fixer of the national standard of length, and the weigher of the earth upwards of ninety scientific papers or volumes, many of them involving numerous experiments, extensive research and great labour, and the smallest requiring care and calculation,

attest his unflinching industry. The most extraordinary feature in Baily's case is the fact that his most important works were not undertaken till he had passed the meridian of life. Having realized a competent fortune as a stock-broker, he retired from business at fifty ; and the seven great works which Herschel se- lects for distinct exposition in the biographical sketch of his friend were conceived and executed when half a century had passed over him. The wonder of this is somewhat diminished when we consider that mathematics and astronomy were not new to him as pursuits. In 1810, fifteen years before he retired from business, Bally had written a paper on the celebrated solar eclipse said to have been predicted by Tholes ; and he followed up this example of laborious and sagacious calculation by various publi- cations on astronomical questions. So early. as 1802, only three years after he began business, he published his celebrated tables for calculating the value of leases for years certain, or for lives, &c. nor till he withdrew from the Stock Exchange -did he alto- gether cease to treat of questions connected with the craft or the money-market ; his publications varying from recondite investi- gations connected with life-insurance, to Rights of the Stock- brokers Defended against the City of London (1806). In fact, " hoc age' might have been his motto ; whatever he found to do he did it with his might. This mental resolution was accom- panied and supported by health and a constitutional equality of temperament, without which he could not have got through his labours. Upon this point Sir John Herschel observes-

" We are naturally led to ask, by what means he was enabled thus to live as it were two distinct lives, each so active and successful, yet so apparent- ly incompatible with each other ? how, in what is generally regarded as the decline of life, he could not only accomplish so much with such apparent ease to himself, but go on continually opening out wider and wider plans of useful exertion in a manner which seems only to belong to the freshness of youth ? The answer to such an inquiry is, no doubt, partly to be found in his uninterrupted enjoyment of health, which was so perfect that he has been heard to declare himself a stranger to every form of bodily ailment, and even to those inequalities of state which render most men at some hours of the day or night less fit for business or thought than at others. But though this is in itself a blessing of the most precious kind, and, if properly used, a vantage-ground of power and success to any one favoured enough to possess it, it must be regarded in his case as subordinate to, though, no doubt, intimately connected with, a gift of a much higher order—that of an equable and perfectly balanced intellectual and moral nature—that greatest of gifts, which has been regarded, and justly, as the only one really worthy to be asked of Heaven in this life, mens sans in corpora nano: Few men, indeed, have ever enjoyed a state of being so habitually serene and com- posed, accompanied with so much power, and disposition to exert it. A calm the reverse of apathy, a moderation having nothing in common with indifference, a method diametrically opposed to routine; pervaded every part of his sentiments and conduct. And hence it arose that every step which he took was measured and consequent—one fairly secured before another was put in progress. Such is ever the march of real power to durable conquest."

In science, Baily was a self-taught man, but scarcely any me- morials seem to exist as to times or methods of study. Indeed, his early life is somewhat blank. He was born in 1774, at New- bury in Berkshire, where his father was established as a banker. He was educated at a Newbury school of some provincial reputation. Having chosen a mercantile life, he was sent to London at four- teen years of age, "and placed in a house of business, where he remained till his twenty-second year." He then made a voyage to America, and travelled extensively through the country. Of these travels he wrote a full account in the form of a journal ; of which journal,. and a reprint of Herschel's memoir, this volume consists. So little beyond the barest facts is known of Baily's life at this period, that Professor De Morgan, who edites the work and recommended its publication, is unable to explain his friend's ob- ject in visiting America,—a very different adventure sixty years ago from what it is now.

It is this striking contrast between the United States, and the modes of travelling though them, in 1796 and in 1856, that im- parts its chief interest to the book, and may render its attraction greater in America than in England. The public here learn the contrast generally and vaguely through descriptions • there, peo- ple can compare with their own eyes the wonderful differences in everything between what was and what is. Between Baltimore and Philadelphia the distance is ninety-eight miles, flown over now in a few hours. Mr. Bally was three days and nights per- forming the journey, in a wretched stage-coach or van, where the passengers often had literally to put their shoulders to the wheel,

and once to abandon the vehicle in a bog. New York was a very different town from what it is now ; and partridges were killed in the streets of Washington by juvenile sportsmen. Settlement had been going on for some dozen or fifteen years beyond the Al-

• Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796 and 1797. By Me late Francis Baily, F.B.8., President of the Royal Astronomical Society. With a Memoir of the Author. Published by Daily. leghany mountains. Kentucky and Tennessee were geometrically mapped out on paper ; Cincinnati and a few other existing great emporiums of the West were just founded ; but the country be- yond the Alleghenies was substantially a wilderness. The Ohio, the Mississippi, and their tributaries, had a scanty navigation, where they were navigated, by half-bolts, half-rafts, floating with the stream and incapable for any distance of making way against it From New Madrid (on the present border-line of Arkansas) to New Orleans, the territory on. the right bank of the Mississippi belonged to Spain.; the left bank was in the act of being given up to the Americans ; and of the Spanish Governors and Government Mr. Baily gives a most deplorable account, he himself hav- ing been fleeced of goods to the amount of nearly seven hun- dred dollars. From Natchez on the Mississippi to Nashville on the Cumberland river, was a thousand miles of wilderness, through which young Baily travelled on horseback, in company with some Americans, carrying their provisions with them, sleep- ing on the ground, and almost starved before they arrived at their destination. For five hundred. miles further, till he crossed the Cumberland mountains and reached the more settled districts, a portion of the way was equally wilderness ; and. where a few set- tlers were sprinkled along the road, their settlements were of the rudest kind. Mr. Belly did not suffer from his hard- ships and privations, and he seems to think that health is best preserved by absence of luxury. We must think of his con- stitution as described by Herschel, to agree with him, under cir- cumstances such as these.

"In about an hour after dark I found myself on the descent, and soon after reached the valley below. Overcome with the fatigue of this trouble- some journey, I would willingly have laid me down to rest at the foot of the mountain, and suffered my horses to have refreshed themselves with the pasture they should find there : but the pains of extreme thirst, which had not been allayed since the morning, were too powerful to be neglected ; I was therefore obliged to proceed. • * • "I continued on till I found the thunder and lightning increase upon me. It was now near ten o'clock, and dark as pitch, save when the vivid flashes kindly lent me a ray of light to help me on my way. I had observed no signs of water ; and, fearful that I should not be able to kindle a fire if I continued on till the rain descended, I determined (parched as I was with thirst) to stop and take up my abode for the night. "I got together all the wood I could discover near me, and, kindling a fire large enough to roast an ox, and which I thought might be able to withstand any rain which might fall, spread my blanket, and lay down to rest. I had scarce accomplished all this ere the storm approached upon me ; the lightning began to be more frequent, and the rain to descend, and in such torrents did it come down that this vast flame which I had so late li kindled was soon extinguished. The rain refreshed me very much ; an regardless of all the bustle about me, and the state of darkness in which was now left, I fell fast asleep, wrapped up in my blanket, and having my head reclining upon a log of wood for a pillow. In this situation, overcome with fatigue, and ' indifferent in my choice to live or die, I weathered out this storm, and slept very soundly till three or four o'clock in the morning ; when I awoke, and found the elements had not ceased their contest, but were still warring against each other in all the impetuosity and rage of two "scordimt enemies. As to myself, I observed .that I was nearly covered

th water : for I had chosen a hollow place, which served as a bed both for me and the water ' - and had I continued there much longer it would have approached my head. You will naturally conceive that this drove away all sensations of thirst: it did so, and I awoke very much relieved from that inconvenience ; and, rising from my bed and wringing my blankets, went and lay down on a higher spot of ground, and slept very soundly till morn- ing!,

In the voyage out, the vessel was driven by bad weather to the West Indies... Mr. Bally landed at Antigua ; and he gives a not very favourable picture of the condition of the Negroes at that time, though his philosophy suggested that they might be used to it. . .

" We were attended on our journey to English Harbour by two No;roes, whom the owner of the sulkeys had sent to take care of the horses on our arrival there. I could not for my soul help pitying the poor creatures who I

kept up a constant running on the side of us the whole way. This had seen practised before, during my residence on the island,' as scarcely any person goes to a place where he expects to stop without his slave to take care of the horse; and this slave must not ride, but run behind, and keep up as well as he can : sometimes he may be indulged by his master's sufferinglim. tii lay hold of the horse's tail. In this manner I have several times seen Negroes following their master, not unusually with the whip in their hand to save him the trouble of carrying it. I have often thought; when I have been witness to this ludicrous scene, that the master deserved the whip, much more than the poor beast.

" With respect to the Negroes, though they are treated in this island with

more lenity than in any other of the West Indies, yet I had too frequent op- portuffities of beholding the unhappy and inhuman consequences of such an abominable traffic as the slave-trade. When I went to the plantations to see the process of making the sugar, I beheld in different parte Negroes standing with their whips, which every now and then they would exer-. vise on the backs of those who, perhaps but for the moment, neglected to proceed in their various employments,---some to bring the cane-stalks from the field to the mill, some to take away the stalks which had been pressed, and others to feed the fire which kept the cauldrons boiling in which the expressed juice of the Calle vies placed. I could not but com- miserate their unhappy situation : unhappy, perhaps, I should not say, in the strictly logical sense of the word ; because, as happiness is a relative term, they may, no doubt, if they can reconcile themselves to their unfor- tunate state, enjoy as great a share of that invaluable blessing as one born under more favourable circumstances. Why, then, disturb them ? Per- haps, in such circumstances, we ought not."

It will be seen from these specimens, that Mr. Bally's Tour rather resembles the old journey, in its plain and careful naira= five of noticeable facts with simply rational remarks, than the modern book of travels, where the writer is ever on the look-out for extraordinary incidents or scenes, which he may delineate in a forcefully laboured style and extend by ornate reflections.