it can be
made as cheap as any other candle; and there exists no single
element of comfort, convenience, profit, and economy, in which this
article has not the advantage of sperm, star, wax, or tallow
candles. It will be readily conceded that the days of all other
portable or table light, including lard-oil, are numbered. In fact,
except where intense light, as in public buildings, is an object,
gas itself cannot compete with it for public favour.--_American
Paper_.

CALIFORNIA ITEMS.

Some idea of the traffic between San Francisco and the southern
mines may be formed from the fact, that there are at this moment ten
steamers plying between San Francisco and Sacramento. The latter are
for the most part of a larger size than those on the San Joaquin
river; and make the trip of about 120 miles in from seven to eight
hours. In the elegance of their accommodations and the luxuries of
their larder, they might compare favourably with any
passenger-vessels in the world. There are ten other steamers plying
from Sacramento to different places above that city. One year ago
there was but one steamboat in Oregon--the _Columbia_; now there are
eleven of different kinds running in the Columbia and Willamette
rivers, not including the Pacific steamers, _Sea-gull_ and
_Columbia_, running between Oregon and California.

THE NOBLE MARINER.

BY THE REV. JAMES GILBORNE LYONS, LL.D.

Most readers of these lines will remember that when the ship _Ocean
Monarch_ was turned off Liverpool on the 24th of August 1848,
Frederick Jerome of New York saved fifteen lives by an act of
singular courage and benevolence. They will also lament that one so
ready to help others should himself perish by violence: he was
killed in Central America in the autumn of 1851.

Shout the noble seaman's name,
Deeds like _his_ belong to fame:
Cottage roof and kingly dome,
Sound the praise of brave Jerome.
Let his acts be told and sung,
While his own high Saxon tongue--
Herald meet for worth sublime--
Peals from conquered clime to clime.

Madly rolled the giant wreck,
Fiercely blazed the riven deck;
Thick and fast as falling stars,
Crashed the flaming blocks and spars;
Loud as surf, when winds are strong,
Wailed the scorched and stricken throng,
Gazing on a rugged shore,
Fires behind, and seas before.

On the charred and reeling prow
Reft of hope, they gather now,