[1]in the United States.[2]Whatever be the true character of the natives of New England, one thing must be allowed them, that of great and expansive ideas,—beyond, far beyond the generality of the inhabitants of the small Island of Britain. I say small, for if that Island should be placed in the midst of these United States, it would hardly form more than s single member of our extended republic. That vast rivers, enormous mountains, tremendous cataracts, with an extent corresponding to the hugeness of the features of America, naturally inspire men with boundless ideas, few will doubt. This adventurous disposition, at the same time, will as naturally banish from the mind what the newlight doctrine of Phrenology calls the disposition bump of Inhabitiveness, or an inclination to stay at home, and in its place give rise to a roaming, wandering inclination, which, some how or other, may so affect the organs of vision, and of hearing, as to debar a person from perceiving what others may see, the innumerable difficulties in the way. Mr. Hall J. Kelly's writings operated much like a match applied to the combustible matter accumulated in the mind of the energetic Nathaniel J. Wyeth, which reflected and multiplied the flattering glass held up to view by the ingenious and well-disposed schoolmaster.
Mr. Nathaniel. J. Wyeth had listened with peculiar [5] delight to all the flattering accounts from the Western re-
- ↑ note 2), whom he persuaded to accompany him overland to Oregon. Kelley was ill, but was treated with slight respect by the British authorities at Fort Vancouver, and lived without the fort during the winter, exploring the country in the intervals of his fever. In the following spring (1835) he shipped for Hawaii, and returned to Boston, determined, notwithstanding his misfortunes, to further Oregon emigration—see report to Congress, House Reports, 26 Cong., 3 sess., i, 101. Kelley's health became undermined by the hardships which he had endured, his eyesight was impaired, and he passed his latter years in Palmer, Massachusetts, in poverty and obscurity, dying there in 1874.—ED.
- ↑ Harvard College was established by act of the general court of Massachusetts in 1636.—ED.
