the central coal field, or on the north-west edge of the Apalachian coal field, back of Cleveland and Erie; on the whole, the advantage in distance and in the superiority of a food-producing district, is with the former.

use of coal, and the introduction of labor-Lake Superior Unless the coal basin of saving machinery by English manufacturers. Michigan should prove of more value than is But within the present century, she has now expected, this copper must, of necessity, advanced with wonderful rapidity. Her be smelted either on the north-east edge of mines have given vitality to her work-shops, and her miners and artisans have so stimulated her agricultural industry, that her sandy and clayey soil has become the most productive in continental Europe, and, while it sustains a population of 350 to a square mile, furnishes large quantities of food, flax and wool for export. Her rail-roads, which are the instruments of her artisans and agriculturists-as much as their tools of trade, as the hammer and the plow-now connect every portion of her territory; her people are busy and well paid, and notwithstanding they labor under some oppressive exactions, they have been scarcely affected by the recent revolutions around them.

Let us now turn to the twenty-two counties of Indiana which give an area of 7,700 square miles of coal-of that power which has proved so potent in England and Belgium. It is safe to say that this area will average 50,000,000 of bushels to the square mile. Here we have the enormous quantity of 385,000,000,000 bushels, or an amount equal to eleven hundred times the yearly production of Great Britain. It will be remarked that this power is just where it is wanted, at and near the confluence of important streams. Nature has been very kind, and in the course of years, has worn down convenient roads to and through these coal strata. The "adit levels" are the Ohio, the Wabash, and the White rivers, and the natural is far more efficient than the artificial drainage. These streams, thus cutting the coal, extend through and to almost every county of the state, and afford cheap facilities of transporting bulky products to points where they can be combined with the power into forms of less bulk and weight, and of greater value, and thus fitted to bear transportation to the best market.

In Wales, the copper ores average about eight and a half per cent. of metal, and require nearly twice their weight of coal in the smelting process. The ore of Lake Superior, which is of astonishing richness, will require a larger proportion of fuel, and it will be brought here for use as well as for fuel. From present indications, the copper refineries and manufactories of the Upper Wabash will eventually be the most import ant in the world, if, indeed, they do not distance all competition. And that day is not far remote, when this copper will be largely used in sheathing vessels built on the Wabash, of Indiana timber.

This, at the first view, may seem strange; but when it is borne in mind that the mer chant marine of almost every country is now built of fresh water timber, we may be disposed to inquire why our produce cannot as well be borne to the ocean by ocean craft, as well as in unsafe and perishable arks.

The English dockyards are, to a great extent, supplied from the forests of St. Lawrence and its tributaries, and from points far above tide water. The seaboard of France is nearly denuded of oak, and she draws her supplies far from the interior. The Russian navy may be said to be built entirely of fresh water timber. The Memel oak, probably the best in the world, can hardly be affected by any ocean peculiarity, as the water high up the Baltic contains less than one part in a thousand of saline substances, and is so pure as to be used by the sailors. The shipyards of our seaboard, north of the Chesa peake, are now supplied by forests on the streams in the interior; and, in New-Eng land, land ten and twenty miles from tide water, and well covered with oak, will sell from one to five hundred dollars per acre. A single fresh water oak tree will often sell for one hundred dollars to the shipwright. The oak on the Indiana coal field is of a very superior quality; it has been of slow growth; it has on the hills been exposed to the sun, and its roots have been forced to spread near the surface, and thus affords the best "knees and arms.' These pecularities are well understood by all who have examined the subAlthough no copper has yet been dis-ject. The ship "Minnesota," built at Cincovered in this district, the coal approaches within one hundred and ten miles of Lake Michigan, and a railroad on this route will, before long, be used in transporting to the coal the richest copper on earth-that of

It will be observed that, on the edges of this coal field, there is iron ore of greater yield and purity than that of England or Belgium; potter's clay equal to that of Staffordshire; lead, silicious earth and alkalies, to compare with any in Bohemia; here, also, is the best of marl, the best stone for building and manufacturing purposes; here, besides, is the soft freestone water, and below the surface is, doubtless, brine of sufficient strength to justify boring through the superincumbent sandstone and the construction of salt works.

cinnati, and sent to sea last spring, is
pronounced by the most competent judges

timber imported into Great Britain. St.
* British America furnishes three-fourt
McCulloch's Com. Dict.

of the

Aands of

Black-walnut is now cut on the banks of our rivers, floated to New-Orleans, shipped to Boston, sawed into veneers, and often brought back to us as the covering of bulky and fragile furniture. The tree which leaves us at a price of a few hours' labor, comes back at the cost of five hundred days' labor.

Indiana millwrights can furnish two-inch oak plank at ten dollars per thousand, while its price in the eastern ship-yards ranges from thirty-five to sixty dollars per thousand. Pine masts can be floated from the Alleghany, Kanawha and the Cumberland rivers, at In the productions of the forest, then, we half their eastern prices. Other timber, have incalculable advantages over England such as black locust for ribs, poplar and and Belgium. The materials are much more chestnut for keels, black walnut for orna- convenient for combination with the power. mental work, can be had at vastly less than The same remark is true of our minerals, eastern rates. We have the soft iron ore for of which iron is the most important. fastenings, anchors and cables; hemp for Of the iron stone, and argillaceous iron cordage; cheap food for the builders and ore, we have inexhaustible quantities in the riggers; and then we have downward and south-western counties, and bog-iron ore, as outward freight for any port where the best market for ship and cargo can be found. As high as the falls of the Ohio and the falls of the Wabash and White rivers, ships of four hundred tons, and drawing, when fully laden, seventeen feet, can be towed to sea one hundred days in the year, and at the time when the flatboatmen are guarding against the dangers of snags, sawyers and winds, which could not harm the vessel.

I dwell the longer on this subject because I regard this business as one of very great importance to our agriculturists who are now subjected to high freights and insuranceswho are delayed in getting their produce to an uncertain market-and who are yearly subjected at New Orleans, to high charges and to the losses attending the exposure of perishable articles on the levee of that city during the time occupied in effecting sales and making reshipments. All that is wanted to bring the ship-builders to us is to inform them of the quality of our materials, the conveniences where these materials abound, the capacity of our streams, and the abundance of our freights.

Bring the ship-builders, and the speculators in produce from New-York and NewOrleans will come here and buy and ship our produce; we shall receive the money at home, and not be compelled to risk foreign markets and foreign agents.

This business requires but a moderate capital, and it would afford immediate relief. Had it been introduced ten years ago the farmers in the Wabash valley would have since saved, on their shipments of produce, enough to have constructed their railroads from Terre Haute, Lafayette and Vincennes, to their eastern termini in the state.

There are very many other articles of which wood is the chief material, and in the aggregate, costing a large amount of money, which should be made at home, and are now imported from most unnatural sources. For instance pails and tubs; almost every steamboat which touches at the southern parts of 31,500. brings nests of these articles made ior of New-England.

is said, in the north-western counties of the state-none of this is regarded as valuable unless it is at least equal to the best English ore-while much of ours will yield double the per centage of that of England and Belgium.

Iron stone in South Wales is now raised with the coal 1800 feet, and the coal must be coked before it will smelt the ore. By improved modern processes our ore, found on the surface, can be smelted by the coal itself. In the production of iron the wages of labor could not be lowered to English rates, simply because the miner and iron worker here can produce two or three times the quantity that their competitors in Wales or Northumberland could produce.

Indiana now sends abroad her bulky and perishable corn and meat, which can be produced equally cheap by the ignorant Russian serf, to the extent of over one million of dollars a year in exchange for coarse fabrics of iron-such as axes, scythes, spades and hoes, which are made of ore and by coal far inferior to her own; and the loss on the carriage both ways is a self-imposed tax on her labor and capital. She not only sends the tree to New-England, but she sends a thousand miles for the axe to cut down the tree, and across the ocean for the chain to drag the tree to the river. She is a producer and a consumer, and, as such, pays the freights and loses the profits.

Of potter's clay she has enough of all the ordinary qualities to supply the world, and yet she sends to Staffordshire for her common plates, pays a duty of 33 per cent., a freight of over 50 per cent., and an extra profit corresponding with the distance of over 20 per cent., on an article, which, considering the price of food and the difference in taxes, can be made cheaper on the White River than in Staffordshire.

There is now a new-born town on the upper Ohio, called Liverpool, where coarse potter's ware is now made, and sold at half the cost of the imported article; and this is now forcing its way into common use, despite the opposition of deal,s in such goods;

who, like other merchants, make the high-ed by the girl in the fabrication of the yard est profits on the most costly and distantmade fabrics. The further the source of supply, the less chance has the consumer of detecting imposition.

By the way, this traffic in goods is a curious study. Our retail merchant is familiar with the cost of staple goods made near home; by the prices of these he judges of the fairness of the wholesale dealer; these staples are often put at cost by the jobber, to obtain the favorable opinion of his customers. Where, then, are the profits of the New-York and Philadelphia jobbers? They must live and make enough to pay enormous rents. Why, on sleazy calicoes, made in England; on German trinkets; on French silks so very changeable that the tint of the rose on them will last but a summer's morning with these distant-made fabrics our retail merchant and his customers are semi-annually imposed on; and so will ever be while our policy is to consume what we do not produce, and to produce what we do

not consume.

Another of our great staples is wool. Now, our bags of wool, and imported bales of woolen cloths and carpets, are meeting and crossing each other on routes of a thousand miles, connecting us with eastern mills, operated by power more than five times as expensive as our own. Here again we are producers and consumers, and pay the freights and lose the profits.

The price of wool here, in its various grades of preparation, will average, perhaps, not over fifteen cents a pound, and when it reaches the eastern mill will average twentyfive cents; it is spun and woven into carpets, for instance, and becomes worth eighty cents; on its return to us it has advanced to one dollar. Here distance has added ten cents to the value of the material which has been combined with seventy-five cents of foreign

labor.

For the yard of carpet we pay first the one and a half pounds of wool, at twenty-two and a half cents; to make up the seventyseven and a half cents we send to the carder, spinner and weaver of the carpet factory, a bushel and a half of wheat, or five bushels of corn, they paying the carriage.

of cloth is not one-half that employed by the man in the production of the five bushels of corn. Our wool, in the eastern market, is in competition with the wool of South America, and our wool-growers are competing with the wool-grower of South America, who pays nothing for land or pasturage, and has to support neither preacher nor teacher. He can produce as much wool without as we can with the schoolmaster; but he has neither the power nor the skill to make cloth. We can combine a single pound of wool with the power, skill, food, wood and iron, and send the yard of cloth to Brazil, and bring back in exchange for it, fifteen pounds of wool, and enough coffee to pay all the expenses.

The southern section of Indiana is admirably adapted to the cultivation of hemp. That which is now grown is put chiefly into coarse bagging and rope, because we cannot send it to the seaports of the world, where are the manufactories of cordage and sails. The Russian slaves will forever keep it out of the markets of Glasgow and Liverpool, and ge nerally will undersell us in New-York. But the Russian slaves are too ignorant to make "duck" and cordage, and they have no available power. If we will put up the proper machinery, we can rig our ships at home and export sail cloth to Riga and St. Petersburgh.

Room will not admit of the enumeration of very many other productions of the state which should, and eventually must be manufactured within its limits. I pass to the consideration of a staple, which, in its rude and perfect forms, now nearly controls the commerce, the exchanges, and the policy of the commercial world. The field of produc tion of this staple extends to within a few hundred miles of our inexhaustible power and well supplied granaries. The coal of Great Britain and Belgium and the water power of New-England have attracted the cotton of the South, from three to seven thousand miles, and the consumers of cotton goods have not only paid the expense of its removal, but also freights on distant shipments, of subsist ence, the commissions of numerous factors, the dividends on costly roads, and the taxes Now, on good land, an industrious man of expensive governments. The food prowill produce an average of two and two-thirds ducers of the upper, and the cotton produ bushels of corn a day, and wheat is the pro-cers of the lower, sections of this valley are portion of one and half to five. For this yard depressed, because the product of their joint of carpet, then, we exchange nearly two days labors is combined at such a cost in distant labor and one and a half pounds of wool. workshops; because it has to support too The actual capital employed to produce the many carriers, too many roads, too many former is actually less than that required to navies and armies. On investigation, these produce the latter. The carpet weaver has producers are just beginning to find that ca spent no more time at the power loom in pital and skill are easily transported, and learning the trade than our farmer's daugh- that our home power is vastly more conve ters have at the house loom; her labor is not nient and less costly than that to which we as severe, and the quantity of labor employ-have so long been tributary. Further inves

reports, we can safely challenge the world to show 23,000,000 of acres in one body, capable of sustaining and employing as large a population as can those of Indiana.

and stone, specially useful to the manufac-ine our forests and mines, and have their full turer, can be found on each formation. In the two former, the coal, stone, iron and earth, are deeply buried in the bowels of the earth; in the latter, they meet the hand of the traveler on the surface. New-England has very few of these auxiliaries to her power. She has been enabled to compete with her rivals, by exemption from government exactions, and by comparative nearness to certain materials and markets.

Indiana, like the other districts, has also a line of power. This line extends from the Ohio in Perry county, to Perryville in Vermilion county, or about 150 miles. There is probably another line through Spencer, Warwick, Pike, Knox and Sullivan, but as this has not yet been clearly defined, we limit this review to that section of the lower stratum of coal and above the plane of high water. This will average about four miles in width, and give an area of 600 square miles of power. In most of these square miles there is an average of 50,000,000 bushels of coal, at least, and if we allow an average of four and a half feet thickness to the stratum, over 125,000,000 bushels. The smaller quantity will give an amount of power, for hundred of years, equal to the average of 150 places of water power in New-England.

The coal and auxiliary minerals of Belgium have concentrated population, created im. mense wealth, constructed rail-roads, drained morasses, leveled hills, made barren wastes fertile, and while all this has been done, the people have paid high prices for food (so high that farming land often brings $300 per acre), and enormous expenses of government.

with advantage, and there cannot be found, In truth, compare fact with fact, advantage the sun does not shine upon,36,000 contiguous square miles of hill and dale, so highly favor ed by nature, and which contains so many physical elements of prosperity as those with in the limits of Indiana. (1849.)

Among the two or three hundred thousand INDUSTRY-OPENING OF NEW BRANCHES. vegetables and animals that God has created to satisfy our natural and artificial wants, there are very few that we have yet acclimated or domesticated, or know how to employ. However few they may be, we continue to increase them, and our power to make acquisitions would appear to have no limits but those of creation. A considerable number of the plants which grow among us have been brought very recently from cliuseful to notice this fact. mates quite different from ours. It will be

the peach, the French bean, the tarragon, the Thus, Asia has given us hemp, the cherry, onion, rhubarb, mint, the mulberry, the citron, the lime, the orange, the chesnut, the pine of Siberia, the pine of Jerusalem, the plane tree of the East, the aloe, the rose of Provence, the mallow rose, the millet, the cypress, and so forth. Grain and buckwheat we got from the Levant, and the olive from Africa.

Europe has borrowed from America the The same materials have given Central Eng-potato, the maize, the tobacco, the banana, land wealth beyond computation, and an in- the love-apple, the strawberry, the medlar fluence that affects the world. tree, and a hundred other trees, fruits, plants, and flowers.

Power alone, of another character, and of a more costly kind, has made sterile NewEngland the garden of America. One of its results is the construction, in one state alone, and within fifteen years, of 700 miles of rail-road, at a cost of $35,000,000. Another exhibition of its value is found in the investments made by that single state within two years and a half, and in stocks and public works, of over $50,000,000.

Now, is there any possible reason why like causes here should not produce like results? If our power is cheaper, our ores more pure, our food more abundant, our taxes lighter, our instruments of labor more convenient and less expensive than in those of other countries, are we not reasonably to expect developments and progress, corresponding to such advantages? and are we not imperiously called on by our own interests to ascertain the full extent of these sources of wealth and indepeud

Within three or four centuries, Europe and America have been literally invaded with vegetables from all parts of the globe. We live almost entirely upon what has been borrowed from other countries; and it is but the advance guard of the immense quantity and variety which science, and the rapid intercommunication between the different parts of the world, will give us. choose from the general herbal of creation all We are at liberty to that suits us.

that we can appropriate. It would almost be I cannot give an inventory of all the riches an endless labor to give such a catalogue of creation. I will but glance at a few among the alimentary plants-the artocarpe, (so precious to the inhabitants of Tahiti,) the sagotier, the palm-cabbage, the bamboo of Celebes, (of which the young sprouts have a delicious flavor,) the cocoa tree, (of which the fruit is both meat and drink,) the gum tree, When we shall have sent men of high scien- the bread fruit, the sugar palm, the plantain tific acquirements, to explore our hills and and banana, the tamarind, the papayer, the plains, and to analyze our ores, to exam-mangosteen, &c. Among the textile plants

ence?