The Rhode Island Republican

MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

From the Boston Gazette.

Rapid Travelling.--I noticed in your paper of the 8th instant, under the above head, a challenge, to all the world, to beat twenty miles an hour which was performed by four young gentlemen, on skates. This was doing well; but I am knowing to its having been beat, with ease, by more than half. The river Accushnet, which divides the towns of Fairhaven and New-Bedford, is a mile wide, and has been crossed, on the ice, however incredible it may seem to you, in one minute. in what is called an Ice Boat. I received a letter yesterday, from a gentleman in Fairhaven, who has constructed one of these boats, in which he states, that himself and three others crossed the river in one minute and a half. on Thursday, the 4th instant ; and that he has sailed, when the wind was rather, at the rate of sixty miles an hour--45 miles is quite common. These boats, which are not much known in this country, but which are prevalent, I believe, in the north of Europe, are nothing more than a common boat, or yawl, placed on three runners, and propelled by the wind. The lee runner, or skate, is a little sharpened, so as to take the ice and prevent lee way.

W.