_The American Almanac, and Repository of Useful Knowledge, for the
year 1837. Boston: Published by Charles Bowen._
This is the eighth number of a work more justly entitled to be called
“A Repository of Useful Knowledge” than any with which we are
acquainted. From its commencement it has been under the editorial
management of Mr. J. E. Worcester, for more than twenty years known to
the American public as an able and most indefatigable author and
compiler. If we are not mistaken, this period at least has elapsed
since the publication of his “Gazetteer of the United States.” Besides
that work, of whose great merit it is of course unnecessary now to
speak, Mr. W. has written “The Elements of Geography”—“The Elements of
History”—an Edition of Johnson's Dictionary as improved by Todd and
abridged by Chalmers—an Abridgment of the American Dictionary of
Doctor Webster—and a “Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory
Dictionary of the English Language, with Pronouncing Vocabularies of
Classical, Scripture, and Modern Geographical Names.” All these
publications are of high reputation and evince unusual perseverance
and ability.
A glance at the “American Almanac” will suffice to assure any one that
no ordinary talent, and industry, have been employed in bringing it to
its present condition. An acute judgment has been necessary in the
selection of the most needful topics, to the exclusion of others
having only a comparative value—in the condensation of matter—in the
means of acquiring information—and in the estimation of the degree of
credit which should be given it when received. The variety of themes
handled in the volume, the perspicuity and brevity with which they are
treated, their excellent arrangement, and the general accuracy of the
statistical details, should secure for the work a circulation even
more extensive than at present. With the exception of the astronomical
department, for which we are indebted to Mr. Paine, it is understood
that _all_ the contents of the volume (a thick and closely printed
octavo of 324 pages, abounding in intricate calculations) have been
prepared by the indefatigable editor himself.
The “Almanac” for 1837 contains the usual register of the National and
State Governments, an American and Foreign obituary and chronicle of
recent events, a valuable “Treatise on the use of Anthracite Coal,” by
Professor Denison Olmsted of Yale, an account of “Public Libraries,” a
“Statistical View of the Population of the United States,” a series of
Tables relating to the “Cultivation, Manufacture, and Foreign Trade of
Cotton,” and Meteorological notices of Seasons and the Weather. In the
account of each individual State pains have been taken to give
accurate intelligence respecting all matters of Internal
Improvement—more especially in regard to Canals and Rail-Roads. In the
next volume some further details upon this head are promised—some
account also of Pauperism in the United States, and a wider variety of
statistical notices in relation to foreign countries. We have before
stated our conviction, and here repeat it, that no work of equal
extent in America embodies as much really important
information—important to the public at large—as the eight published
volumes of Mr. Worcester's Almanac. We believe that complete sets of
the work can still be obtained upon application to the publisher, Mr.
Charles Bowen of Boston. Its mechanical execution, like that of all
books from the same press, is worthy of the highest commendation.