who mistake denunciation and abuse for wit, and baseless assumption for truth. To those who are familiar with the history of the Tunnel, and who understand its present condition, it is more remarkable for misrepresentation and disingenuousness, than even any previous effort of its author.

He introduces his subject by stating that the commissioners, "since they commenced operations, have had unlimited and irresponsible power, and that, for all failures and blunders, they, and they alone, are responsible;" yet, within a month from the penning of this assertion, Mr. Bird boasted that he did something, while a member of the Council, to prevent the building of the road from Greenfield to the mountain.

The obstacles encountered at the West end of the Tunnel, which had been foreseen and understood from the beginning, by the friends of the enterprise, appear to have first engaged the observation of our inspector, and are represented as a startling and recent discovery. The well known effect of water upon the soft material in this locality is described as "rock demoralized" into "porridge," and this "porridge" is represented as a difficulty of such serious nature that "the managers are at their wits' ends."

Mr. James Laurie, an eminent civil engineer, employed by the commissioners to make a survey, in his able report in January of 1863, says "the portions of the Hoosac Tunnel embraced between the Western entrance and the present shaft, a distance of 3008 feet, will, from all indications, be the most troublesome and expensive. The material consists of gravel, clay, sand, detached beds of quartzose sandstone, some of which is partly decomposed, and limestone. The whole formation is full of springs. However bad the material may prove, this part, under proper management, can be completed long before the rest of the Tunnel." Mr. Bird says, "Common men, and some uncommon men, too, look upon these difficulties as insuperable." Those who can, for a moment, weigh the opinion of the accomplished and experienced engineer, Mr. Laurie, with that of Mr. F. W. Bird, of Walpole, may relieve their doubts by referring to Mr. Storrow's report on the European tunnels, in a very large proportion of which the most formidable kind of "porridge" was encountered and subdued.

Mr. Bird observed the Western shaft. The work at the Western face of this shaft was suspended on account of imminent danger of "porridge" and our observer's most important criticism here, is that they were, at the time of his visit, advancing on the Eastern face of the shaft, at the rate of only "thirteen feet weekly," that is fifty-two feet per month. Mr. Storrow says the average progress in the European tunnels was about thirty feet per month.

The Central shaft was visited, and Mr. Bird does not appear to have observed anything which demanded an expression of his disapproval. The work was progressing at the rate of twenty-two feet a month, and the pumps gave a gallon and a half of water per minute. In constructing the Kilsey Tunnel, in England, Mr. Storrow says that during a considerable portion of nine months, the water pumped out was two thousand gallons a minute.

Mr. Bird's report of progress at the East end was certainly very encouraging the heading having been advanced successfully during the two months preceding his visit, at the rate of sixty-five feet per month, and the work was being pushed with vigor and activity.

The dam across the Deerfield next claimed the observation of the inspector, who appears to have regarded it with much surprise, both on account of its cost and because it was thrown across a fitful mountain torrent, so feeble at the time of Mr. Bird's visit, that it was only allowed to run by night, for the reason, as he "guessed," that "if it was allowed to run by day, under the hot sun, it would all evaporate before it reached Shelburne Falls!" This guess is associated in the same paragraph with an assertion that "there was not then in the river, and had not been for some weeks, and has not been since, (unless they have had heavy rains,) water enough to give under a thirty feet head, twenty, or even a ten-horse power for twenty-four hours a day." It is as well established a fact that the Deerfield river was never known to be so low as at one time during last year, as it is that wells all over the State were dry last autumn, which were never dry before. Yet, at the time of Mr. Bird's visit, when the river was lowest, Mr. Doane, the chief engineer, states that the water was running at the rate of "thirty-four cubic feet per second. On a head of thirty feet this gives, theoretically, one hundred and sixteen, and, practically, eighty-seven horse power." The intelligent reader will not be at much loss to decide whether he will rely upon the guesses, observations and loose assertions of Mr. Bird, or the record and word of the careful and skillful engineer. Mr. Bird says, "it is discreditable that the precise quantity of water has not, so far as we know, been ascertained by actual measurement." Such measurement had been made, and Mr. Bird might have known it if he had taken pains to inquire of Mr. Doane or Mr. Hill.

The testimony of Messrs. Lamson & Goodnow, of Shelburne Falls, as to the power and reliability of the Deerfield river, is that "this is the first season we have been at all troubled on account of the scarcity of water, but not as Mr. Bird stated it. We have not been compelled to stop our mills except one half day, and we employ four hundred men on cutlery."

The same gentlemen (Messrs. Lamson & Goodnow) state that the Deerfield and North rivers furnish water enough, at Shelburne Falls, for one thousand horse power. The North river is a small stream, and deducting its contribution together with that of the brooks which find their way into the Deerfield between Shelburne Falls and the mountain, at the high estimate of two hundred horse power, and there remains to the Deerfield alone a force of eight hundred horse power, which is the estimate made by the commissioners. The measurements made by Mr. Doane and his assistants confirm their accuracy. Yet Mr. Bird who boasts of "an intimate acquaintance of over thirty years with water power," asserts that for such a privilege, "ten thousand dollars would be an extravagant price!" Would he sell even the puddle which works his paper mill at Walpole, and which, we presume, has afforded all his knowledge of water power, for half that amount?

The writer of this article has not enjoyed "an intimate acquaintance of over thirty years with water power" but he has resided exactly the same length of time as Gov. Gardner said he had been a temperance man, in the manufacturing town of Fitchburg, and during that time has learned something about its thirty-four water privileges and five hundred and eighty-two feet head of water which they command, on the little Nashua and its tributaries. His knowledge of this water power enables him to exhibit the gross absurdity of Mr. Bird's efforts to dry up the Deerfield. One of these tributaries, which is less than eight miles long, affords a privilege with a head of twenty-one feet, of from seventy-five to one hundred horse power. The reader can form his own conclusions, by comparing this brook with that "fitful mountain torrent," the Deerfield river, which has its sources in the town of Stratton, Vt., flows southward to the foot of the Hoosac Mountain, then turning eastward, finds its way into the Connecticut, near Greenfield, traversing in its course, a distance of more than sixty miles. The length of the "fitful torrent" above the Hoosac dam, is about forty miles, and in that part of its course it is swelled by the contributions of numerous tributaries, several of which are respectively from twelve to eighteen miles long. A shrewd Yankee, who is not a