are allowed to carry; each vessel will now be furnished with a safety valve, free from the control of the engineer. Penalties will be enforced on masters and owners for carrying more than their number, and on passengers for forcing their way on board, or traveling beyond the distance for which they have paid. The customs' officers, on and after the 31st inst., will not grant transire or perniit any vessels to put to sea unless they are properly found in life-boats, fire engines, signal lights, and the other requirements for the preservation of life at sea.

THE WESTERN ROUTES OF NEW YORK.

The business of three of the great routes of western travel in 1850 and 1851, was as follows:

This is a remarkable result, showing gross earnings of 15 per cent on the aggregate cost of the works. Within ten years the increase of traffic upon the leading public works of this country has been immense, no less than $8,410,214. The revenues of the Northern Line, Erie Canal, Pennsylvania Canal, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad were $3,924.987, in 1841. The revenues of the same routes of travel, together with the Erie Railroad, were $12,335,001 in 1851.

JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES.

CONSUMPTION OF COTTON IN MANUFACTURING COUNTRIES.

COMPARATIVE ESTIMATE OF THE QUANTITIES OF RAW COTTON CONSUMED IN THE CHIEF MANUFACTURING COUNTRIES, FROM 1836 TO 1851, INCLUSIVE, (IN MILLIONS OF POUNDS WEIGHT,) AS DERIVED FROM DU FAY & CO'S CIRCULAR.

Total........

914 1,047 1,074 862 1,068 1,225 1,182 1,175

Notwithstanding the high price of cotton during the first half of the past year, Great Britain worked up 55 per cent of all cotton consumed in the chief manufacturing countries of the world; while the United States of America consumed considerably

less in 1851 than in any one of the preceding four years; the quantity consumed amounting to only 134 per cent on the total consumption of 1,175 millions of pounds. Although the number of spindles at work in Great Britain has been increased by several hundred thousands since 1850, and estimated now at 21,400,000, a disproportion still exists between the spinning and the weaving power, which, however, will speedily be rectified if the former continue to offer a so much more profitable investment than the latter. The reverse has been the case, if a number of years be taken as a criterion, and hence the disinclination to build new spinuing mills, notwithstanding the present abundance of capital.

THE CLIFF COPPER MINE OF LAKE SUPERIOR.

A correspondent of the Lake Superior Journal furnishes the following statistical view of the Cliff Mine for the year commencing December 1st, 1850, and ending with November 30th, 1851:

Number of men employed 220, of which 90 are miners, and the remainder surface men, number of stump heads 12.

STEEL PEN MAKING AT BIRMINGHAM.

The special correspondent of the Morning Chronicle, whose well considered and judiciously prepared sketches of various commercial and industrial operations, we have on several occasions transferred to the pages of the Merchants' Magazine, furnishes us with the subjoinel sketch of Gillott's celebrated steel pen manufactory at Birmingham:

Mr. Gillott, of Birmingham, who has done so much to improve it, considers the manufacture to be yet in its infancy. The first operations are performed by steam power. The sheets of steel, after they are received from Sheffield, are reduced to the requisite tenuity by successive transits through the rolling mill-operations which are tended by men and boys. When reduced in this manner to the thinness of a steel pen, and to the length of about two feet, and the breadth of two inches and a half or three inches, the sheets of steel are ready for the next processes, which are entirely performed by women and girls. Describing the rooms according to the order of the processes, and not according to the arrangement of the building, the first to be entered is that where the "blanks" are punched out. Ranged in double rows along a large and roomy workshop, with windows at both sides, and scrupulously white and clean in floor, roof, and walls, are seated from fifty to a hundred girls and women, from the age of fourteen to that of forty and upwards. The only sounds to be heard are, the working of the hand press, and the clinking of the small pieces of metal as they fall from the block into the receptacle prepared for them. This process is performed with great rapidity, one girl, of average industry and dexterity, being able to punch or cut out about a hundred gross per day. Each division of the workshop is superintended by a tool-maker, whose business it is to keep the punches and presses in good working condition, to superintend the work generally, and to keep order among the workpeople. The next operation is to place the blank in a concave die, on which a slight touch from a convex punch produces the requisite shape—that of a semi-tube. The slits and apertures, which increase the elasticity of the pen, and the maker's or vendor's

name or mark, are produced by a similar tool. The last operation is that of slitting, which is also performed by girls and women. Previously to this, however, the pen undergoes a variety of processes in a different part of the factory, and under the hands of a different class of workpeople. When complete all but the slit, the pen is soft and pliable, and may be bent or twisted in the hand like a piece of thin lead. Being collected in "grosses" or "great grosses "—the former containing 144, and the great gross twelve times that number-the pens are thrown into little iron square boxes by men, who perform all the work in this department, and they are placed in a furnace, where they remain till box and pens are of a white heat. They are then taken out, and thrown hissing hot in pails or tanks of oil-a process which cures them of their softness by making them brittle. When taken out of the oil, they may be broken by the fingers with as much ease as if they were so many wafers. As a great deal of oil adheres to them, they are put into a seive to drain. There they remain until no more oil will run from them; but, notwithstanding all the draining which they have received, the oil is not effectually removed. To cleanse them thoroughly, they were formerly thrown into pits or heaps of sawdust, and stirred about; but as, by this process, the sawdust became clotted into oil cakes, and was rendered unserviceable, the ingenuity of Mr. Gillott was taxed to discover some means by which a saving both of oil and sawdust could be effected. He was not long before the thought struck him, that, if the pens were made to revolve in a perforated cylinder, the last drop of oil might be forced out of them-in fact, that the oil might be twirled from the pens like moisture from a mop.

per annum.

The experiment was tried, and succeeded admirably. The pens, after being allowed to drain in the seive until no more oil would run off them, were placed, apparently dry, but greasy looking, in the cylinder, and twirled round with great rapidity, until the oil ran off in a copious stream. The mingled oil and sawdust formerly constituted a nuisance, and it was necessary to change the sawdust and burn it three or four times a day. It now lasts for a week. By this means-a remarkable instance of the economy of manufacturers-Mr. Gillott has diminished his oil account about £200 to £300 This operation once completed, the pens are once more placed in revolving cylinders, where their friction against each other produces the necessary polish. Each pen is thus made to clean and polish its neighbor. The next process is to roast or anneal these brittle articles, and give them the flexibility of the quill, and produce upon them, at the same time, the color which may be desired, whether bronze or blue. The flexibility and color are both produced by heat, and it becomes a delicate matter so to arrange and regulate it as to attain the exact results desired. From this department they are once more consigned to the female part of the establishment, where, by the operation of the cutting tool, each pen receives the required slit. One girl, with a quick and practiced finger, can slit by this means as many as two hundred gross, or twenty-eight thousand in a day. They are now ready for counting and packing, in boxes or grosses, for the wholesale market. This last stage of the business is wholly performed by young girls.

year,

THE DEAN COTTON OF TEXAS.

The Galveston (Texas) News mentions this extraordinary description of cotton, remarking that among the sales for the previous week were seven bales of this cotton at ten and a half cents. All who have tried this cotton find it to possess such superior advantages that they now plant no other. In July last, a letter from a merchant in Boston says this cotton was then worth eighteen cents a pound in that market.Last when cotton commanded a higher price, sixty bales of this were sold in Boston for twenty-four cents a pound. A manufacturing house of Massachusetts, by whom this cotton has been thoroughly tested, has sent an agent to the State, who is now in the interior, endeavoring to buy all he can find. The staple of this cotton is said to resemble that of Sea Island, and the fabric made of it is probably often mistaken for Sea Island. This cotton possesses the following advantages in addition to its superior quality :-The product per acre is full as much or more; the bolls are larger, each boll having five divisions, while other cotton has but four; the quantity of cotton in each boll is more in proportion to its superior size; a hand can pick about one-third more of it in the same time. This last advantage is one of great importance, and has been fully established, as we learn, from experiment. This is owing to the large amount of cotton to the boll, and to the greater length of the staple, making it quicker to be handled by the picker. There is a great demand for the seed of this cotton, which will probably supersede the ordinary kind throughout Texas.

MACHINE FOR PRINTING CALICO.

We learn from the Boston Atlas that a new calico machine has been invented which will print on calico twelve different colors at one operation, and has been built at the extensive machine works of Messrs. Goddard, Rice & Co., of Worcester, for one of the largest print works in this country. The model was designed by Dr. R. L. Hawes, of Worcester, the inventor of an ingenious letter envelope machine. The Boston Transcript says:—" It was but quite recently-within five years, we believe-that it was not thought practicable to print calico with the use of more than six colors at one operation. If additional colors were required to complete the design, they were given by hand blocks. Latterly, however, the English inventors have produced machines that will print eight and ten colors, but it has remained for an American to outstrip them all in this important branch of mechanic art.— The principal improvements introduced into this machine (for which application for a patent has been made) consists in the mode of applying pressure to the print rollers, by which a yielding pressure of several tons may be given to each roller with great ease; also in the construction of the frame work in a peculiar manner, so that either print roller may be removed from the machine without disturbing the others. By means of these improvements, this machine is made to operate with nearly the same facility and ease as any six-color machines hitherto constructed. The weight of the machine is eight or ten tons, standing some nine or ten feet high, and as a specimen of workmanship reflects great credit to the manufacturers, Messrs. Goddard, Rice & Co., for it will readily be perceived that it must not only have great strength, but a very nice adjustment of its parts to enable the operator to print twelve colors on the cloth, so that each shall be exactly in its place, and this, too, when cloth is passing through the machine at the rate of a mile per hour."

LAKE SUPERIOR COPPER MINES.

The National Intelligencer publishes a few facts to show the advantage of a judicious prosecution of the copper mining business. The Intelligencer says:—

The mine which has thus far been the most productive is called the Boston and Pittsburg Mining Company. Work was commenced in 1848. A capital of $110,000 was paid in, or about $18 50 per share on 6,000 shares. In 1849, $60,000 was divided among the shareholders; in 1850, $84,000; in 1851, $60,000, and in 1852, $60,000 more will be divided. In another view, shares which cost $18 have received back in dividends $34, and are worth $100 in the market. The Northwest Mining Company ranks next in value. Mining was here commenced in earnest in 1849. About $80,000 have been paid in. In 1849 the net proceeds from the sale of copper amounted to some $5,000; in 1850 to about $32,000; and in 1851 to something over $50,000. This company owns a large tract of mineral territory, upon which two valuable veins have been opened, and a number of others discovered. The property owned by this company is of immense value, and magnificent fortunes will in a few years doubtless be realized from it.

The Minnesota Mining Company is located near the Ontonogon River, some forty miles westward of the two preceding. Immense blocks of pure copper are taken from this mine. It commenced in the autumn of 1848, and has a capital paid in of some $90,000, or $30 on a share-there being but three thousand shares. They command $150 in the market. A large dividend will, we think, be paid from the earnings this year.

The gain reaped from the workings of a successful mine is frequently 500 per cent. Shares in the Boston and Pittsburg Company, which cost $18 50, sell for $100. In the Minnesota for $30 the owner can now receive $150. The Northwest shares will probably increase 100 per cent in value in a year.

THE ADVANTAGES OF MODERN INVENTIONS.

THE HON. HORACE MANN thus sums up a few of the advantages of modern inventions: "One boy with a Foudrinier machine will make more paper in a twelvemonth than all Egypt could have made in a hundred years during the reign of the Ptolemies. One girl with a power-press will strike off books faster than a million scribes could copy them before the invention of printing. One man with an iron foundry will turn out more utensils than Tubal Cain could have forged had he worked diligently to this time."

PRODUCTION OF COTTON FROM STRAW.

A Nottingham (English) paper says:-"A circumstance extremely interesting to all engaged in textile manufactures, indeed to the whole community, has this week been communicated to us. An amateur chemist of this town, while engaged recently in testing the Chevalier Claussen's chemical process of making cotton, not having any flax straw at hand, tried it upon oat straw. To his astonishment, after the silica and gums, which enter into the composition of oat straw in greater proportions than in flax, had been dissolved, he obtained a large quantity of good cotton. The opinion he formed from this and subsequent experiments is, that the common straws of this country may be profitably converted into cotton, thereby adding to the certainty and abundance of our future supplies. At any rate, the experiment is one which is worth testing to the fullest extent, and the hint here thrown out will no doubt induce persons most favorably situated for pursuing an investigation with advantage at once to undertake the task."

PROFITS OF MINING IN ENGLAND.

From twenty of the principal mines, on which there has been an outlay of £181,279. the proprietors have received back, in the shape of dividend, £985,481, and their property is now saleable in the Mining Exchange for £718,690, making in dividends and value of the shares £1,699,171 upon the outlay above named.

MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES.

"THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES."

TO FREEMAN HUNT, Esq., Editor of the Merchants' Magazine, etc. :—

SIR-I have read with much interest and instruction the article in your Merchants' Magazine on the "Fisheries of the United States." I believe, however, that the second chapter on that subject is based mainly on an historical error; namely, "that the arguments of the American Peace Commissioners of 1814, 'that we held our right in the fisheries by the same tenure by which we held our independence as a nation," prevailed, and the right was left standing on the basis of 1783."

If they "prevailed," it is not in any manner manifest. The right is not mentioned in the treaty, nor was it recognized by the British Government immediately after the treaty went into operation, which seems to prove that it was not admitted by them as alleged, but left an open question. The fact is the Commissioners of Peace agreed about little or nothing excepting to stop the war immediately. It was almost “a conclusion where nothing was concluded." If this was so, of course most of the disparaging remarks about the treaty of Messrs. Gallatin and Rush are unjust, and can be applied with more propriety to the Peace Commissioners of 1814, whose negligence or strong desire for peace caused them to leave unsettled or unexpressed our rights in that, as well as many other matters of great importance, even those about which the war was ostensibly made.

Sir Hugh Murray, in his work on British America, published by the Harpers in 1841, vol. ii., p. 132, says:--" At the peace of 1814 a singular and total silence was ob served on the subject, (of the American fishing rights,) but on the attempt made by the Americans to resume operations, a discussion arose, when it was contended, on the part of the English ministry, that the war had canceled the stipulations of 1783, and that they had no longer any rights of fishery. The Americans, however, maintained that those terms formed a permanent arrangement, connected with the separation of the States from Britain, and must remain until expressly abrogated.

After much reasoning on the point, a convention was concluded in 1818, by which they were allowed both to catch and dry on the unoccupied parts in the southern and western coasts of Newfoundland and on that of Labrador, but their vessels were not to approach nearer than three miles to any of the other British settlements. A singu lar feature in reg. rd to the former colony is, that England, on this occasion, gave what she herself was supposed to have renounced, and the Americans are said to have carried their point, though Captain Sweetland was told that the French would resist any attempt they might make.'

The very fact that the Commissioners, Gallatin and Rush, were sent to make a