A FEW AMERICAN WORTHIES.
Manson, Iowa.
Please name five or more of the greatest of the following classes of Americans: Orators, poets, historians, inventors.
George Bell.
Answer.—Any answer to such a question is largely a matter of personal opinion. Among political orators Patrick Henry, James Otis, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Thomas Pike, Sergeant Smith Prentiss, John C. Calhoun stand among the most illustrious. As to pulpit orators, it would be invidious to name one without designating at least fifty who are evidently of the same rank. Our great poets have not been many. First among them have been and still are, as regards fame, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, George Denison Prentice, and Nathaniel P. Willis. Whittier, T. Buchanan Read, Holmes. Lowell, Miller, Holland, Saxe, Morris, Mrs. Sigourney, are poets not soon to be forgotten. Irving, Sparks, Prescott, Bancroft, are among our most eminent historians. Fulton, inventor of the steamboat; Morse, inventor of the first practical electric telegraph; Whitney, inventor of the cotton-gin, and Howe, inventor of the first successful sewing machine, are among the first of the ten thousand American inventors who have done the world noteworthy service. Edison and several hundred other inventors, who have improved upon the inventions of their predecessors until they have doubled, trebled, and in some instances quadrupled their value to the world, are quite as worthy to be remembered.
RAILROAD LAND GRANTS.
Oshkosh, Wis.
Give us the total amount of public lands granted by the United States to aid in the construction of railways, and oblige a subscriber.
W. L. Frost.