Mercer, the President of the Canal Company, the consecrated instrument; which, having received, he stepped forward from the resting column, and addressed as follows the listening multitude:-- "Fellow-citizens: There are moments in the progress of time which are the counters of whole ages.

There are events, the monuments of which, surviving every other memorial of human existence, eternize the nation to whose history they belong, after all other vestiges of its glory have disappeared from the globe.

At such a moment have we now arrived.

Such a monument we are now to found." Turning towards the President of the United States, who stood near him, Mr.M.proceeded:-- "Mr.President: On a day hallowed by the fondest recollections, beneath this cheering (may we not humbly trust auspicious) sky, surrounded by the many thousand spectators who look on us with joyous anticipation; in the presence of the representatives of the most polished nations of the old and new worlds; on a spot where little more than a century ago the painted savage held his nightly orgies; at the request of the three cities of the District of Columbia, I present to the Chief Magistrate of the most powerful Republic on earth, for the most noble purpose that was ever conceived by man, this humble instrument of rural labor, a symbol of the favorite occupation of our countrymen.

May the use to which it is about to be devoted prove the precursor, to our beloved country, of improved agriculture, of multiplied and diversified arts, of extended commerce and navigation.