quote Mr. F. W. Bird, and write short paragraphs, more flippantly than intelligently, about the Hoosac Tunnel, chance to be at the freight yard of the Fitchburg Railroad in Charlestown, on the arrival of a train of New York Central Railroad cars, laden with flour, grain, or other products of the West, he would doubtless be as much puzzled to know how they got there, as he would be, if, standing at the heading of the tunnel, he should endeavor to reconcile his situation (half a mile from daylight) with the calculations, statements and predictions of Mr. Bird and other opponents of the Tunnel enterprise. If our friend were set down at the freight depot of the Worcester and Nashua Railroad, in Worcester, he would again be surprised to witness the arrival of freight-laden cars, bearing the same mark as those he saw at Charlestown. Upon inquiry of the freight agents he would learn that freight for Boston and Worcester, is transported from Schenectady, over the Washington and Saratoga road, and from Troy, over the Troy and Boston and Western Vermont, to Rutland, Vt., and thence, by the Rutland and Cheshire roads to Fitchburg, and from there to Boston and Worcester over other roads. By glancing at a map the intelligent reader will at once observe what a circuitous and lengthened line of communication between the New York Central road and the cities of Boston and Worcester is furnished by the connecting roads above named. The distance from Schenectady to Boston via Rutland is 247 miles, while it is but 217 by way of the Western road. The distance from the same point to Worcester by the Rutland route is 222 miles, and by the Western road only 172. Yet because the Western road has not capacity to do the business, the produce dealers of Eastern and Central Massachusetts are compelled to resort to this roundabout way of transportation as one of their means of relief. But this is not the only channel, nor the most indirect, which the irrepressible stream of Western trade with the East has created, as it approaches its natural outlet, Boston; as the Mississippi, scorning the narrow embouchure which satisfied its youthful flow, now pours its resistless torrents, through numerous passes to the Gulf. Besides that already described, there are three other lines competing with the Western road in the transportation of Western freight to Boston. These are the Grand Trunk, the Ogdensburg, and the Providence and Erie. Few persons know that cotton from St. Louis, for supplying the mills of Lowell and Lawrence, is unladen in Boston from vessels which received their cargoes at Portland, but such is the fact, the cotton having been transported over the Great Western and Grand Trunk roads.

But these four long, and indirect lines, with their single track, are in the frame situation as the Western road; their capacity is exhausted, so far as through freight is concerned, this part of the business of all the four hardly exceeding that of the Western road.

To prove the utter incapacity of these five lines of communication between us and the West, to supply our wants, and meet the demands made upon them, we need only state the fact that in November and December last, many of the produce dealers and grocers in Worcester, were unable to supply their customers, on account of the detention of freight at Albany, Detroit and Ogdensburg. We may add, by way of illustration, that the immense loss of property occasioned by the burning of a large freight depot at Detroit, and by which so many New England consignees severely suffered, was one of the incidental consequences of the incapacity of these lines of New England railroads to do the work required of them. We shall have occasion to consider further the capacity of the Western Railroad, but the facts already given are sufficient to show the necessity of opening another through and direct route from the Hudson to Boston.

The next question to be considered, if, indeed, there can be any question about it, is how shall the new route be located? We have shown that another is necessary in order to accommodate through business, to meet the demands of the West, and to promote the prosperity of the entire State. But this is not by any means the whole argument. Central and Southern Massachusetts are covered with a net work of railroads, from Cape Cod Bay to the New York border, yet Northern Massachusetts, from Fitchburg westward, has but a single road, and that terminating at Greenfield, nearly forty miles from North Adams, where the broken line of communication is again taken up. Hence it is, that, while villages have become large towns, and towns populous cities, all over the rest of the State, this section has remained comparatively undeveloped; and the whole tier of towns lying along the line of the Vermont and Massachusetts, though steadily growing, through the energy and enterprise of their skillful artisans and mechanics, and the facilities afforded them by the last named road, have yet suffered and languished for want of the material so abundant in this undeveloped region between Greenfield and the mountain barrier beyond.

The water power of the Deerfield river is immense, its fall along the line of the Troy and Greenfield road being nearly six hundred feet; and this magnificent force is now idle, except at Shelburne Falls, though the finest privileges are scattered along the whole course of the river. Messrs. Lamson & Goodnow, who employ four hundred men at Shelburne Falls, in manufacturing cutlery, state that the Deerfield and North rivers, at that place, afford a one-thousand-horse power. Along the course of Miller's river, between Athol and Deerfield are also many excellent privileges unimproved. At Montague are Turner's Falls, on the Connecticut, with a power sufficient to operate the mills of Lowell, Lawrence and Manchester. All these splendid privileges only await the opening of the Tunnel route. Many of them would be at once improved were the road completed to the mouth of the tunnel. Messrs. Lamson and Goodnow state that they shall double their present force of four hundred men, as soon as it is open to Shelburne Falls.

Some fifteen or twenty miles from the Eastern end of the tunnel lie extensive forests of spruce and pine, through which a highway has already been surveyed, and which will be built to the tunnel, as soon as the road is completed to that point. The whole surrounding region abounds in lumber of almost every description, which would become very valuable when the road is built, to say nothing of the extensive formations of stone, soapstone and serpentine which are found there. Though the Deerfield meadows afford some of the finest farms in New England, the tillage land will not compare in extent with that along the Western road; but in every other respect the resources and latent wealth of the Tunnel route are infinitely superior to those of the Western line.

Six years ago, and twenty-three years after the Western road was opened, the population lying west of Springfield within ten miles of the Western road on a distance of forty-four miles, was 42,050; while that west of Greenfield, within ten miles of the Tunnel line on the same distance, without any railroad at all was 32,146. According to the average rate of increase, the population along the Tunnel line, would be more than doubled in twenty-three years. Were the mountain barrier pierced, and communication opened with the West, and the magnificent water power of the Deerfield made available, who doubts that this population would be increased fourfold in that space of time: or that more than one town would spring up between Greenfield and the Hoosac, in a few years, which would rival North Adams in growth and prosperity; or that in far less time than it has taken Lowell to acquire her present importance, a larger city than Lowell would stand on the banks of the Connecticut at