The Industrial Resources, Etc., of the Southern and Western States

among the ancients. Intercourse with the world, during the primitive ages, seems to have been unfavorable to the well-being and advancement of civilization.

It is remarkable that in the new world there should be but two inland basins, and they the spots where the aborigines had attained their highest degree of civilization. When compared with the whole continent, the area which these basins occupy is found to be quite inconsiderable as to size. Grants of land of larger extent, on the continent, have been made to single individuals. The Incas of Peru and the Aztecs of Mexico, each dwelt in inland basins. The basin of the sealed lake Titicaca is the only inland basin of South America; and, with the exception of the great salt basin, the basin of Mexico is the only one in North America from which there is no outlet to the ocean. Each of these basins is partly within the tropics, but their elevation above the level of the sea is such as to give them the climate, the flora and the fauna, with all the advantages and conditions of the temperate zones. More striking examples as to the effect of geographical conditions upon the character of man could be scarcely mentioned.

But civilization has now attained a growth which no longer requires the shelter of the mountains and their fastnesses to protect it from the rude shocks of savage man and his blighting passions. It now delights in free intercourse among nations, and flourishes best where commerce is most active and institu

tions are most liberal. The history of civilization in its early stages is that of a tender plant, which, while young, requires the protection and shelter of the hot-bed; but which, after it has attained a certain degree of vigor, thrives best in the open air. Since the transplanting of civilization from its secluded valleys, it has attained a vigorous growth; under its shadow liberty finds shelter, man safety, and nations freedom of intercourse. Its seeds and its fruits have been borne to distant lands on the wings of commerce.

Its branches

reach all parts of the habitable globe.
There is this further analogy: as the plant
which has been nurtured in the green-house
acquires the power to withstand the vicissi-
tudes of the open field, the conditions of the
nursery become less and less adapted to its
habits and the promotion of its vegetable
health. It cannot, therefore, after having ac-
quired in the grove the magnitude and habits
of the forest tree, flourish in the green-house
again. It will pine away there and die, or at
least it will cease to thrive. So with the moral
and the intellectual culture of man. These
inland basins seem to have been not only most
favorable to its early development, but, after
civilization acquired the strength to advance
beyond its green-house in the mountains, it
seems to have acquired organs and powers,
for the unfolding and growth of which the

conditions of secluded valleys were altogether unfavorable.

The people who now inhabit the river basin of the Jordan have fallen back into a semibarbarous state. Neither can the basin of Mexico nor the shores of the Peruvian lake, any longer be considered as the seat of the highest degree of civilization in the new world.

Considering the small area of these inland basins in comparison with the extent of the whole earth, it cannot be that chance should have made them the nurseries of civilization. Effects here, as elsewhere, must have their causes; mere coincidences would be miraculous. It would be interesting, and profitable too, to trace out those physical conditions, cosmical arrangements and terrestrial adap tations peculiar to those places, and which must have been especially favorable for the development of those traits and attributes of man which, when fully matured, are destined, perhaps, to make him only a little lower than the angels of heaven.

"As the external face of continents," says Humboldt, "in the varied and deeplyindented outline of their coasts, exercises a beneficial influence upon climate, trade and the progress of civilization, so also in the interior, its variations of form in the vertical direction, by mountains, hills and valleys and elevated plains, have consequences no less important. Whatever causes diversity of form or feature on the surface of our planet - mountains, great lakes, grassy steppes, and even deserts surrounded by a coast-line margin of forest-impresses some peculiar mark or character on the social state of its inhabitants."

Our lofty mountain chains and majestic Water courses have served, according to the same great philosopher, to furnish a more beautiful and rich variety of individual forms, and to rescue the face of the continent from that dreary uniformity which tends so much to impoverish both the physical and intellectual powers of man. Had the Missouri River, after taking its rise under the Rocky Mountains and uniting with the Mississippi, held its course eastward until their waters were emptied in Long Island Sound, how different would have been the present condition of these United States; had the drainage of the country been in this direction, the Gulf of Mexico would have been as a stagnant pool, and we should have been as indifferent to New-Orleans and the purchase of Louisiana, as we now are to Merida and Yucatan. Because the Mississippi River runs from the north to south, it is one among the strongest of the bonds which holds this union of states together.

All the great rivers of the United States lie wholly within the temperate zone. Their basins are spread out under climates

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 geogra phical 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 con-
tiguous to the two first, and convenient to
them all. The three great outlets of com-
merce, 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 en-
terprise, 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 regularly 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 continually under the process of assay, and its exact value can only be determined when 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. The 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:

L-STATEMENT OF THE COINAGE OF THE MINTS OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM THEIR ORGANIZATION TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1851.

II. STATEMENT OF THE AMOUNT OF GOLD, OF DOMESTIC PRODUCTION, DEPOSITED AT THE MINTS

Totals.

Other sources

Total

From
California

Other

sources

Total

.$7,797,141

$7,797,141.

$119,699.... $119,699

197,367.

241,544.

$1,124.

11,469.

12,593

285,653.

5,767,092.

669,921..

7,268.

677,189

122,801. .31,790,306..

.98,340... .31,398,445. 6,310,462.

$68,493,226.... 8,501,302....76,994,528....11,557,074.... 143,775....11,700,849

4,575,567..

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 aureceived 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..
Through Asheville, N. C., em-
bracing Tennessee hogs..

1849-'50. 1850-51. 43,000.... 21,000 81,000.... 40,000

124,000
61,000

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 OF LOWER KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE
AND KENTUCKY RIVER.

1850-51.
.9,000
.6,000

..1,000

Deficiency.

Total..

RECAPITULATION.

.69,300 hogs.

Deficiency in hogs driven.
Deficiency in hogs packed in Lower Ken-
tucky, Tennessee, and on Tennessee
River..
Deficiency in weight around the falls equal

to..

69,300

61,320

1,180 131,800

1,705

Total deficiency in hogs...
Deficiency in barrels of pork around the falls
Deficiency in pounds of lard around the falls 519,227
Equal in barrels to......

2,360

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 895 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 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