out by a ship sailing through could never be used for trading purposes, or any others truly beneficial. It must be allowed that science (and not commerce) is more deeply, or at least directly, interested in the arctic exploration. Yet let not the merchant, who sends out his ships to bring him gain from the four quarters of the globe, imagine that, as being a scientific question chiefly, the exploring of the Arctic Circle is a matter in which he has no positive concern. The safe voyaging of his vessels hangs upon the compass-the mysterious root of whose power and utility lies in the heart of the boreal regions. Let the merchant consider what would be the chances of safety to his barks without that instrument, and not undervalue those labours of science which have done so much for him before, and which have even now his final good in view, did the settlement of the magnetic pole form their whole and sole object. Let the practical man of business also reflect, that to the north-west passage question we owe the discovery of the New World. Columbus sailed simply to find a western route to the Indies; the Americas only fell in his way by mere accident, or at least unexpectedly. Let any one who scouts northern exploration as useless, meditate on this one grand fact, and be silent. On the further general and scientific points connected with the subject it is needless to enter. They are numerous, and involve the welfare of our kind deeply.

ASTOR THE MILLIONAIRE.

IN July, 1763, the worthy and profound bailiff of the village of Waldrop, near Heidelberg, in the duchy of Baden, had a son born unto him. He had had several sons, but this particular one was designated John Jacob, two names with wonderfully opposite significations. John is one of your soft, gentle names, full of urbanity, with a touch of dignity; it means gracious, and would suit a condescending monarch well. Jacob, on the other hand, is just the name for a money-maker; it is quite a pecuniary name. The wealth of Laban of old consisted of flocks; and Jacob manifested as much adroitness in the accumulation of these as in the supplanting of Esau. Jacob means a supplanter; that is, one who trips up somebody's heels and takes his place. John Jacob Astor began life with auguries of success. He was a German; had a worthy, cautious, and wise father, who did not spare him of good advice, and equally good example. The Germans, like the Scotch, are brought up with a predisposition for emigration; one of the German tendencies is to leave home. Preparatory to departing from the place of his nativity, John Jacob Astor had been instructed in what was right and wrong in a

worldly sense; so that, when he packed up his scanty wardrobe and took leave of Waldrop, he determined that honesty, industry, and total abstinence from the immoral practice of gambling, should mark his conduct through life. At eighteen years of age John Jacob steered his course for London, where he had a brother resident. With a few wearables in his bundle-coarse home-made clothes, blue cap, keel, and heavy hobnailed shoes. -he landed in the great city. He had two brothers who had emigrated. One was a musical instrument maker in London, the other a butcher in New York; but he does not seem to have thriven under the auspices of the brother in Britain, during the three years that he remained in England. This residence was of advantage to him, however, for he acquired the English tongue, which was indispensable to him in his new sphere of action.

The revolutionary war had just ceased; eight years of fiery ordeal had been passed through, the Americans had attained independence, and the hopeful and aspiring youth of Europe were hastening to the now open ports of the New World. With various articles of manufacture as his whole wealth, among the most valuable of which were seven flutes, presented to him by his brother, John Jacob Astor embarked in Novem‐ ber, 1784, as a steerage passenger on board of an emigrant ship bound for the United States.

The voyage was long and tedious, the ship being retarded by ice for nearly three months in the Chesapeake. During this protracted detention in the river, the passengers went on shore occasionally, and Astor had time to form and perfect a friendship with a young countryman of his own, a furrier to trade, who induced him to turn his attention to his art, and generously offered to assist him in the acquirement thereof, and to go to New York with him. When he arrived at New York, the young German sold his flutes and other property, and immediately invested the small capital arising therefrom in furs. These he carried to London and sold; and then, returning to New York, high in hope, he apprenticed himself to the fur trade, in Gold Street, where he commenced beating skins. He had not been long here until he sufficiently understood the trade to embark in it as a capitalist; and he had at the same time manifested so much diligence and industry as to obtain the notice of Robert Bowne, a good old Quaker, who carried on an extensive business in New York as a furrier. Employed by Bowne as clerk, Astor recommended himself so highly by his industry and probity as to command the respect of the old Quaker, and his entire confidence. In this situation he made himself thoroughly acquainted with the nature of the fur trade, coming in contact with the agents, and obtaining a complete

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knowledge of the methods and profits of the traffic.

When the revolutionary war closed, Oswega, Detroit, Niagara, and other posts, were in the hands of the British; and, as these were the entrepots of the western and northern countries, the fur trade had languished after their capture and during their detention. The traders had been either driven away or drafted into the armies; the trappers had ranged themselves on either side of the political contention; and the Indians obtained more fire-water and calico for the use of their mercenary rifles and tomahawks from Great Britain, in this her domestic quarrel with the colonists, than if they had employed them on beavers and squirrels. After much negociation and surveying, and the advancement and consideration of claims, these posts were conceded to the United States, and Canada was open to the fur trade. Astor had received from his brother Harry, a rich butcher in Bowery, an advancement of a few thousand dollars; these he had already embarked in the fur trade in 1794, and shortly afterwards the British retired from the west side of the St. Clair, opening up to the enterprising sons of America the great fur trade of the west. The cautious, acute German saw that the posts now free would soon be thronged by Indians eager to dispose of the accumulated produce of several years' hunting, and that the