time for confining the work to one side of the building.  There is water on both sides, and the corn or wheat is elevated on the one side, and reshipped on the other.  To effect this the corn is carried across the breadth of the building; but, nevertheless, it is never handled or moved in its direction on trucks or carriages requiring the use of men’s muscles for its motion.  Across the floor of the building are two gutters, or channels, and through these, small troughs on a pliable band circulate very quickly.  They which run one way, in one channel, are laden; they which return by the other channel are empty.  The corn pours itself into these, and they again pour it into the shoot which commands the other water.  And thus rivers of corn are running through these buildings night and day.  The secret of all the motion and arrangement consists, of course, in the elevation.  The corn is lifted up; and when lifted up can move itself and arrange itself, and weigh itself, and load itself.

I should have stated that all this wheat which passes through Buffalo comes loose, in bulk.  Nothing is known of sacks or bags.  To any spectator at Buffalo this becomes immediately a matter of course; but this should be explained, as we in England are not accustomed to see wheat traveling in this open, unguarded, and plebeian manner.  Wheat with us is aristocratic, and travels always in its private carriage.

Over and beyond the elevators there is nothing specially worthy of remark at Buffalo.  It is a fine city, like all other American cities of its class.  The streets are broad, the “blocks” are high, and cars on tramways run all day, and nearly all night as well.

CHAPTER XII.

BUFFALO TO NEW YORK.

We had now before us only two points of interest before we should reach New York—­the Falls of Trenton, and West Point on the Hudson River.  We were too late in the year to get up to Lake George, which lies in the State of New York north of Albany, and is, in fact, the southern continuation of Lake Champlain.  Lake George, I know, is very lovely, and I would fain have seen it; but visitors to it must have some hotel accommodation, and the hotel was closed when we were near enough to visit it.  I was in its close neighborhood three years since, in June; but then the hotel was not yet opened.  A visitor to Lake George must be very exact in his time.  July and August are the months—­with, perhaps, the grace of a week in September.

The hotel at Trenton was also closed, as I was told.  But even if there were no hotel at Trenton, it can be visited without difficulty.  It is within a carriage drive of Utica, and there is, moreover, a direct railway from Utica, with a station at the Trenton Falls.  Utica is a town on the line of railway from Buffalo to New York via Albany, and is like all the other towns we had visited.  There are broad streets, and avenues of trees, and large shops, and excellent houses.  A general air of fat prosperity pervades them all, and is strong at Utica as elsewhere.