although perhaps unwillingly, acknowledged.

I doubt if the claims of Boston to be the most scientific city in the
Union, can be now established. I met a greater number of scientific men
in Philadelphia than I did in Boston; and certainly the public and
private collections in the former city are much superior. The
collection of shells and minerals belonging to Mr Lee, who is well
known as an author and a naturalist, is certainly the most interesting I
saw in the States, and I passed two days in examining it: it must have
cost him much trouble and research.

The Girard College, when finished, will be a most splendid building. It
is, however, as they have now planned it, incorrect, according to the
rules of architecture, in the number of columns on the sides in
proportion to those in front. This is a great pity; perhaps the plan
will be re-considered, as there is plenty of time to correct it, as well
as money to defray the extra expense.

The water-works at Schuykill are well worth a visit, not only for their
beauty, but their simplicity. The whole of the river Schuykill is
dammed up, and forms a huge water-power, which forces up the supply of
water for the use of the city. As I presume that river has a god as
well as others, I can imagine his indignation, not only at his waters
being diverted from his channel, but at being himself obliged to do all
the work for the benefit of his tyrannical masters.

I have said that the museums of Philadelphia are far superior to most in
the States; but I may just as well here observe, that, as in many other
things, a great improvement is necessary before they are such as they
ought to be. There is not only in these museums, but in all that I have
ever entered in the United States, a want of taste and discrimination,
of that correct feeling which characterises the real lovers of science,
and knowledge of what is worthy of being collected. They are such
collections as would be made by school-boys and school-girls, not those
of erudite professors and scientific men. Side by side with the most
interesting and valuable specimens, such as the fossil mammoth,
etcetera, you have the greatest puerilities and absurdities in the
world--such as a cherry-stone formed into a basket, a fragment of the
boiler of the Moselle steamer, and Heaven knows what besides. Then you
invariably have a large collection of daubs, called portraits, of
eminent personages, one-half of whom a stranger nev