MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES. 1. AN EAST INDIAN COAL MINE. 2. FRENCH COAL. 3. THE SECRET POWER OF THE BRITISH NATION. AN EAST INDIAN COAL MINE. DR. SAMUEL LILLY, Consul-General to India, has written a letter, descriptive of a coal mine which he visited, to his friends in the United States. The mines are in the Raneegunge coal field, which is tapped by the East India Railway, and in which, in 1860, there were 49 collieries in operation, the joint production whereof was 305,682 tons. The following is a portion of the letter referred to above: Calcutta, March 14, 1862. "During my trip I visited the Bengal Company's coal mines at Raneegunge, some 180 miles northwest of this. The region is a hilly one, washed, or rather drained in the wet season by streams which are now nearly or quite dry. The surface is barren, except in the wet season, when, by securing the water in pools, some rice and a few vegetables are raised. The overlooking rock at the mines is a micaceous sandstone and quite soft. The opening I visited has been worked a number of years, and is entered by 130 steps cut in the rock, the overlying portion of which was taken off; in other words, instead of going down a tunnel or slope, as in your region in a car, we walked down an open staircase. The vein worked is about seven feet thick; the coal is bituminous in character, but no skill or science has as yet been able to coke it. The coal is hauled from the breasts, say where now worked, some threefourths of a mile in a hand-car, and hoisted up in baskets perpendicularly by gins turned by women, or drawn up by steam by a chain working over a pully and cylinder to the surface, when it is placed in railroad cars to be sent to market. The mines are perfectly dry, and even dusty. gang of miners consists of ten persons, a portion of whom are women. These gangs mine 100 maunds each on an average. A maund is 80lbs. The miners work with bar and wedges, no powder being used. A very smart active miner will sometimes earn eight annas per diem, but many do not average more than one-fourth that sum, so that the pay is from six to twenty-four cents per diem for each person. All these are natives of course; and I am told by the superintendent, a very intelligent man, that it is impossible to introduce any improvements in mining. There are a number of collieries worked in this country, but the one I visited is almost the only one which pays dividends to the stockholders. This coal is used for steam and culinary purposes, and is sold in California for five to seven annas per pound, whilst English coals sell for nine annas. A I am told that some mines in the eastern portion of Bengal yield a coal similar to the Welsh semi-anthracite, but there being no facilities for getting it to market, save the uncertain one of rivers, which are nearly dry a large portion of the year, it does not pay to work them. Railways are being constructed and the country opened up, so that it is thought in a few years they will be brought into profitable use and the English coals driven entirely from the market. Iron, copper, &c., abound in some regions, but as there is no limestone in convenient proximity, and the coals not being cokeable (I invent a term), they are not worked to advantage. All these defects are being remedied, and it is believed that a bright future is open to various metalurgic operations in India. The railways are constructed very substantially and at great cost. The East India Railway which extends some 1,000 miles N. W. from here, is to be a portion of the line connecting Calcutta and Bombay. It is now open to Monghyr, 304 miles. I went to that place. The country through which it passes is a vast plain, traversed by some streams which are from one-half to one and one-half mile wide in the rains. The most of the masonry and the ballast of the road is formed of bricks. Near Monghyr there is an upheave of nearly pure flint rocks which crosses the plain; it is some 300 feet in height, and, as it is very abrupt in its margine, the road traverses it by a tunnel 900 feet in length. I did not learn the cost of making the tunnel, but I did learn that two or three sets of contractors were ruined by it, and the Company finished it themselves. The engines and carriages are all in the English style, the former being built in England; all the material for the track is imported from there, to even the cross-ties and chairs." FRENCH COAL. For many years the belief in France was that French coal was totally unsuitable for the steam engines of vessels, and in consequence, English alone was employed. But latterly the discovery has been made that the French coal can be employed to advantage, and the probability accordingly is that the English will be set aside. In a recent number of a newspaper of Lorient is this paragraph :-" French coal has completely replaced English in the Imperial navy. Our port receives every day considerable supplies from the mines of Loire; they are brought to Lorient by canals and rivers. Thus the problem which has been so long discussed as to the supply of the navy has been solved to the advantage of French coal, which can now, with some modification in the apparatus for burning, be substituted in all circumstances for the fuel which heretofore we have brought from England." THE SECRET POWER OF THE BRITISH NATION. 66 One of the representatives of the continental press at the International Exhibition, after wondering where the secret power of the British nation lies, traces it to their ravenous stomachs: "Deprive," says he, an Englishman of his strong appetite, that enables him to digest bleeding meat or highlyspiced rounds of beef, and you deprive him of all incentive to action, if he be of Saxon race, for the descendants of the Normans are yet greedy of power. He does not care for society--he has no ambition to please-his indifference to glory is so great as to become contemptuous, and he scorns the artistic French and Italians as dillettanti, so insensible is he to the fine arts. He is without a spice of gallantry in his composition, for the most beautiful women in the world are grossly neglected for the club, the billiard-room, or the ring. Hunger is his great stimulant to activity, and appetite pushes on this extraordinary people to execute the most gigantic enterprises. THE BOOK TRADE. The Tariff Question Considered in regard to the Policy of England and the interests of the United States; with statistical and comparative tables. By ERASTUS B. BIGELOW. LITTLE, BROWN & Co., Boston. D. APPLETON & Co,, 443 Broadway, New York. In these times of great excitement, when the "On to Richmond" furor absorbs so large a share of our dreams, both sleeping and waking, books with modest titles are not apt to receive proper attention. The author of this work, however, is so widely known as a skilful and successful inventor, and so well fitted by his own experience to discuss in an intelligent manner subjects affecting our manufacturing interests, that we trust an exception will be made in his favor. In regard to the general topic of free trade and protective tariffs, one would be inclined to think that little new could be said, and yet Mr. BIGELOW throws about his subject great interest, and backs up his arguments by elaborate and well prepared tables. The present, too, is a time when these questions are invested with additional importance, by reason of the late chauges made in our revenue laws, and the peculiar position of our country. But we do not propose here to discuss these matters. We would refer our readers to this book for much that is interesting and valuable, whether they agree with the conclusions reached or not. We subjoin the following, taken from the author's introductory notice, which will explain more fully the object and scope of the work: "The vast and various commerce of Great Britain, and our own intimate relations with that commerce; the general tone of British statesmen and of the British press in reference to the commercial regulations of other countries; the zeal and pertenacity with which the free trade maxims and example of that great nation are commended to our adoption and imitation, not only by Englishmen, but by many among ourselves-all unite to give especial interest and importance to the policy of England in regard to the Tariff Question. To understand that policy, we must study its history, and learn in what circumstances and by what necessities it has been modified and developed. To ascertain how far and in what particulars the political and commercial economy of Great Britain can be safely taken as a guide to that of the United States, we must know and be able to compare the actual condition of the two countries in respect to their agriculture, manufactures, commerce, industry, and finance. "To aid in such an investigation, and to furnish the basis of safe inference and argument, I have put into tabular form, in an appendix, the most important facts in the These tables are, for the most part, not mere copies or abstracts, but the result of labored and careful selection, comparison, and combination." case. They present, it is believed, a mass of valuable statistics, essential to a right understanding of the Tariff Question, and nowhere else to be found in so accessible a form. Rifle Shots at Past and Passing Events. A Poem in Three Cantos. Being Hits at Time on the Wing. By an Inhabitant of the Comet of 1861. Philadelphia : T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS. Price twenty-five cents. A thoroughly mysterious volume as to origin, but supposed by competent judges from the manner of shooting and failure to hit, to emanate from one of the deceased sportsmen of the Pickwick Club, possibly from the lamented Winkle himself. The lifelong proclivity to bag game has been developed, by the extended opportunities of a freed spirit, into a wider ambition, still hampered however, as upon earth, with the most desperate luck. The Channings. A Domestic Novel of Real Life. of The Earl's Heirs," "East Lynne," &c., &c. BROTHERS. Price, fifty cents. By Mrs. HENRY WOOD. Author Philadelphia: T. B. PETERSON & We had occasion in one of our late numbers very briefly to mention "The Channings." A better acquaintance with the book, however, proves it worthy of a better notice, and we are always glad to render justice to merit of any kind. Hitherto we have not been especially pleased with Mrs. Wood's productions; while they contained much that was attractive they failed to awake any particular sympathy or approval. People who have never been murdered, poisoned or clandestinely married themselves, and who have no intimate friends who have suffered in that way, can hardly be expected to appreciate fictions founded solely upon these mild errors and their results. "The Channings" is of an altogether different stamp, and is decidedly superior to all of the other works of this authoress which we have yet seen. The plot is a quiet story of probabilities; the style agreeable and sprightly, and the moral excellent without being dull. Many of the characters are very good, especially Arthur, the Jenkinses, and Roland Yorke, and the boys are thorough boys, and not stuffed roundabouts. A few more books like the "Channings" would deprive Mrs. Wood of the somewhat equivocal title of a sensation novelist, and would win her a wider and higher name. 1. The Yellow Mask: or the Ghost in the Ball Room. By WILKIE COLLINS. Author of "The Woman in White," "The Dead Secret," &c. &c Philadelphia: T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS. Price, twenty-five cents. 2. Sister Rose: or the Ominous Marriage. By the Same. Price, twenty-five cents. 3. The Stolen Mask: or the Mysterious Cash Box. By the Same. Price, twentyfive cents. The scenes of these three new books of WILKIE COLLINS, are laid in widely different localities. "The Yellow Mask" is a little Italian intrigue with a few dashes of priestcraft and artist life. "Sister Rose" is a story of the days of the French Revolution, and painful as all such stories must be in a greater or less degree. "The Stolen Mask" is a tale of simple English life, hearty and genial, and in our judgment by far the most agreeable of the three. New American Cyclopedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. Vol. Fifteenth. Spiritualism-Uzziah. New York: D. APPLETON & Co., 443 & 445 Broadway. London: 16 Little Britain. 1862. A new volume of the Cyclopedia invariably receives our cordial welcome and close attention, because it is invariably worthy of it. The present one contains among many others, articles upon Steam, Stammering, Stereoscopes and Fort Sumter, upon the Telegraph, Telescopes, Thermometer, and Tides, besides innumerable biographical notices of eminent persons. Conspicuous among the latter are those of Madame de Stael, the two Stevensons, Sterne, Steele, Swedenborg, Swift, Talleyrand, Tasso, Thierry, Thorwaldsen, Titeall, De Toqueville, Turenne and Turner. As many of the best writers of the country are engaged upon this work, it is hardly necessary to add, that all the articles, embracing as they do, nearly every department of human knowledge, are treated in a scholarly and able manner. THE MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. Established July, 1839. VOLUME XLVII. ART. EDITED BY WILLIAM B. DANA. OCTOBER, 1862. NUMBER IV. CONTENTS OF No. IV., VOL. XLVII. PAGE. L. GENERAL AVERAGES CONSOLIDATION..... ... 305 IL PACIFIC RAILROAD-CONVENTION OF CORPORATORS. SPEECH OF S. DEWITT BLOODGOOD, ESQ., OF NEW YORK...... III. DISTILLATION OF PETROLEUM.... COMMERCIAL CHRONICLE AND REVIEW. Business-Government Demands-Deposits-Government Paper-Taxes-Effect on Manufactures-Importation-Duties-Demand Notes-Imports-Exchange-Exports-Specie-Grain-Harvests Abroad-More Grain for Less Money-Cotton Importe into Great Britain-Receipts from the United States --Exports of Cotton Goods-Rise in Cotton-Specie Movement-Efflux of Gold-Breadstuffs as a Remittance-Effect on Stocks-Comparative Rates -Aggregate Export of Gold-Deposits at the Banks-Specie in the Banks -Their Profit on the Rise-Government Interest in October-Specie in France and England-Influence of the India Trade-Indian Demand for Specie-American Gold to buy Indian Cotton-Government Receives Gold on Deposits-The Course of Political Events...... 313 326 833 |