In 1761, Arkwright (afterwards knighted) obtained the first patent for his spinning frame.

In 1767, the spinning-jenny was invented by James Hargrave, which spun eight threads instead of one. Raw cotton imports this year were about 3,000,000 pounds. In 1774, a bill prohibiting the exportation of machinery employed in the manufacture of cotton received the royal assent of England. Five years after, the mule-jenny was invented.

In 1781, Ireland first exported cotton goods to England, having sent over 239 pounds raw cotton, mixtures of cotton and manufactures, to the value of £157, and 17,338 pairs of cotton stockings.

In 1782, England received her first cotton from Brazil. The same year England received 11,828,000 pounds imports, and exported 421,000 pounds, setting down the quantity manufactured at 11,500,000 pounds.

In 1785, Rev. Mr. Cartwright invented the power loom. The same year Watt's steam engines were first introduced as the motive power in driving machinery in cotton manufactories.

The following year, chlorine was first used for bleaching.

In 1787, the first cotton-spinning machinery was set up in France.

In 1789, short staple cotton began to be cultivated in the South, and sea island cotton first introduced here.

In 1790, at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Mr. Slater erected a cotton mill-the first in America.

In 1792, Eli Whitney of New Haven, Connecticut, then residing in Georgia invented his first cotton gin.

In 1798, Switzerland introduced cotton mills. The United States exported this year, 9,300,000 pounds. Prices in England from 22d. to 23d.; in American exports amounted to $3,500,000.

In 1802, New Hampshire built her first cotton factory. Two years after, the first power-loom was introduced into the United States, at Wheltham, Massachusetts.

In 1822, first cotton factory erected at Lowell, Massachusetts. The following year Egypt first exported cotton to England.

In 1826, Roberts, in England, invented his self-acting mule-spinner.

In the meantime, from £100,000, the value of cotton manufactures in England in 1760, it increased in little more than half a century, to over £34,000,000.

In 1841, the Eastern States had invested in cotton manufactures a capital of $40,612,984.

On some future occasion, I will bring up the last ten years, and give a short history of the progress of manufactures in the Southern States.

THE IRON MOUNTAIN ON LAKE SUPERIOR.

We find in the Detroit Tribune, the subjoined statement of this celebrated mountain of Iron, on the borders of Lake Superior :

The property known as the Iron Mountain on Lake Superior has changed hands, and is now owned by the Sharon Iron Company, in Pennsylvania. They purpose, in the spring, to build a plank road from the mountain to the lake shore, and their estimated cost of iron, when made into blooms at Sharon, (about seventy-five miles south of Lake Erie,) is made up as follows:

Juniata blooms (the best made in Pennsylvania, but by no means equal to blooms made from this ore) now sell, in Pittsburgh, from fifty-five to sixty dollars per ton. Iron enough to build Whitney's Pacific railroad might be taken from the Mountain, and not be missed. It lies three miles from the lake shore. It exists there in such abundance, and is of such an extraordinary quality, that in a late report of the United States Geologists, this prophecy was made in regard to it. Says the report:

"This region possesses an inexhaustible supply of iron ore of the very best quality, removed from twelve to thirty miles from the lake shore, with a soil by no means sterile, with a heavy growth of maple, yellow birch, pine, and oak; and it is to this source that the Great West will finally look for the finer varieties of bar iron and steel.

STATISTICS OF POPULATION, &c.

OCCUPATIONS IN MASSACHUSETTS.

For the following table of occupations in Massachusetts we are indebted to Hon. AMASA WALKER, Secretary of the Commonwealth, who has prepared the eighth annual Registration of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in Massachusetts, from May 1, 1848, to January, 1850, with great care, skill, and industry. It is a most interesting and useful document.

STATEMENT EXHIBITING THE NUMBER, WITH THEIR AGGREGATE AND AVERAGE AGES, OF PERBONS HAVING PURSUED DIFFERENT VOCATIONS, WHO HAVE DIED DURING THE TWENTY MONTHS BETWEEN MAY 1, 1848, AND DECEMBER 31, 1849-ALSO, A LIKE STATEMENT FOR

THE FIVE PREVIOUS YEARS.

(THESE ABSTRACTS INCLUDE ONLY PERSONS OVER TWENTY YEARS OF AGE.)

The foregoing table is intended to illustrate the influence of different vocations on health and longevity. The number from the different classes of persons is so limited in most cases, however, that it would be unsafe to take the average ages given, as the representative number expressing the general law. When observations upon the various points shall become sufficiently extensive, important results may be deduced in relation to the value of life under different occupational circumstances.

There are a few of the more common pursuits of life that include a sufficient number in the table to furnish statements which closely approximate the truth. Thus, of agriculturists or farmers, we find nearly five thousand (4,974) with an average age of 63.83 years. Of ordinary laborers there were 2,283, many of whom were probably foreigners, with less healthy habitations than the home of the planter. With the laborer we find the average age to be only 45.39, being 18.44 years less than the average life of the husbandman. A similar disparity is noticed, also, in examining the number of each of those classes which were furnished by the separate years.

Again, let us compare the two trades, carpenters, who are not confined by their la bor to one place, or to in-door influences, and the shoemaker, who is subject, under present arrangements in most workshops, to serious influences, tending to deteriorate health and abridge life. The 662 carpenters lived an average age of 49.28 years, while the 1,011 shoemakers enjoyed an average life of only 43.04 years, being 6.24 years less than their more fortunate brethren just alluded to, and 20.79 years less than the highly favored farmer. This difference, though quite sufficiently important to arrest attention, receives additional claims to notice, when we consider that the race which finds a goal at such unequal distances, does not commence prior to the 21st year of life. Taking the extreme cases, we find the farmer and the shoemaker, at the age of 20, with a prospect of living 43.83 years extended to the former, while that of the latter is curtailed to only 23.04 years, showing a difference of nearly 100 per cent. Laying aside all considerations more elevated than those of merely a pecuniary element, and we find the farmer paying the same premium for life or health assurance as those of other callings in life, although the latter may have no chance of living much more than one half as long as the former. But there are other and far higher considerations, which, it is believed, will commend themselves to the interested.

DEATHS IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1850.

The following table of deaths in the several States and Territories of the United States for the year ending 1st June 1850, is derived from the last census:TABLE OF DEaths during THE YEAR ENDing 1st June, 1850.