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Dredging. DREDGING! Not a very attractive title, certainly; and a vivid imagination indeed must he possess who can picture an ordinary dredging machine as a "thing of beauty." Yet every one knows how spontaneous and how general is the movement of the passengers to the side of the steamer from which a view of the grim monster can best be had in passing. Is it curiosity to see how it works? or is it a feeling of speculation as to what it may possibly bring up, which causes us to watch with such interest the descent of the big iron bucket, the rise again of that bucket to the surface with its streams of dirty water issuing from every cranny, or the sudden dropping out of its bottom and the descent of its muddy cargo into the attendant scows? What odd treasures must the ooze of many of our harbors hold! What manifold witnesses at once of the wealth, the luxury, the skill, the extravagance-nay, also, of the crime of our modern civilization!47

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