The greatest fluctuation here apparent, is in the prices of flour; and the cause of that is sufficiently well known, viz.: the English demand in the autumn. The advance then occasioned brought forward large quantities beyond what was necessary for export, and the prices fell back. Cotton has undergone a considerable advance; but present prices in New-York are 14 a 2 cts. higher than in Liverpool; consequently, the rise is factitious, and may never be realized. It has been effected by the agency of bank discounts, and is more directly dependent upon their favors than perhaps any other article. In fact, the 60 day bills of cotton dealers absorb the funds of the banks, and cause a great deal of the difficulty that exists. Pork rose under a speculation based on a small supply. Here again the bank influence was necessary to carry out the speculation. In nearly all the articles of farm produce shipped to England, severe losses have been

8.25 8.12 11.00 3.56 0.03 0.37 8.25 10.87 4.25 0.03 0.37 38.69

sustained by the shippers, and this has arisen out of the rail-road speculations; as thus, considerable quantities of produce were shipped to houses in England, who sold them and applied the proceeds to the liquidation of their own debts, having been ruined in the railroad revulsion. In the articles of butter and cheese severe losses have been sustained. On the former article the losses by a fall in price will average $6 per package. Cheese has done per se generally well but for the failures abroad among consignees.

It is a usual result of a general advance in prices that imports increase and exports decrease, and for the same general reason, viz. that the rise makes it more profitable to import and less so to export. The past year's business has, according to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, been no exception to the rule. The quantities of United States produce exported for several years have been as follows:

of a profitable export. The capacity of the western country to raise wheat for the supply of England, and even of the western countries of Europe, cannot be doubted. Feeble attempts have been made, for political reasons, to produce doubts as to the benefits which a market for United States breadstuffs in England will confer upon the western farmers. A few months of an open trade must, of itself, carry conviction to all parties, that an extended sale of the

products of industry can be of no injury to any portion of the community: far less to that hardy and enterprising race before whose energy the wilderness has been subdued, and the most prolific lands perhaps ever cultivated, brought into the supply of food for distant countries, and their proceeds made available by means of public works, the rivalry on which is constantly reducing the cost of transportation.

History of New Netherlands; or NewYork under the Dutch. By E. B. O'CALLAGHAN, Corresponding Member of the New-York Historical Society. New-York: D. Appleton & Co.

the same:

The grand use of history is suggested by that declaration of the wisest of men"As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." The character of man, in all its substantial features, is always it may, indeed, be greatly modified by the influence of circumstances, but in its original elements it changes not -the veriest savage of the wilderness is constituted with faculties which, under an appropriate training, might render him a bright star in the intellectual firmament. Hence the men who have lived became teachers to those who live now, and thus the past becomes a mighty source of instruction to the present. Hence, too, the historian, the man who makes out a faithful record of the experience of by-gone generations, becomes pre-eminently the benefactor of his race: so long as his work remains, he lives in it as the faithful monitor and guide of each successive generation.

But while the office of the historian may be and should be a channel of the richest blessings, not only to his own generation but to posterity, let it be borne in mind, that it is early susceptible of being perverted to purposes of unmeasured evil; for if he writes falsely, or partially, or superficially, or even bunglingly, he has the responsibility of conveying erroneous impressions to his readers, or of taxing their faculties to no purpose, or at least of leaving their minds in an uncertain and unsatisfied state. It admits of no question

that History has often served no better end than to misrepresent and falsify the actual reality of things; and the worst effect in such cases has been realised, where, along with the spirit of misrepresentation or partiality, is combined the highest order of literary attraction. It hence becomes a man who adventures upon the task of giving the world a history-no matter whether it comprehends a wider or a more limited field-carefully to count the cost of the enterprise; to inquire diligently whether he has the requisite qualifications for the work which he meditates, and to bear in mind continually, as he fulfils his task, that he is acting in some sense as the interpreter of Providence, and that he is responsible to posterity and to God for the manner in which he fulfils it.

While we are fully of the opinion that many a man ventures into the department of history, who is at best nothing more than a cumberer of the ground, and who, if he consulted his own reputation or the benefit of his fellow men, would betake himself to some other vocation, we are free to say that we do not mean to apply this remark to the very respectable author of the present work. The task which he has set himself to perform was one of no ordinary interest, whether considered in reference to its importance or its difficulty. It was important, as it contemplated nothing less than an elucidation of a portion of the history of what is now the most important state in the Union-a portion, too, which, notwithstanding the extensive material that has existed, has been hitherto passed by in almost utter neglect. It was difficult, from the circumstance that scarcely an essay had been

previously made towards its accomplishment, so that nothing remains for our historian, but to go to work and do the whole thing himself. And besides, though the materials out of which the history was to be framed were ample enough, yet they were, to a great extent, to be brought together from the four winds, and not a small part of them from beyond the ocean; and even those which were at hand in our public offices were veiled in the thick mystery of the mother Dutch. Doctor O'Callaghan, estimating aright the importance of the object, set himself earnestly, and fearlessly, and perseveringly to encounter its difficulties; and the result shows that he was to be limited not less for diligence and fidelity than good taste and good judgment. First of all, he set about acquiring a thorough knowledge of the Dutch language, as that was the only key to unlock the treasures of information from which he was to draw; and having done this, he went doggedly to work to examine the mass of records in our State Department relating to the earliest periods of our history. At the same time he found access to various other important sources of information, chiefly of a more private nature; and he was particularly assisted by the laborious and praiseworthy researches of Mr. Broadhead, who was sent out several years since to the Hague, as our historical agent. Nor is his diligence in collecting materials more to be praised than his judgment and faithfulness in arranging and disposing of them. The style of the work is simple and perspicuous, the arrangement easy and natural, and every important statement that is made is backed by competent authorities. reading the work, one quickly acquires the feeling that the author had no other end to answer than to state the simple truth, and give it its full effect upon the minds of his readers; and this feeling, it is hardly necessary to say, is not less favorable to the author than it is agreeable to the reader.

In

The work is comprehended in three books-the first extending from the discovery of America, in 1492, to the incorporation of the Dutch West India Company, in 1621; the second from the incorporation of the Dutch West India Company to the opening of the fur, or Indian trade to the inhabitants of New Netherlands, in 1638; -and the third from the opening of the Indian trade to the end of Director Kieft's administration, 1647. There is also a copious Appendix, containing various original records and other documents, which throw much light upon the main history. We are glad to see that the author proposes to continue his researches ; and if the present volume meets with sufficient en

couragement, as we cannot doubt that it will, to bring out in due time another volume, comprising the remaining part of the history, which he has so very successfully commenced.

The third chapter of the first book contains one of the most graphic accounts that we remember to have seen, of the superstitions of the original inhabitants of the country. In connection with this, there is a curious paragraph in regard to "medicine-men,' which we transfer to our columns, not only as a fair specimen of the author's style, but as an illustration, especially when taken in connection with some modern discoveries, of the well known proverb, that "there is no new thing under the sun.'

Having given somewhat in detail the views of the Indians in regard to several matters connected with religion, he proceeds to say:

For

"All these crude and confused opinions were considerably fostered and encouraged by a class of persons among them called medicine-men or sorcerers, who lived by, and throve upon the ignorance and simplicity of their dupes, and whose influence was almost unbounded among their tribe. they pretended not only to divine the future, to expound the troubled and undigested dreams of the hunter or warrior, but to heal the wounds aud diseases which these wild men received in their exp ditions in search of glory and of food. Their medical and surgical skill was, however, of the humblest sort. The gum of the pine tree furnished them with a ready application for wounds of all descriptions. Rheumatic pains or inflammatory discase, were subjected to the relaxing power of the vapor bath, with which were combined scarifications of the painful parts. From the vapor bath the Indian medicine-man, the original Presnitz and first Hydropathist of this continent, flung his patient, all teeming with perspiration, into the nearest pond or river, and by this practice succeeded in many cases in restoring health. But should the disease exceed his skill, he immediately ascribed it

to the secret agency of malignant spirits. He then changed his character. No longer a physician, be his patient, invoking his God with loud cries. He

became a magician. He sung and danced around

felt all over the sick man's body for the enchanted spot; rushed upon it like a mad-man: tore it with his teeth, often pretending to show a small bone or other object that he had extracted, and in which the evil-one had been seated. The process was repeated the next day with increased violence, or the unfortunate patient was surrounded with men of straw wearing wooden masks, all of the most frightful shapes, in the hope of scaring away the mysterious tormentor-or a painted image was

made, which the medicine-man pierced with an by. Various other mummeries, each more absurd arrow, pretending to vanquish the foul fiend there

than the other, were had recourse to, in the midst of which the sick man expired, leaving the confidence of the people in their mighty medicine-man equally strong and unshaken. It is not strange that in such a state of society, thousands were swept away on the visitation of any epidemic or plague, which communications with Europeans afterwards might have introduced among them,-the ravages

of which their own ignorance and superstition only

augmented in a ten-fold degree."

In turning over the leaves of this book, one can scarcely fail to be struck with the fact that so large a portion of its contents are from hitherto unexplored sources of