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in distance can be saved over the ninety-five miles of staging in Mississippi by the Mississippi Central road. These various connections, which will lessen the distance on the interior route one hundred and ten miles, cannot be completed under two years.

On the other hand, a glance at the railroad map attached to Dinsmore's Railroad Guide for May, shows that connections are in progress calculated to effect a corresponding reduction of distance on the seaboard route between the great commercial capitals of the North and the South. Some fifty miles only are wanting to complete the Delaware road from Seaford, the point it has now reached, to Cherrystone, a point on the eastern shore nearly opposite Norfolk. The line from Weldon to New York, via Norfolk, Cherrystone, and Philadelphia, would be considerably shorter than the present by Richmond, Washington city, and Baltimore; and it would still be shorter if the air line already projected from Norfolk to New York, via Cape Henry and Cape Charles, crossing the Delaware bay at Cape May, was only pushed to completion.

We have compared the actual distances, and shown by the figures that the advantage claimed for the Western route has no existence in fact. Let us now turn to another route whose claims in point of time we have had occasion to present once before.

By railroad from New York to Wilmington or Charleston, thence by steamer to Fernandina, thence to Cedar Keys by Florida railroad, thence by steamer to New Orleans, will insure the transit of mails and passengers from New York to New Orleans, or New Orleans to New York, in or under four days. This, we understand, the companies will guaranty. No inland or other line through mountain gorges can hope for the same certainty in its winter connections; indeed, it may fairly be questioned whether the time proposed can be averaged by that line even in the summer.

By the way, we notice from some of our exchanges that a great mistake exists in regard to the great Northern and Southern mails of the country, the idea being entertained, or at least attempted to be conveyed, that these mails are hereafter to go by the route across the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee. This, we learn from good authority, is not the fact. It is true that a single daily mail is to be sent by the mountain route after the first day of July, but that does not imply a discontinuance of the mails along the great seaboard line. Indeed the importance of a double daily mail to all the important Atlantic cities and towns, to say nothing of the whole southern Atlantic tier of States, is too great to admit for a moment the idea of the removal of either of the mails from this line."

5.-ROUTE TO THE NORTH VIA COLUMBIA, S. C.

We find in a recent issue of the South Carolinian the following letter dated the 1st inst., and written on board of one of the Chesapeake Bay steamers. It gives the impressions of a traveler, who has tried the new central route to the North via Columbia, Charlotte, and Raleigh, and we re-publish it for the benefit of those who contemplate a visit to the Northern States during the approaching summer:

"The new schedule on the Charlotte and North Carolina railroad by Raleigh, works admirably and successfully, and the traveling community begin to appreciate it. Just think of our leaving Columbia on Thursday evening, at seven o'clock, and taking supper on Friday evening, on board the fine Chesapeake steamer, on soft crabs and oysters. The trip from Columbia to Portsmouth, four hundred and sixty-one miles, is made in twenty-three hours, averaging twenty miles per hour, inclusive of all stoppages. No time is lost on the road, and you reach Weldon at the same time as the other train by Wilmington, which starts four hours sooner. Who wants to travel faster? You take breakfast at Haw river, and dine at Weldon, at friend Moody's, where you have a good dinner, and arrive at Portsmouth at five p. m., to take the steamer up the bay.

"The North Carolina Central road is the finest in the United States, and it is managed, as are the others on this line, with great care and efficiency. A great

relief to passengers is the new arrangement of a baggage master on the Raleigh and Gaston road, to change checks and save them any trouble about baggage, at the great confusion of Weldon, where so many roads meet.

"We have so often described the delightful trip on board the North Carolina or Louisiana, that it is scarcely admissible to repeat it, but we may say that in our idea it is the perfection of traveling, after a long and dusty ride; with stratum after stratum of dust and ashes covering you before your time to be reduced to them, almost fossilising you, it is delightful to get the comforts of these noble steamers, where you can enjoy free locomotion, delightful air, beautiful scenery, with the pleasure of good company, and a supper to satisfy the most capricious. You have river navigation and sea air, with the most entire satisfaction that any one can enjoy in traveling. We cannot too highly recommend the advantages of the Bay line over any route to the North. Railroads are essential for speed, but there are no comforts in them-here you really enjoy yourself, and are well repaid for your patronage. The steamers are admirably managed, and the politeness and courtesy of the officers most agreeable. The sight of the full inoon rising on the calm, placid bay, was worth a day's travel to the sea, and the enjoyment of the evening was protracted to a late hour of the beautiful night.

"A TRAVELLER."

6.-RAILROADS IN TEXAS.

THE Houston Telegraph gives the following summary of the railroads in that State:

The present condition of the principal railroads in Texas is, as near as we can arrive at it, about as follows. The total length of grade as well as the amount of iron laid on the roads is embraced in the following statement:

Of these eighty two miles of completed road, over which daily trains of cars are running, are connected with this city. On the Southern Pacific we believe the cars are now making daily trips, as well as on the five miles of the S. A. and M. G. The G. H. and H. road is not yet in operation. There are now in operation on these roads nine locomotives and a full complement of passenger and freight cars.

Within one year the amount of road graded has been one hundred and three miles, and the amount of iron laid sixty-nine miles. The actual cost of all the railroad work yet done in the State has been about two and a half millions of dollars, of which there has been expended in the last year about $1,100,000. The probability is that the expenditure in the future will be above that of the last twelve months, and we may expect to see in March, 1859, fully seventyfive, and, perhaps, a hundred miles of road in operation more than we have

now.

These railroads are already doing wonders for our State. They will yet make it the greatest country in the world. Who yet is backward in this great progressive movement of linking every part of Texas by iron bands to its great center? Who will ignore the great destiny which awaits us? Let us rejoice in the progress already made, and set to work with a new zeal to secure the object of the ambition of all of us.

THE FACTORIES OF LOWELL-CARPET FACTORIES. 113

DEPARTMENT OF MANUFACTURES.

1. THE FACTORIES OF LOWELL.

IN 1841 the number of operatives employed at Lowell was 9,717, and the wages paid them $1,349,044; in 1852 the number of operatives had increased to over twelve thousand, and the wages to nearly $2,000,000. In 1858-but we give the figures in detail:

We learn from the United States Economist, that great progress is making in the development and extension of this branch of industry. The inhabitants of this country, in proportion to its population, consume more carpets than those of any other. A well-carpeted room is felt to be a necessity. The list of carpet manufacturers include:-The Lowell Co., the Hartford Carpet Co., the Bigelow Carpet Co., near Boston, the New England Worsted Co., A. J. Smith & Co., and Higgins & Co., manufacturers, of this city, and McCallum & Co., of Philadelphia.

Alone, of all these, the New England Worsted Co. (owing to its connection with Lawrence, Stone & Co.) suspended during the Fall. The manufacture is in good condition and is rapidly increasing. It consumes from fifty.to sixty thousand pounds of wool, principally Smyrna and Buenos Ayres wools, per

annum.

Carpets are now a staple article with all jobbers, and not confined to exclusive carpet dealers.

Messrs. Higgins & Co. manufacture the fine Brussels carpeting so much in request, and also the Tapestry Velvet and Rennals. The latter article is also produced by the New England Worsted Co., as well as at Sing Sing; and the Rennals also by the Lowell Co., the Hartford Carpet Co., and other establishments. The Segovia carpets, of the best quality, are made by the Lowell Co., the Hartford Carpet Co., by Messrs. Higgins & Co., of this city, and McCallum & Co., of Philadelphia. Messrs. A. & J. Smith, of this city, manufacture a style

of Tapestry Ingrain, which is peculiar to this establishment. The inferior ingrain carpets are manufactured in Philadelphia, and are in extensive demand. The stock of carpet wools on hand is large, and prices now favor the manufacturer, as they are able at present to buy at less than any fresh wools can be imported at.

3.-SPINNING COTTON ON THE PLANTATIONS.

THE Mobile papers acknowledge the receipt of cotton yarn from the plantation of George S. Yerger, of Mississippi, manufactured directly from the seed cotton by the process of Mr. Henry, which has been so fully explained in previous volumes of the Review. We copy the following letter from Mr. Henry: "YERGER'S PLANTATION, May 7, 1858.

"We have been delayed, but, nevertheless, have been progressing pretty well. The gin house has been well floored to suit me, and a room built to put my gin and lap in; the shafting and pulleys are all perfectly set and arranged. My gin and lap, the lappers, ten cards, two drawing frames, two speeders, and four reels, with other things well put up, and we have passed cotton through them and they work finely; and no earthly doubt remains of complete success. We are obliged, however, to seal the room overhead, as the dust from the cotton room above, is worse than Mr. Gilder expected, and would injure the machinery were the room not sealed. So soon as that is done, we shall put up the spinning frames, and, directly after, go to spinning up the seed cotton. We have some sixty bales.

"The great feature of success is the number and sort of hands, we shall use the machinery with. These we have already selected out, and have them training; they run thus: One old man sixty-five years old at the 'gin and lap;' one man (maimed, fore finger off) at 'cards;' one old man sixty years old at drawing;' one boy ten, and one girl twelve years old at 'speeders; three boys, seven to nine, and three girls and boys, ten years old, spinning;' six women and girls to the reels; but one a good field hand, and she a girl fourteen years old-17 all told.

"These hands, you remark, do the ginning, grinding the meal for all the force on the plantation, and crush all the ear corn for the mules, horses, and oxen as well as spin up the four hundred and fifty bales of cotton.

On this plantation there were four men engaged in the operation of ginning, and when the baleing was to be done additional were required.

"His steam-engine has consumed three cords of wood a day till we came here, and it will run all my machinery and the rest with one and a half, to one and three-fourths per day.

"It consumes now, when we are running all, one and three-fourths cords of wood per day; but we shall further fix it so it will not consume over one and a half cords a day.

"Now, I wish to know if any one can point me to any invention that compares with this! I know there is none which does.

"The enclosed is riving, which was made on my machinery. The spinners say it is perfect. It was seed cotton, put first into my gin and lap, then it went through my cards, then through drawing heads, and then through the speeders to be finished by the spindles.

"Yours, truly,

THE Charleston Courier speaks of this product from a factory at Providence, Rhode Island:

This specimen was prepared from seed furnished by the best Mississippi cotton, and is submitted as a specimen of the best and purest oil, suitable for table purposes. Other grades of the oil have also been tested, and recommended for burning and for lubrication, and generally for all the purposes for which oil is demanded. The prospect of such an application of cotton seed should receive

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the attention of all who are interested in promoting the uses and applications of our staples, and we urge on all who have occasion to use or test oil, the expediency of procuring at least a sample of this new variety. The general and extensive use of this oil will not only increase our economic and available resources of commerce and trade, but will largely improve and benefit the culture of the cotton for the purposes now sought in the lint. This, we conceive, will result from such an increased value given to the seed as will induce planting with the most approved varieties, and will also stimulate and induce greater care in the preparation of the cotton for market.

5.-FACTORIES AT NEW ORLEANS.

THE New Orleans Picayune speaks thus encouragingly of the experimental factory for hemp and cotton wool in that city:

"The engine, a low-pressure one, built by Messrs. Leeds & Co., is one of the most beautiful specimens of workmanship that can be found anywhere, having several appendages that are new. An examination of this specimen of Southern manufacture will convince the most skeptical that we are not compelled to leave Louisiana for the most difficult and complicated of all machinery. It cost about $9,000. The machinery for the manufacture of hemp is of the latest pattern, and produces a rope that in this market brings from to cent a pound more than any of more Northern manufacture. The factory produces 16,500 pounds of rope, or about 100 coils per day. The same machinery which twists the rope also winds it into coils. So simple is the duty of superintending the work that boys of ten to fifteen are the principal laborers in this department of the establishment. Every operation connected with the rope manufacture, the elevation of the bales of the raw material, the packing, the reduction of the shapeless mass to the silver, and the production of the rope itself, is performed by the aid of machinery.

Attached to this establishment, and forming a part of its operations, is a considerable amount of cotton machinery. The company, at present, confine their operations to the manufacture of cotton yarns, of which they produce 600 lbs. per day. The demand is much greater, at home, than they are able to supply, and the prices obtained are very remunerative.

"A hundred operatives are employed in this factory, and more than two hundred souls depend upon it for their subsistence. It adds more than fifty families to our permanent population. The appearance of the operatives indicates content and health, most of them presenting a ruddy glow not common in this climate, and all being neat and tidy in their apparel."

6. THE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN FACTORY SYSTEM.

THE United States Economist, referring to the increasing importation of provisions and materials into England, remarks:

"The whole is based upon a low money price, in order the more successfully to compete with the fabrics of other countries produced at a higher cost. It is evident that this process must ultimately have an end, since rival producers will imitate this policy of approximating the minimum cost of production France is already, and throwing off the burdens one by one which have helped to enhance the cost of her goods. If Germany, France, and Switzerland should remove the duty on raw cotton, it would be equal to a withdrawal of a premium on English goods. In America, where there is every element of cheaper cost than either in England or Europe, the foreign goods keep the market through the erroneous system of manufacture. In Lancashire, individuals and families mostly own the mills. These individuals are perfectly familiar with every practical branch of the business. The owner can generally himself supply the absence of an able hand, and can always detect an error that may lead to loss and waste. In the mills themselves there is no outlay of capital, except what tends necessarily to cheapen production. Not a shilling is spent for show, or pomp, or display. Every expenditure is made to bear directly upon the improved production of the fabric of a uniform texture and