Wheat, bushels of..... Rye, bushels of... Indian corn, bushels of.. Oats, bushels of.. Rice, pounds of.. Tobacco, pounds of... Ginned cotton, bales of 400 pounds each.. Wool, pounds of... Peas and beans, bushels of. Irish potatoes, bushels of.. Value of orchard products, in dollars.. Wine, gallons of.... Value of produce of market gardens. Cheese, pounds of.. Hay, tons of.... Other grass seeds, bushels of.. Hops, pounds of... Flax, pounds of.. Silk cocoons, pounds of... Cane sugar, hhds. of 1,000 pounds. Beeswax and honey, pounds of.. 1,027 1, 152 1,996, 809 66,586 1,075, 090 998, 614 45, 131 23,247 135, 359 7,828 757,226 55 1,280 10 8,791 371,498 18, 015 2,510 2 14 50 6 2,752 352, 893 18,971 $75,582 $514,685 4. It seems that, in proportion to the quantity of improved lands, Florida produces more cotton than any other State. So, also, in proportion to the slave population, she produces more cotton than any other slave State. So, also, in proportion to her entire population, she produces more cotton than any other State of the Union. 5. She produces more sugar (from cane) in proportion to the lands in cultivation, and also in proportion to her slave population, and also in proportion to her entire population, than any other State of the Union, except Louisiana and Texas. 6. Florida raises a greater quantity of tobacco than any of the other States, except Conneeticut, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri; and, in proportion to the lands in cultivation, and to the population, greater than several of those States. She raises a greater number of bushels of sweet potatoes than any State of the Union, in proportion to the land in cultivation, and slave population, and aggregate population. 7. The number of cattle in Florida compares with that of any State, in the same way. 8. No account of oranges, figs, olives, plantains, bananas, yams, or other tropical fruits, or of the coompty or arrow-root, or sisal-hemp, or other tropical productions, can be given at this time from this office. There is great difficulty in estimating the value of the different products of the different States, and of the same products in different States; but, from a general and hasty estimate from the best data I can refer to, and from comparison, I am satisfied the value of the agricultural products of Florida, (of course in the State,) in proportion to the area of improved lands, and to the population, slave or free, and both, will compare favorably with the value of the products of any State of the Union. When, therefore, the lower value of the land and of the agricultural implements used is estimated, and also the superior health of the State is considered, your anticipations of the comparison being advantageous to your State will be realized. Florida is behind many of the States in her corn crop, and she raises but a small quantity of wheat, rye, or oats; and it appears the value of all investments in the State of Florida in cotton manufactures is $80,000, which is of cotton goods-making 624,000 yards of sheeting annually. It is impossible at this moment to furnish the statistics of the lumber business in Florida, which amounts to a large sum annually. I have the honor to be, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant, Hon. E. C. CABELL. JOS. C. G. KENNEDY, Superintendent. Districts. F. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, Register's Office, August 25, 1852. DEAR SIR: I have caused a clerk to compile the memorauda desired by you of the statistics of commerce and navigation in Florida in 1850-'51, which are as follows: 1850, imports from foreign ports... 1851 .do........do . $95,109 94,997 2,607,968 3,939,910 Of the exports in 1850, $2,546,471 was from Appalachicola; and in 1851 there was $3,858,983 from the same port. In 1851, the foreign exports from St. Mark's were $61,755. Much more than half of the tonnage of the entire State is from Key West. Of the value of shipments of foreign or domestic merchandise or products from and to Florida ports, coastwise, to and from other ports of the United States, no returns are made to the treasury. It is presumed that the value of the shipments of cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar, lumber, tar, turpentine, and other products of Florida so shipped coastwise, vastly exceeds the value of the foreign importations. The exports, foreign and coastwise, from Florida ports, greatly exceed the products of the State. This you will perceive by comparison of the Census Office returns, and estimating them with the statistics you can procure from the chamber of commerce of each port, or merchants, of the coastwise exports, adding the latter to the foreign exports above given. This is accounted for by the fact that a large amount of the products of the States of Alabama and Georgia is sent to the Florida Gulf ports for shipment. I have the honor to be your obedient servant, N. SARGENT. Steam-marine of the United States on the Gulf of Mexico, from Cape Sable to the Rio Grande. The above is taken from Messrs. Gallagher & Mansfield's report of 1852. The steamers at Appalachicola are not stated. There are between fifteen and twenty steamers running on the Appalachicola, Chattahoochee, and Flint rivers, and in St. George Sound, and along the coast from that port, the tonnage of which amounts to perhaps 3,500 tons, and the number of hands so employed not less than 350. Messrs. G. & M. say, in a note to their account, "only those vessels at New Orleans which ply on the Gulf of Mexico" are given by them; the Mississippi river boats being stated in another part of their report. Key West is not given in the above; but there are not more than two steamers along the coast not included. The Gulf of Mexico and the Straits of Florida. The Gulf of Mexico is the southern boundary of this confederacy from the "Dry Tortugas" to the mouth of the Rio Grande del Norte; and it is remarkable for the absence of capes and of indentations, in comparison with other seas. The coast between these points is about 1,500 miles in extent. The streams emptying into the gulf from the State of Florida are mentioned in another part of this report. Proceeding westwardly, the following rivers debouch into the same common reservoir: The Alabama, Tombigbee, and Mobile rivers, with the waters of their respective tributaries, some reaching inland into the States of Mississippi and Georgia, enter the gulf through Mobile bay, from the State of Alabama. The Pearl and Pascagoula, from the State of Mississippi, and the mighty Mississippi, (appropriately styled "Pater Fluviorum,") flow by its different deltas through the State of Louisiana. Still further west, the Sabine, dividing Louisiana and Texas, and the Angelina and Neches; the Trinity and Buffalo bayou, (through Galveston bay;) the Brazos San Bernard, and the Colorado, (by Matagorda bay;) the Navidad and La Vaca (by La Vaca bay;) the Guadalupe and San Antonio by Pass Cavallo; and the Nueces-all flow into the gulf from the interior of Texas. The Rio Grande divides Texas from our sister republic of Mexico, and extends from its outlet, (latitude 25° 56′ north, longitude 97° 12′ west from Greenwich,) northwest, as such boundary, to El Paso, at the 32d parallel north latitude; and still further northward to its sources in the mountains of New Mexico, more than 1,300 miles in length from its mouth. The cities, towns, or shipping ports of Tampa, Cedar Keys, St. Mark's, Appalachicola, St. Joseph's, St. Andrew's, and Pensacola, in Florida; the city and shipping-port of Mobile, in Alabama; the towns of Pearlington and East Pascagoula, in the State of Mississippi; the city and port of New Orleans, in Louisiana; and Sabine City, Galveston, Houston, Velasco, Brazoria, Matagorda, Lavacca, Indianola, La Salle, Saluria and Copano, Corpus Christi, Brazos Santiago, and Brownsville, in Texas-are all situated on or contiguous to the shore of the gulf. The Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Vera Cruz, Tobasco, and Yucatan, to Cape Catoche, form the southwestern and southern gulf coast. The rivers Tigre, San Fernando, Santander, the Panuca, and the Tula, (by Tampico harbor,) the Tuspan, the Alvarado, and the San Juan, the Coatzacualcos, the Tobasco, Laguna de Santana, Lake de Terminos, the Rio San Pedro, the Usumasinta, and the San Francisco, with others of less importance, flow into the gulf from Mexico; and the towns of Matamoros, Tampico, Tuspan, Vera Cruz, Alvarado, Minatitlan, Frontero, Laguna, Vittoria, and Campeachy, Sisal and Merida, are all upon or near to the coast. A glance at the map of this continent will show that this great estuary is of an irregular circular form, embracing from 18° to 30° north latitude, (upwards of 750 miles,) and from 81° to 98° west longitude, (nearly 1,000 miles;) that the extent of the coast, from Tortugas to Cape Catoche, is about 2,700 miles; and that the waters of the gulf cover over 750,000 square miles. Inside the gulf there are none but small islands close to the mainland, except those off the capes of Florida and those adjacent to the coast of Yucatan. The distance from Tortugas (24° 31' north latitude, longitude 83° 07' west) to Cape Catoche (latitude 21° 30', longitude 87° 11') is a little more 260 miles, and the course about southwest. Projecting nearly between these two points, but several miles nearer to Cape Catoche than to Tortugas, is Cape Autonio, (latitude 21° 52', longitude 84° 59',) the southwestern extremity of the island of Cuba, which island reaches some 70 miles north and eastwardly, and then some 580 miles further to the east. Cuba on the south, and the reefs and keys of Florida on the north, (between 75 and 80 nautical miles distant,) form the entrance of the "Straits of Florida." It is more a practical fact than a mere figure of speech that these straits are but a continuance of every river falling into the Gulf of Mexico; and that the place where their united waters, flowing through these straits, mingle with those of the Atlantic ocean, is the true mouth of each and all of these rivers. The "straits" extend from the Tortugas up to latitude 27° 50', their entire length being more than three hundred miles; their course from Tortugas to Cape Florida is nearly east, and, after rounding that cape, is nearly north. After this change of course, they are confined, on the west side, by the eastern peninsular coast of Florida, and on the east side by the Bahama banks, the Bimini isles, and the westernmost Bahama islands, and the Matanilla reef, (to latitude 27° 35′ north, longitude 79° 11' west,) where their barrier on that side ceases. The distance from the "west head" of the "Great Bahama" island (latitude 26° 42′ north, longitude 79° 05' west) to the Florida shore, due west, (longitude 80° 3' west,) is less than seventy miles; and, in the entire course of those straits, at no point does their width exceed eighty miles. The immense waters of the gulf, contributed by the numerous rivers above named, and others of less magnitude, are all forced, on leaving the gulf, by the powerful currents coming into the mouth of the gulf from the south and southeast, through the Caribbean sea, from the coasts on this side. of both American continents as far south as the Amazon, and beyond Cape St. Roque, and even from the equator and western shores of Africa, across the Atlantic ocean, through these narrow straits. The vast volume of water thus confined rushes through these straits 'sometimes at a velocity of five miles per hour. After passing the Matanilla reef, the Gulf Stream, as it is called-gradually spreading till opposite the capes of the Delaware, it is widened to upwards of two hundred milescontinues increasing in width still further north and east; and its influence as a current, and upon the temperature of the waters of the North Atlantic, is perceptible as high up as the Banks of Newfoundland, and beyond the 44th degree of north latitude. There is no other such sea as the Gulf of Mexico, so entirely surrounded as it is by countries of such superior agricultural, mineral, and commercial resources. No similar gulf exists, the natural and indispensable outlet for vast interior States, with a population of many millions of republican freemen, unequalled by any people, noticed in ancient or modern history, for general intelligence, industry, enterprise, and independence, and who are consequently thriving and prosperous beyond example. These States extend upwards of twelve hundred miles from its shores. Their wealth is exhaustless. Their population may be quintupled, and they can still sustain such number in plenty! Their soil, and especially that of the great valley of the Mississippi, is of surpassing fertility; and their contributions to the commerce of the world, through this gulf, are the varied productions of a region spreading over 18 degrees of latitude and the same degrees of longitude, and adapted to the diversified wants of nearly every other country. And this great "inland sea," though easy of egress, is, at the same time, readily susceptible of defence as a mare clausum, by the States situate on its shores, against any foreign intrusion they may decide to interdict. The Mediterranean or Adriatic is not equal to it, nor the Baltic, nor the sea of Marmora, nor the Euxine, superior to it, in this respect. The realization of the magnificent project, conceived by the genius of Cortez, of making the Gulf of Mexico a great thoroughfare for the commerce between Europe and China and the East Indies, and the Pacific ocean generally, by a communication through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, will immeasurably augment the importance of this sea. To the benefits which that great man, more than three hundred years ago, foresaw would result to European commerce, must now be superadded the advantages such communication will give to American commerce with Asiatic countries, and in the Pacific, not inferior in value to that of Europe. But especially would such communication be valuable to the United States of America for the facilities and security it would afford to the intercourse and trade between those portions of this confederacy bordering on the Pacific ocean and those on the Atlantic side of this continent. It is not deemed extravagant to estimate that the trade, commerce, and navigation of the United States, through Tehuantepec alone, if a ship canal there be practicable, would, within five years from the completion of such canal, exceed the aggregate value of all the present external trade and commerce and navigation we now have, large as it is. Markets would then soon be open to our enterprising merchants in supplying to the hundreds of millions of inhabitants of Asia, and the rich, extensive, and populous islands in the Asiatic seas, not only articles of necessity, but also of luxury, from our surplus but still constantly increasing stores; and our trade with the islands in the Pacific, and to the foreign States on its shores, would, within the same period, increase tenfold. We could then, as to all this trade and commerce, enter into full competition with every other commercial power-and even if all were combined against us-on terms of great advantage, that would soon obtain and secure for us a permanent ascendency. A railroad across the same isthmus would result advantageously to us in the same way, though not to the same extent. A ship canal, or railroad, at either of the other routes of passage or transit to the Pacific, further south, generally spoken of, (Nicaragua, Panama, or Atrato)—and a railroad is already in progress at Panama— must advance our commerce and navigation in the same way; but it is not believed they can be as valuable to this country as the "Gulf route" would be, if put in successful operation. These great improvements are alluded to because, whichsoever of them is adopted, and if all of them should be put into operation, most of the trade, commerce, and navigation to or through them, or in any |