change for the better. The assigned reason is the centrical
position of the selected political capitals; but I have generally
found the real commercial capital to be easier of access than the
smaller town in which the two legislative houses are obliged to
collect themselves.

What must be the natural excellence of the harbor of Portland, will
be understood when it is borne in mind that the Great Eastern can
enter it at all times, and that it can lay along the wharves at any
hour of the tide. The wharves which have been prepared for her--
and of which I will say a word further by-and-by--are joined to,
and in fact, are a portion of, the station of the Grand Trunk
Railway, which runs from Portland up to Canada. So that passengers
landing at Portland out of a vessel so large even as the Great
Eastern can walk at once on shore, and goods can be passed on to
the railway without any of the cost of removal. I will not say
that there is no other harbor in the world that would allow of
this, but I do not know any other that would do so.

From Portland a line of railway, called as a whole by the name of
the Canada Grand Trunk Line, runs across the State of Maine,
through the northern parts of New Hampshire and Vermont, to
Montreal, a branch striking from Richmond, a little within the
limits of Canada, to Quebec, and down the St. Lawrence to Riviere
du Loup. The main line is continued from Montreal, through Upper
Canada to Toronto, and from thence to Detroit in the State of
Michigan. The total distance thus traversed is, in a direct line,
about 900 miles. From Detroit there is railway communications
through the immense Northwestern States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Illinois, than which perhaps the surface of the globe affords no