ate zones; they convey to the sea large cargoes of merchandise, gathered from the products of the field, the forest and the mine. Hills of iron, mountains and valleys filled with coal, are found on its banks. Its waters are mingled, in the Gulf, with those of the Amazon and Orinoco, which run between the tropics. From their basins they are ready, at the bidding of civilized man, to place on this sea, in all variety and abundance, the products of the torrid zone. Arrived in the Gulf with these goods, the mariner then finds a river in the sea to speed him on with its favoring currents to prosperous voyages. Through the Gulf stream, the productions of this grand system of river basins will be distributed over the world, passing by and enriching as they go, Norfolk, Philadelphia, New-York and Boston, all the Atlantic slope, and all the Pacific slope, too, of the United States. From 50° north to 20° south, the Mississippi and the Amazon take their rise. A straight line from the head-waters of one to those of the other, measures a quadrant of the globe. They afford outlets to all the producing climates of the earth. Upon this Gulf and sea, perpetual summer reigns; and upon their shores, climate is piled upon climate, production upon production, in such luxuriance and profusion that man, without changing his latitude, may, in one day, ascend from summer's heat to winter's cold, gathering, as he goes, the fruits of every clime, the staples of every country. To gather such things in the old world, commerce must first plume her wings and sail in search of them through all latitudes and climates, from the extreme north to the furthest south. In the small compass of the West India sea, are crowded together the natural outlets of the ocean, from mountains, plains and valleys, that embrace every variety of production, every degree of latitude and climate, from perpetual winter to eternal spring. The largest water courses of Europe and India, do rot run through more than 10% or 15° of latitude. The greatest variety of climate possessed by the river basins of India, the Mediterranean and Atlantic Europe, is included between 10° and 55° of north latitude. Only forty-five degrees of latitude there against 70° here. They are all in the same hemisphere, and when it is seed time in one basin, it is seed time in all; and short harvests there produce famine. Here, in the American system, we include both hemispheres-and therefore, when it is seed time in one basin, it is harvest in the other. With this blessed alternation of seasons, so near at hand, and so convenient to our seaport towns, and avenues of trade, famine on these shores is impossible. With this American sea between the two hemispheres, and in the lap of both, nature has endowed it with commercial resources and privileges of infinite variety. Here come together and unite in one, the natural highways to the ocean, from mountains, plains and valleys teeming with treasures from the mineral, the vegetable and the animal kingdoms-nature's most princely gifts to man. Were it given to us of this day to look down through future generations, and to see the time when the valleys of the Mississippi, the Orinoco and the Amazon shall be reclaimed, and peopled and cultivated up to their capacities of production, we should behold in this system of river basins, and upon this central sea of ours, a picture such as no limner can draw, no fancy can sketch. All the elements of human greatness which river, land and sea can afford, are here crowded together. For their full development, easy access to the Pacific is necessary. The course of a river exercises important bearings upon commerce. A river that runs east or west, has no diversity of climate, its basin is between two parallels of latitude, and there is no variety of production from source to mouth, except such as is due to elevation. The husbandman who inhabits the banks of such a stream, when he descends it with his surplus produce for exchange or barter, finds, on his arrival at its mouth, that he has but there offered duplicates in exchange for what come to Newcastle with coal only. He is he has brought to sell; all sellers and no buyers never can make commerce brisk. Such a river may have a staple, it may be corn, it they who dwell in its valley have to sell, and may be oil, but whatever it may be, it is all whatever they buy, they buy with that staple. The commerce of such a basin therefore must be with other latitudes, with other climates and with regions which afford variety. On the contrary, one who descends a river that runs north and south, finds his climate changing day by day; at every turn new plants and strange animals meet his eye. He brings with him from its head-waters the furs, the cereal grains, and a variety of arti cles-the productions of the north-to exchange for the coffee and sugar and the sweets of the south, which are gathered on its banks below. It is the business of commerce to minister to the fancies as well as the necessities of man; she therefore delights in variety of cli mate and assortments of merchandise. It is owing to the diversity of climate and production afforded by the States of this Union, and to the facilities of intercourse with them, that the trade of a single state, as Massachusetts, with the rest, exceeds in value the entire foreign commerce of the whole country with all the world besides. commerce abound in secrets of high import to the happiness of man; an easy communication from the Gulf to the Pacific is the key to some of them. The pursuits of which call for the highest energies of man. Dwelling in such regions, he is constrained to be diligent; to labor; to be prudent; to gather into barns; to study the great book of nature; to observe her laws; and whilst it is summer to take thought for winter. The perpetual summer of the tropics presents no such alternatives. On the same tree may be seen the bud, the flower and the ripe fruit. Here, therefore, nature urges no such necessities, imposes no such tasks, and savage man is as careless of the morrow as are the lilies of the field. The people of the two climates are therefore different. Frequent intercourse between them will improve the character of each, and the most ready channels for such communication are afforded by the rivers that run north or south. With the exception of the Nile, the general direction of all the rivers of Africa is east or west; and not one of their valleys, except the valley of the Nile, has ever been the abode of civilized man. Civilized society cannot be stationary. Vacuity is not more abhorrent to nature, than is a state of rest, either in the moral or the physical world. The materials of the latter she has divided into ponderables and imponderables, and invested them with antagonistic principles. By the action of light, heat and electricity, upon ponderable matter, "the morning stars were first made to sing together," the earth is clothed with verdure, the waves lift up their voices, and the round world is made to rejoice. She has divided the former into animal and spiritual, and they are antagonistics; the one elevating, the other depressing man in the scale of being. When his course ceases to be upward and onward, the spirit yields to the animal, virtue gives way to vice, the force of evil prevails, and the course of men in their social state is no longer onward and upward, but backward and downward. The sphere that lags behind in its course is hurled from its orbit. History bears witness to the fact, that when nations cease to rise, they begin to fall. The laws of nature are her agents; they cannot be active and be still: action implies motion; nature herself is all life and motion-she knows no rest, brooks no pause, either for her moral or her physical agents. Wise men say that she has attached a curse to standing still. This is German philosophy; but the idea is beautiful because it is true. We want the stimulants to energy, the incentives to enterprise, which a highway across the isthmus is to give, to urge us on to the high destinies that await us. The energies of the country are great; they require some such highway to the Pacific to give them scope and play. It is for time, and time alone, to decide the question, as to whether the highest degree attainable by man in the social scale, will not first be reached by those people who, with the blessings of free institutions, live on rivers that run north or south through the temperate zone. On account of this central sea and its system of winds and currents; on account of the course of the rivers which run into it, and of the direction of mountain ranges that traverse the continent; and on account of the character and extent of the river basins, and other geographical features with us, the old world affords no parallel, either in history or example, by which to judge of the destinies of this country. Our mountain ranges are longer, our rivers are more majestic, our valleys are broader, our climates are more varied, our productions are more diversified here, than they are there. The wheat harvest on the Lower Mississippi commences in June, and in the upper country Christmas is at hand before the corn crop is all gathered in. Thus we have, in the valley of this majestic watercourse, a continued succession of harvests during more than half the year. In the other hemisphere the seasons are reversed; and on the banks of the southern tributaries to our central sea, reapers are in the field during the remainder of the year. A sea which is the natural outlet to market of the fruits of regions where seasons are reversed, and the harvest is perennial, is no where else to be found. Such advantages, both moral and physical, such means of power, wealth and greatness, as have been vouchsafed to us, no nation has ever been permitted to enjoy. We have already more works of internal improvement, a greater length of rail-road and canal, built and building, and of river courses open to navigation, more of the buds and blossoms of true greatness, than all the world besides. In these facts we see the effect of geographical features, as well as of free institutions. As a general rule, our rail-roads and rivers are at right-angles in their courses. In the New-England states, where the rivers run south, the rail-roads run east and west; in the Middle and Southern States, where the water-courses run eastwardly, the rail-roads take a more northwardly direction. Rivers run from the mountains to the sea. Railroads run across the mountains; they go from valley to valley. In calculating the sources of national wealth, prosperity and greatness which are contained, for this country, in river basins, central seas, mountain ranges, water-courses and geographical features, the lights of his tory are of no avail. The canvas is prepared and the easel ready, but colors that are bright enough for the picture cannot be found. The exceeding great resources of our Mediterranean beggar description. We know that other places, with the ele ments of commerce in far more scanty proportions, with facilities less abundant and obstacles far greater, have grown opulent and obtained renown in the world while one calls to mind the history of such places, he feels that here is room and scope enough for individual wealth far more dazzling, for national greatness far more imposing, and a renown far more glorious. From all this, we are led to the conclusion, the time is rapidly approaching, if it has not already arrived, when the Atlantic and Pacific must join hands across the isthmus. We have shown that there is no sea in the world which is possessed of such importance as this southern sea of ours; that with its succession of harvests there is, from some one or other of its river basins, a crop always on the way to market; that it has for back country a continent at the north and another at the south, and a world both to the east and the west; we have shown how it is contiguous to the two first, and convenient to them all. The three great outlets of commerce, the Delta of the Mississippi, the mouths of the Hudson and the Amazon, are all within two thousand miles, ten days' sail, of Darien. It is a barrier that separates us from the markets of six hundred millions of people-three-fourths of the population of the earth. Break it down, therefore, and this country is placed midway between Europe and Asia; this sea becomes the centre of the world and the focus of the world's commerce. This is a highway that will give vent to commerce, scope to energy, and range to enterprise, which, in a few years hence, will make gay with steam and canvas, parts of the ocean that are now unfrequented and almost unknown. Old channels of trade will be broken up and new ones opened. We desire to see our own country the standard-bearer in this great work.-M. F. Maury. GOLD AND SILVER.-U. S. MINT, &c. -It is difficult to realize at first thought the great accession to our metallic currency, since the discovery of gold in California. When the first few thousand dollars of the glittering dust were landed here from the Pacific coast, the whole city was excited, and specimens were everywhere objects of great curiosity. It is hardly three years since, and yet semi-monthly arrivals are now regu larly bringing us at the rate of fifty millions per annum, and we receive it all as a matter of course, scarcely asking what effect it is likely to have upon the wealth and prosperity of the nation. Various estimates have been made upon the entire production of the California gold regions, and we have several times prepared tables in which the amount was given as far as it could be ascertained. For many of our items, however, we have been obliged to take estimates in the place of official returns, as the latter were frequently wanting, or so published as to be unreliable. We have been for some time preparing tables which should give the receipts at all of the mints down to a given point, from which our readers could begin, and complete the record for themselves. The monthly statements, hastily made up, of the deposits of gold at the mint, must of course be partially estimated, as a large quantity is its exact value can only be determined when continually under the process of assay, and the work is complete. In the statements annexed the figures are official, and can be relied on as strictly correct. For this, as well as our former table, we are much indebted to the courtesy of Robert Patterson, Esq., of Philadelphia, son of the late director of the mint. The following statement embraces the total coinage of gold, silver and copper, at the mint and branches, from their organization to the 1st October, 1851. The coinage at the Philadelphia mint was commenced in 1793; at the branches in 1838. The Dahlonega (Georgia) and Charlotte (North Carolina) mints issue only gold coins, and the NewOrleans only gold and silver, all of the copper coins are struck at Philadelphia. table also includes a statement of the total deposits at the mint of gold produced from California and other sources within the limits of the United States: The 1. STATEMENT OF THE COINAGE OF THE MINTS OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM THEIR ORGANIZATION TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1851. IL-STATEMENT OF THE AMOUNT OF GOLD, OF DOMESTIC PRODUCTION, DEPOSITED AT THE MINTS Totals. Periods To the close of 1847. Year 1848... 1849. 1850. Nine months, 1851. Totals. Periods To the close of 1847. Year 1848. 1849. 1850. Nine months, 1851. Totals.. .98,340. .31,398,445.. 6,310,462. 6,311,347 $68,493,226.... 8,501,302....76,994,528....11,557,074.... 143,775....11,700,849 12,805.... 2,957,780.... 2,970,585.... 100,950... 4,080,950.... 4,181,900 and all the gold dust now in the hands of miners and merchants on the Pacific side. It will not be too large an estimate probably to put down the entire production, so far, at $120,000,000. The total production of California gold since its first discovery must be considerably over one hundred millions of dollars; thus being equal to one-half the total coinage of the country since its separation from the British empire. To the $80,000,000 received at The production of gold has appreciated the the mint, as shown above, must be added value of silver in comparison, and that too at large amounts received here, and consumed a time when the relative value of the latter by dentists and jewelers; considerable had been increased by a series of financial amounts shipped from San Francisco directly movements in Europe heretofore fully ex to other countries; the whole amount of the plained, so that we are fast losing our silver gold coinage and circulation of California coin. The only remedy which appears feaitself, including the $50 pieces stamped by sible, and likely to be generally acceptable to the United States assayer; the shipments the country, seems to be for Congress to anreceived since the 1st of October, amounting thorize a seignorage to be taken from all the at this port to nearly or quite $5,000,000; new issues of silver coin. It cannot obtain a free circulation at its present value, as it is worth about three per cent. premium, and all large pieces are quickly taken for export. There are many objections to alloying the coin with the baser metals, which would not apply to reducing the weight. Let seven per cent. be taken by the Government from the present value of the silver coin, and gold made the sole legal tender for all amounts above three or five dollars, and the export of coin would at once be stopped, while no one could be wronged. The present coins would be worth their full value to the holders; the new coin could be obtained at par for the convenience of change; and the Government would be reimbursed for all the expenses of the mint. Through Cumberland Gap.. 1849-'50. 1850-'51. 43,000.... 21,000 81,000.... 40,000 124,000 61,000 63,000 HOG BUSINESS OF THE WEST.-We are indebted to the Cincinnati Prices Current and to Mr. Cist's valuable work, entitled "Cincinnati in 1851," for the following statistics of this most important western crop, which will interest our readers everywhere. The figures show that whatever may be the To which add deficiency in weight 6,300 merits of other places in this particular, and we speak it deferentially, the palm, after all, will have to be accorded to Cincinnati, of being, beyond comparison, in that sense only in which it is no discredit, the most hoggish place in all the West. Mr. Cist says, that Cincinnati is the principal pork market in the United States, and without even the exception of Cork and Belfast, the largest in the world. The business dates back twenty-six years, but has only been important since 1833. PACKING OP LOWER KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 1850-51. 895 .1,000 Deficiency. Total. RECAPITULATION. .69,300 hogs. Deficiency in hogs driven Deficiency in weight around the falls equal to.... 69,300 61,320 1,180 .131,800 1,705 Total deficiency in hogs... Pork Packing in Kentucky and Tennessee. -The Louisville Courier says: We subjoin 1,700 the following statistics in regard to the pro5,382 duct of the hog, which have been accurately and carefully compiled from authentic sources, none and will prove serviceable to the mercantile 600 community. It gives the exact number of 1,300 hogs slaughtered around Louisville for the last two years; also, the actual weight of ..7,000 hogs, the weight of lard, and the quantities 34,077 of pork made; together with the deficiencies and gains, here and elsewhere. The list embraces full returns from Kentucky, Tennessee, and the hogs driven South, and shows a total deficiency of 131,800 hogs this season. This table will be valuable for future refe 6,000.... .1,200 ..15,000.. 91,447 .57,370 3,950 .61,320 hogs. PACKERS No. of bbls Pork 19,755 .8,852,398. .1,732,210. |