animals swimming around him, ploughing through waves covered with enamel, exactly the color of water. Earth, under the form of a beautiful naked woman, holds in her right hand a horn of abundance, and in her left a small temple of the Ionic order, beautifully sculptured, fit to enclose the pepper. Beneath this figure was represented the most beautiful animals the earth produces. A portion of the rocks near her were enamelled; I have left the others in gold. This group was set in a groundwork of ebony, in the thickness of which I have managed a wave, ornamented with four very small gold figures, in half relief: they represent Night, Day, Twilight and the Dawn, and are separated from each other by the four principal winds, carved and enamelled with all the care and finish imaginable."*

For votive offerings to churches the skill and ingenuity of goldsmiths have been frequently taxed. The Church of Our Lady of Liesse has received a great number, equally remarkable for the richness of the materials as for the talent of the artists. We have seen there a fort, some French memorials; one, the city of Bourges, offered by the mayor and aldermen, after a plague which had ravaged that city; the Prince de Conti sent a castle of Vincennes, and Madame de Tournon, the citadel tower of that city; they also had there the picture of the city of Nancy.

We have seen two angels in silver, life size, bearing in urns the hearts of Louis XIII. and of Louis the XIV., at each side of the high Altar, at the church of St. Paul.

At the college of Louis the Great, or Louis le Grand, may be seen an antipendium, all of silver, and a great quantity of gold work

The tabernacle of the Church of the Carmelites, all silver, represented the Ark of the Covenant.

At the Sorbonne was a sun, in gold, given by Cardinal Richelieu, which cost twenty thousand pounds.

At the two sides of the high Altar of the chapel of the Electoral palace, at Munich, above the two small accessory Altars, are two grand reliquaries in ebony, in which are framed the bones of all the saints of the year, incrusted with precious stones; it is a calendar of diamonds.

Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, book vi. Paris: Paulin, 1847, 2 vols. in duodecimo, vol. 2nd., page 33.

ART. IV.-AMERICAN AGRICULTURE.

A Statistical View of American Agriculture, its Home Resources and Foreign Markets, with Suggestions for the Schedules of the Federal Census in 1860. An Address delivered at New York, before the American Geographical and Statistical Society, on the Organization of the Agricultural Section, By John Jay, Esq., Chairman of the Section, and Foreign Corresponding Secretary of the Society. London: Trübner and Company. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 346 and 348, Broadway. 1859.

We have read Mr. Jay's Address with so much pleasure and advantage, that we shall confer a benefit upon our own countrymen, whether intending to reside in the old country, or contemplating a start in the new, by condensing it for the IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW.

The number of square miles contained in the area of the United States of America, in the present year, is within a fraction of three millions (2,936,166)* somewhat more than onethird of the area of North America, exclusive of the West Indies, and nearly double the area of all Europe,† excepting Russia.+

The area of the United States, at the peace of 1783, was
The purchase of Louisiana, 1819, added about
Acquisition of Florida, 1819

Square Miles.

820,680

899,579

66,900

318,000

308,052

522,955

2,936,166

The area of Europe embraces 3,811,594 square miles. The area of

some of the larger States is as follows, in square miles:

Two countries in either hemisphere approach the United States in area; the one Russia, containing twenty-one hundred thousand square miles; the other Brazil, having twenty-seven hundred thousand square miles.

The aggregate population of the United States has increased from about four millions (3,929,827), in 1790, to twentythree millions (23,191,876), in 1850. The estimated population for the present year, 1858, is a little over twenty-nine millions, now for the first exceeding the population of Great Britain, which in 1851 was about twenty-seven and a half millions. According to the ratio of increase from 1840 to 1850, the population, in 1890, would be one hundred and seven millions. The annual increase from 1790 has been four times as great as Russia, six times as much as Great Britain, nine times as much as Austria, ten times as much as France.*

In 1850, the density of population for the existing territory of the United States, was about eight (7.90) persons to the square mile. In the New England States the density was forty-two (41.34) to the square mile. In the middle States fifty-eight, (57.79), while California and Texas together had less than one person to the square mile. When the increase of our native and foreign population shall invest with the density of New England the whole territory of the United States,

The population of England in 1851, was 27,475,271; of Austria, 36,514,397; of France, 35,783,170; of Russia, in 1850, 62,088,000; of Prussia, (1849,) 16,331,187; of Turkey in Europe, (1844,) 15,500,000: of Spain, (1834,) 12,232,194.

It is stated that Herr Dietrick, of the University of Berlin, estimates the population of the world as follows:

Making a total of 1283 millions, of which the population of the United States, estimating it at thirty millions, is about one forty-second part.

its population will amount to one hundred and twenty-three millions. With the density of the middle States, of fifty-eight (57.79), to the square mile, it would amount to one hundred and seventy millions.

The density of Spain (78.03,) would make it two hundred millions. That of France (172.74,) five hundred millions. That of Great Britain (332.00,) six hundred and sixty millions, while the density of Belgium (388.60,) were it possible to support such a population on this continent, would give us eleven hundred and fifty millions. Such a population, however, or anything approaching to it, is a thing impossible in the United States, for the reason that a large portion of its territory is a barren waste, incapable of tillage. Such is the character of the space between the 98th meridian and the Rocky Mountains, denominated "The Great American Plain," and the space from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, with the exception of the rich but narrow belt along the ocean, may also be regarded, in comparison with other portions of the United States, as a wilderness unfitted for the use of the husbandman.

I, therefore, do not mention these figures, with any intent of digressing from the subject before us, into idle speculations on the future destiny of the Republic, based upon the extent of its area, but to direct your attention to the fact so intimately connected with a just view of American Agriculture, that making ample allowance for the unproductive parts of our territory, looking only to those parts whose fertility is known, the country is capable of producing a vast excess of food over the quantity required for home consumption by its present and immediately prospective population, even with all the emigration that a wisely directed governmental policy may induce; and that it must be in part the industrial mission of the United States for long years, it may, perhaps, be for long centuries to come, to produce food for the consumption of foreign nations.

A general Census has been taken in the United States every tenth year, beginning with 1790, in compliance with the provisions of the Federal Constitution, for the apportionment of representation and taxation among the States, according to their representative members; but until very recently, the Census has furnished few national data, upon the promineut branch of American industry.

Our governmental statistics have had reference to population, to revenue, trade, commerce, and navigation. They have of

late touched upon the moral, the social, the physical condition. of the people; including religion, education, crime, and pauperism; while Agriculture received little attention, until, in 1840, it was partially included in the Federal schedules.

In the Census of 1850, one schedule out of six,* more full in its details, was devoted to agriculture. These schedules were prepared by a special committee in the Senate, and they were assisted by valuable suggestions from our co-labourer, Mr. Archibald Russell, whose services in this regard were publicly acknowledged by the able superintendent of the Census, Mr. De Row, and who thus in advance aided in preparing the way for the labors of this association, whose infancy he so faithfully nursed, and wdose maturer course by Sections, he has within a few months so auspiciously inaugurated.

The materials gathered in these Census, especially the last, despite the errors and imperfections incident to the inception of so vast an undertaking, afford a most excellent basis for future comparison; and indicate the respectful attentton which Agricultural Statistics must henceforth claim at the hands of the Government, stimulated as they will be by popular pressure from without, by the demands of the farmers of the United States, recognizing at last in Agriculture a branch of industry not inferior to commerce or to manufactures, but one far surpassing them both in extent and importance; the great overshadowing interest of the nation, by which all others thrive, and which has the right to demand the constant, chiefest, and most enlightened regard, at the hands of their Senators and Representatives in Congress.

The Compendium of the Census of 1850, prepared by Mr. De Row, of which an immense edition has been issued, embraced a summary of the returns of the former Census, and some comparative statistics of other countries, and forms an invaluable text-book for the student of statistics.

The ability with which the work was performed, and the appreciation it has met, afford good reason for believing that the Agriculture of our broad land, it its more prominent features,

• The schedules were as follows: 1. Free inhabitants; 2. Slaves; 3. Mortality: 4. Agriculture; 5. Manufacturing industry; 6. Social statistics. The superintendent suggests that there be but two schedules hereafter one of POPULATION, the other PRODUCTION, with proper instructions for compressing all required information in a compact and inexpensive form.