Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439, page 49 by Various Authors
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eamer from an English port? Captain Denham is about to sail in the Herald, to survey the islands of the great ocean, one object being to find the best route and coaling-stations among the islands for steamers from the Isthmus to Sydney. The vessel will carry an interpreter, a supply of English seeds and plants, and a number of articles, to serve as presents for the natives. Should this survey be successful, and the United States' expedition to Japan produce the effect anticipated, the vast solitudes of the Pacific will be erelong continually echoing with the beat of paddle-wheels and the roar of steam. Rapid intercommunication will bring about changes, whereat politicians and ethnologists shall wonder. The Chinese still keep pouring into California by shiploads of 200 or 300 at a time, where they will perhaps learn that a year of Anglo-Saxondom is 'worth cycle of Cathay.' We may regard as evidence of progress, that Loo-choo has been visited by Captain Shadwell of the Sphynx; he was received with great favour, and conducted to the royal city of Shooi, three miles inland. Readers of Captain Basil Hall's pleasant account of the same island will remember, that he was jealously forbidden to approach the interior. Do the Loo-chooans want to conciliate an ally? If, as is said, Japan is to become to the Americans what India is to us, we shall have them for neighbours in the east, as we now have them in the west. It will be an interesting event should England, America, and Russia some day meet on the Asiatic continent.
One good effect of railways, as you know, has been to cheapen coal, and excite activity in heretofore dormant mining districts--results which tell upon the trade in sea-borne coals. To meet this emergency, a scheme is on foot for sending coal from the Tyne to the Thames in steam-colliers, which, by their short and regular passages, shall compete successfully with the railways. The experiment is well worth trying, and ought to pay, if properly managed: meantime, our railways will ext