A most lovely day with all the peculiar haze and softness of what we call Indian Summer in this Country. I was up early and out walking the Streets. My first visit was to the Mint, a new building of considerable beauty in the upper part of the town. My purpose was to exchange 9a few gold pieces which my wife has had for some time past for similar pieces of the new coinage to gain the premium. But I took the opportunity of looking through the Establishment itself. It occupies the four sides of a square, with rooms connected with each other all round. On the left hand is the melting, in the back, the rolling and cutting, while the third side contains the stamping which is the most curious part of the process. The machine is worked by a lever and screw. The flat piece is placed in a certain receptacle and it is thrown out stamped on both sides and edge, a perfect coin, there being also a portion of the work so constructed as to reject imperfect pieces. Of this however I am not sure. My only evidence of it being certain pieces lying in among the machinery which were manifestly defective. The front which forms the other side of the square contains the Offices for the despatch of business. After some difficulty and negotiation I succeeded in procuring what I wished although the Director did not give me as much as I think he was bound to do. It is not my way however, to make difficulties.

I went away and passed the remainder of my time in walking the Streets and visiting various public buildings and shops. Among others the Repository for the Porcelain China manufactured here—An infant branch which does not succeed in the higher department. Indeed our luxury although it has somewhat increased is yet hardly equal to sustaining this especially when in competition with the foreign manufacture.

I returned home to dinner, on the whole pleased with the appearance of Philadelphia. There is something solid and comfortable about it, something which shows permanency. 1 Every thing looks neat, the steps are white, the entries clean, the carriages nice, the houses bright. All this betokens perhaps too nice attention to the minutiae of life, but the effect upon the eyes of strangers cannot be denied to be cheerful and inviting. I think I should like to live in Philadelphia very well. It seems to me to combine many of the essentials to mere bodily enjoyment and not a few of those of the mind. New York is all display, Baltimore is upstart, Washington is fashion and politics, Boston is unbending rigidity. I think Philadelphia has niether of these faults. Perhaps the greatest might be tameness, but that is almost equally shared with all our American cities.

In the afternoon, after going to the Boat and finding Wilson just arrived with the Carriage, I gave him his orders and spent the remaining hours at the Exhibition of the Academy of Arts. Here is quite a tolerable collection of pictures. One of Allston’s I had never seen be-10fore—The bones of Elisha. One or two of Leslie’s with several pretty small ones. I had not time to do justice to the collection. The twilight obscured the pictures and I could not judge of them. The taste for Art was low in Philadelphia. All the Newspapers complain of want of patronage to this exhibition. Indeed for public spirit Boston is incomparably beyond all the Cities.

Evening passed in conversation with my Mother who has not left her room. She seems feeble today but decides to go tomorrow. I was fatigued and retired early.

The morning was cloudy with rain at noon. We arose early and hastened to the Steamer Robert Morris which was at the foot of Chesnut Street, bound for Baltimore. Our passage was a quiet one to New Castle where we left the Boat and took the Railroad, which in one hour brought us to Frenchtown. At this moment the weather cleared and we had a lovely day. We arrived at Baltimore shortly after four and concluded to go to the City Hotel and remain there until the morning.

The Cholera has lately broken out here and carried off two or three among the more wealthy and comfortable of society. The Alarm has spread singularly until the public houses have become nearly empty and the citizens are running away.

After a capital supper in which I relished after a six years interval the delicious canvassbacks of these regions, I went out to find Gorham Brooks and his Wife. My direction was so accurate that I found the House without difficulty. They were at home and about to take tea. They were well but evidently fatigued and depressed, the cause of which I soon found to have been their child, who had been suddenly taken the night before with vomiting and had kept them up very anxious through the night. He looked heavy and flushed but took tea and seemed much more lively afterwards. My visit was therefore an unlucky one and yet I lengthened it far beyond my intention. They seemed to be pleased to see me and I thought my conversation would distract their attention from what was evidently the great topic, the Cholera. Their physician Dr. Stewart came in for a few minutes, but was dismissed without seeing the boy. He was rather monosyllabic 11about the disease, whether it was that he had no good to tell or that he was worn out and exhausted by his duties.

I took my leave before ten and threaded the streets home in which I hardly found living thing. The hogs were quietly rooting up the filth which lay in quantities in the Streets highway, but they had the territories pretty much to themselves. This can hardly be natural at such an hour in Baltimore. The night air is thought so dangerous that it has driven people into their houses. The talk, and the loneliness of the walk, reminding me of my imprudence had the effect of making me quite nervous for half an hour after my return. I went to bed and in due time fell asleep.

For the rest, Gorham Brooks is very comfortably settled down in a pretty but not large house. His style is expensive, and must require larger means than the remainder of his family possess. But he was always fond of expense though not of society.