formerly the capital of Georgia, in North America. This city is advantageously situated for a commercial town, being accessible to large vessels from the sea, and communicating with the interior by the noble river of the same name. It is built on a high bank rising about forty feet above the water; and its spacious and regular streets and handsome buildings, mingling with the groves of ornamental trees, have an imposing appearance. The site was formerly unhealthy, on account of the surrounding swamps; but this evil has been remedied by judicious drainings, and by the substitution of the dry for the wet cultivation of rice around the city. Savannah was founded by General Oglethorpe in 1733, on a spot then known as the Yamacraw Bluff. It was captured by the British in 1778, and unsuccessfully besieged and assaulted by the French and Americans in the following year. In 1820 it suffered so much from a terrible fire, that its prosperity received a temporary check, and the population, which in 1820 had been 7528, was only 7429 in 1830; but it has since recovered from this shock, and has been for a number of years one of the most flourishing towns in the southern states, its population having increased to about 11,000 in 1835. Although the railroad from Augusta to Charlestown, and the security of the inland passage from the Savannah to that city, have of late tended to divert much of the trade thither, yet Savannah is the chief commercial depot in the state, and much of the cotton and rice of Georgia, with large quantities of the other exported articles, are shipped from its wharfs. In 1835, the exports included 250,000 bales of cotton, and 24,000 casks of rice; and the whole value of exported articles in 1836 amounted to 15,469,000 dollars. Twenty steam-boats of a large class, and fifty steam tug-boats, are employed on the river; and the shipping of the port amounts to 8375 tons. The banking institutions in the city are five, with an aggregate capital of 1,682,525 dollars. Long. 81. 10. W. Lat. 32.8. N.