haps the clause which repeals the exemption from State taxes. We trust, however, that Congress will strike out the opening section which authorizes the issue of $100,000,000 of bank notes in addition to the $300,000,000 already authorized. The country has suffered too much from the evils of an inflated paper currency to submit to any increase in its amount. The following is the section of the New York Clearing House Constitution which has just been amended by the addition of the words in italics: The checks, drafts, notes, or other items in the exchanges, returned as "not good," or mis sent, shall be returned the same day directly to the Bank from whom they were received. And the said Bank shall immediately refund to the Bank returning the same, the amount which it had received through the Clearing House for the said checks, drafts, notes, or other items, so returned to it, in specie or legal tender notes. But checks, drafts, notes, or other items to be returned for indorsement, or informality, may, after being certified by the Bank returning it, be returned through the exchanges the following morning, not exceeding $5,000 in amount to any one Bank. As far as this applies to the questions in dispute between the Commonwealth and Continental, it will simply require the former to refund the money it collected from the latter upon the disputed check, without at all affectieg its legal claim to make such collection. If the Commonwealth can legally establish the truth of its assumptions. the Continental will probably be compelled to pay the check. The Bank returns of the three cities we give below. It will be seen that the specie in New York banks has largely increased during the month and especially the last week, having reached $19,736,929. This is probably due to the payment of gold interest on the five-twenties. The legal tender reserve is also drawn down quite close, but it is still $9,845,000 in excess of the legal require ment. Date. Loans. Jan. 6, 1866... $233,185,059 NEW YORK CITY BANK RETURNS. Circulation. Deposits. Legal Tend's. Ag. clear'gs 13.. 20.. 27.. 234,938,193 16,852,568 19,162,917 197,766,999 73,019,957 608,082,837 198,816,248 240,407,836 13,106,759 516,323,672 Feb. 3.. 10.. 242,510,382 10,937,474 21,494,234 22,240,469 493,431,032 243,068,252 10,308,758 22,983,274 189,777,290 64,802,980 471,886,751 183,241,404 61,602,726 497,150,087 181,444,378 58,760,145 526,539,959 17. 24.. 31. 23,033,237 23,243,406 23,736.534 Apr. 7. 242,643,753 11,486,295 24,127,051 14. 244,009,839 11,035,129 242,067,063 9,495,463 May 5.. 12.. 19. 26.. 545,339,668 603,556,177 85,040,659 523,098,538 85,710,107 579,342,488 257,969,598 19,736,929 26,223,867 208,977,905 73,829,947 713,575,444 255,690,468 13,595,465 25,189,864 217,427,729 The returns of the Philadelphia Banks have been as follows: 68,402,764 579,216,509 69,496,033 72,158,099 529,240,640 189,094,961 71,445,065 602,315,748 24,533,981 193,153,469 73,910,370 578,537,853 24,045,857 196,808,578 77,602,688 535,834,778 25,377,280 202,718,574 80,589,022 25,415,677 210,373,303 81,204,447 257,621,317 13,970,402 24,693,259 217,552,853 180,515,881 64,341,802 594,204,912 We give below the statement of the public debt, prepared from the reports of the Secretary of the Treasury, for April 1, May 1, and June 1, 1866: Aggregate of debt bearing lawful money interest...... $1,186,207 011 $1,188,313,545 $1,147,222,226 Michigan consists of two peninsulas, between which enters Lake Michigan, widely separating the two. Their geological formation is dissimilar--the northern is primitive, composed of gneiss rock and metamorphic slates, with overlying slates and sandstones, the latter containing the great copper veins, and the former immense bodies of magnetic and specular iron ore. The southern peninsula is of the secondary formation its rocks are horizontal strata of limestone, sandstone and slate, the sandstone appearing at the surface in the central and elevated parts of the interior, the limestone underlying it can be traced from the rapids of the Maumee, in Ohio to Saginaw Bay. This southern peninsula is composed almost wholly of groups of the Appalachian series of rocks, the highest of which, the coal formation, occupies the central part of the country, while the shales of the Portage and Chemung group stretch along the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. This southern peninsula abounds in gypsum coal and salt. The copper mines of Michigan are situated on the north part of the northern This article is a condensation of a very interesting letter written by J. A. Blake, Esq., Editor of the Pittsburg Oil News. and recently published in that paper. The letter is dated from Marquette, the centre of the iron interest of the northern peninsula. peninsula, confined chiefly to the Keweenaw peninsula, forty-three miles in length and with an average width of fifteen miles, and divided into the Keweenaw, Portage Lake and Ontonagon districts. In 1864 Keweenaw district, from its eighteen mines, shipped.. Total Tb 25,480,818 42,921,691 17,220,500 Tb 85,610,999 of ore, producing about 6,850 tons of copper. The principal mines of the Keweenaw district are the Pittsburg and Boston, Northwestern and Medora; of the Portage Lake district, the Quincy, Franklin and Pewabic; of the Onto. nagon, the National, which produced in 1864, 705,981 pounds ore, with the labor of one hundred and seven miners, the estimated production of the full year from the mine being $100,000. Pittsburg was the pioneer in the Lake Superior copper mining enterprise. The second government permit was granted to the Pittsburg and Boston Mining Company in 1844, then known as the Cliff Mining Company. There are now nine Pittsburg companies in active operation, and much of the copper produced is refined in that city. The total number of companies is ninety-four, divided into 1,960,000 shares-the amount claimed to be paid in is $13,109,1 24, not including the original cost of mining, nor the sums derived from the sale of copper which have been expended in developing the mines. The aggregate dividend is claimed to be $5,600,000. The iron region is situated in the western and northern parts of the northern peninsula. The iron occurs in a metamorphic formation, bounded by two granite belts-one on the north the other on the south. This formation consists of hornblend, talcose, and chlorite slates, with associated beds of hornblende and felspar rocks. The ore consists mainly of the specular or per-oxide of iron, with an admixture of the fine-grained magnetic. It often happens that a whole ridge or knob is one mass of pure ore. The ore is sometimes mixed with s ams of quartz or jasper. The first Michigan iron used was produced from bog ore in various parts of the State. The shipments of ore has been as follows: Or a total of 895,763 tons ore, equivalent to nearly 600,000 tons of iron. The total product last year was nearly 300,000 tons of ore. The indirect wealth produced by this great development of mining industry cannot be easily estimated, but we may instance Cleveland, which has arisen from it since 1855, in which there are already iron factories having an aggregate capital of $3,000,000, giving wages to the value of $1,080,000. The receipts there have been. Of Lake Superior iron..... Total .106,439 4,857 ..111,296 Pittsburg manufactures, from this ore, her best varieties of iron and steel. Buffalo and Erie have added millions to their business by it. All the furnaces and rolling mills of the Mahoning Valley have sprung up since its discovery. The introduction of this pure and rich ore has increased the iron making business west of the Alleghanies to an extent of which few are aware. Before i introduction, in 1855, there were but ten blast furnaces in all the region which is now supplied with this ore. Of these three used charcoal and seven bituminous coal (smelting he native ores of Ohio and Pennsylvania), and the aggregate capacity was about twenty thousand tons of pig iron per annum. In the same territory are now fifty-five blast furnaces, of which twelve are charcoal, thirty-nine bituminous, and four anthracite coal, with an aggregate capacity of about 216,000 tons of pig iron per annum. Every one of these fifty-five furna. ces uses the Lake Superior ore, some but to a small extent, while thirty-two use it exclusively. It seems strange that Michigan herself is last to appreciate the importance of her vast iron interests. The immense extent of the district, the mountain masses of the ore, its purity and adaptation to the manufacture of the most valuable kinds of iron, and the immense forests suitable for charcoal render it by far the most extensive and valuable in the world for the manufacture of iron. Add to these prime facilities in abundance of capital and skilled labor, and channels of communication unrivaled, and we see no reason why the northern peninsula of Michigan should not become pre-eminently the iron district of the country. There is a great lack of furnaces in the Lake Superior region, as is evi. denced by the enormous quantities of ore that are being shipped to ports down the lake, where the cost of smelting is greatly enhanced. Furnaces at the mines is the cheapest and best economy. Marquette is a natural iron city, and yet her furnaces are few. Detroit and Wyandotte lie near enough to become great manufacturing cities, aud yet the total capital invested in this business in the two cities does not exceed $2,500,000, and the annual manufactured product is not over $3,500,000. Pittsburg, to-day, manufactures more of the Lake Superior iron than the whole State of Michigan. It has been urged against extensive iron manufactures in the Lake Superior region, that the supplies of timber would soon be exhausted. A single furnace in these iron regions, with a capacity of twenty thousand tons, will consume five hundred acres of heavily timbered land every year, or thirty seven thousand cords of wood. With this ra tio of consumption, and hundreds of furnaces to feed, it would require but a few years before the supply of fuel would give out. But it has lately been discovered that in all the area of the upper peninsula where the carboniferous limestone exists, there are indications of the existence of bituminous coal. The coal fields of the southern peninsula possess an area of 12,000 square miles. The Jackson and the Corunna mines are already at work. The total receipts at Detroit last year being 34,355 tons. The produce compares favorably with the best bituminous coal in this country and Europe, as will be seen by the annexed table: |