Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review

the demand for this tea steadily increased, and was as regularly supplied by the Chinese. At the present time the Ning-chow districts produce black teas only, while in former days they produced only green. If proof were wanting this would appear sufficient to show that black or green teas can be made from any variety of the tea plant, and that the change of color in the manufactured article depends entirely upon the mode of manipulation.

HIGH PRICE OF rent, fuel, FOOD, ETC., AT MAURITIUS.

A correspondent at Mauritius, understood to be the United States Consul, writing to the Department of State, at Washington, gives the following statement of the cost of articles connected with living at that place :

Mauritius is the most expensive place in the world to live in. I will state some facts. At Singapore the expenses are at least less than one-half of the expenses here. What can be bought in Singapore for five dollars would cost twelve dollars here. Let me give you an idea of the expenses in this place. A small one-story house with six rooms cannot be had in Port Louis at a less rent than $650 to $700 per annum. From the arrangement of the out-houses, double the number of servants are required that would be in the United States. I have four persons in my family. I must have a cook, a nurse, a washerwoman, and a house boy at least, as no Indian servant will from caste perform more than one kind of labor. These four servants cost, with their rations, $41 per month. Now for the necessaries of life :-fresh beef costs from 20 to 25 cents per pound; mutton, 38 to 40 cents per pound; fowls, 80 to $1 dollar each; flour, $25 to $28 per barrel; salt fish, 8 to 10 cents per pound; butter, $1 per pound; cheese, 58 cents per pound; lard, 374 cents per pound; coffee, 25 cents, and tea, 80 cents per pound. Fuel is, as nearly as I can judge, about $20 per cord. It is sold in small faggots; enough to cook a steak costs 124 cents. Everything else is dear in proportion; and fresh meat has been as high as 70 cents per pound. Clothing, also, is enormously expensive.

COTTON GROWING IN ITALY AND MALTA.

According to the Annales du Commerce Exterieur, the production of cotton in Italy and Malta is much larger than we supposed. It consists annually of 6,600,000 kilogrammes in Naples, of the value of 3,160,000 f.; of 6,000,000 kilogrammes in Sicily, of 2,000,000 f.; and of 5,790,995 kilogrammes in Malta, of the value of 3,979,710 f.; total, 18,380,898 kilogrammes, of the value of 8,679,710 f. In all Italy and Malta there are 200 factories for spinning cotton, with 1,000 warehouses and 10,000 workmen; a large quantity of cotton is also spun by hand. Adding the foreign to the native cotton, the total value of cotton spun is 17,400,000 f., and its value after being spun is rather more than double that amount. The value of the fabrics made from the cotton is, including bleaching, dyeing, interest on capital, and profits, 46,200,000 f.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF CALIFORNIA.

According to the annual official statistics, the agricultural products of the State of California for 1856, were as follows:-wheat, 2,937,239 bushels; barley, 3,229,230 bushels; oats, 854,420 bushels; corn, 165,464 bushels; potatoes, 721,018 bushels; hay, 74,755 tons. The total number of fruit trees growing in the State is, peach, 571,598; apple, 264,521; pear, 25,896; cherry, 14,683; plum, 16,161; apricot, 11,047; fig, 3,747; grape vines, 1,317,956. The increase in all the above over the previous year is very large. The population of the State is about 360,000, increasing annually about ten per cent.

A FINE BALE OF SOUTH CAROLINA COTTON.

The editors of the Courier and Enquirer have been shown a sample of Sea Island cotton, taken from a bale sold in Charleston, South Carolina, at $1 35 per pound, probably the highest price paid in twenty years. The factors who sold this bale are confident that it is the finest bale of cotton that has ever crossed the Atlantic. The planter (of Edisto, South Carolina,) took the medal in the London Exhibition of 1851, and the prize bale, though it spun yarn up to No. 900, is believed to be inferior to this. This bale was picked out by the lady of the planter with her own hands, and it is a marvel the perfection to which she has brought the staple. It is to go to Havre.

JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES.

THE ROXBURY VERD ANTIQUE MARBLE QUARIES.

In the Merchants' Magazine for July, 1857, (vol. xxxvii., page 109,) in the department devoted to MINING AND MANUFACTURES, we noticed some specimens of this marble, and gave the analysis of Dr. Jackson and other geologists.

The quaries of the Roxbury Verd Antique Marble Company are located in Roxbury, Washington County, Vermont, one-third of a mile south of the village of Roxbury, on the west side of the Vermont Central Railroad track, and distant therefrom 20 rods. Roxbury is 15 miles south of Montpelier, and 7 miles south of Northfield, Vermont.

NUMBER OF QUARIES.-The quaries are seven in number, and form a continuous chain along the base of one of the ranges of the Green Mountains, nearly parallel with the railroad. One of the quarries is fully open, and is, of itself, inexhaustable for years to come with a force of 50 to 100 men. This is one of the smaller quarries in the chain-several of the others being five or six times the extent of the one now being worked. The width of the vein of marble is from 80 to 100 feet. There is no considerable waste of stone in quarrying when the quarry has been once striped for working. Each block taken from the quarry being worked, the entire width of the vein being of the same quality. The material is as perfect as granite, and the dimensions of stone that can be furnished, it is believed, is only limited by the means of handling and transportation. The cost of labor on the quarry is from $1 to $1 25 per day.

The marble has, we learn, been very extensively introduced into various markets in the United States and the Canadas, and the demand increasing as its excellence becomes known. It has been ordered by dealers in England, France, and Germany, where it is greatly admired, and where its use for various ornamental purposes must be very extensive. The company have already furnished for shipment to London, blocks weighing eight tons, and measuring nine feet in length by fourand-a-half in width, thus conclusively showing that the material can be furnished in large blocks. It is being wrought into columns, pilasters, and other ornamental work of the United States Capitol Extension at Washington; it forms the base of the Franklin Monument at Boston, and is to be used for the pedestal of the marble statue of General Warren, about to be erected on Bunker Hill. It has been used for desks and the furniture of churches; for pedestals, for busts, and

statues. In fitting up a drawing-room we selected and ordered this marble, and have received an oval slab for a table, which has been very much admired for its excellence and beauty, by persons of unquestionable taste and judgment in such matters.

The quarries, as we have seen, are favorably located for a market, which renders the cost of transportation easy. The freight from the quarries to Boston is $5 per ton of 12 cubic feet, and to New York, via Lake Champlain, about the same price.

It is a fact generally known among marble dealers, or those at least acquainted with working the foreign Verd Antique, that it has always been difficult to polish the stone. This difficulty is obviated by using a material found in large beds beside the Roxbury quarries, and known to geologists as actinolite, its only cost is blasting from the bed and grinding to a fine powder, it being used the same as oxide of tin by marble workers, for the purpose of polishing the marble. We have in our possession some estimates of the cost of producing this marble, which we think places the commercial value and importance of the quarries beyond all peradventure.

THE SALT MANUFACTURE.

In answer to a request for statistical information, for the use of a committee of the British Parliament, Mr. SAMUEL HOTALING has embodied, in the letter which we give below, a compehensive account of the manufacture of salt in the United States. The writer is a prominent salt manufacturer of New York, and thoroughly conversant with the subject of which he treats. Much of the information more in detail, may be found in former volumes of the Merchants' Magazine, but some of the statements will be new to many of our readers :—

NEW YORK, April 28, 1857. DEAR SIR :-I have received your letter of the 20th instant, in which you solicit information respecting the manufacture of salt-the quantity made in the United States at each of the works the rate of freight to the principal ports--the toll paid on domestic and also on foreign salt on our State canals, &c.

The interest I feel in the salt trade of this country prompts me to take some pains to give you the required information. Yet the short time I have had since the receipt of your letter precludes me from answering your several inquiries with perfect satisfaction to myself in regard to their accuracy.

I will, however, venture to give you the following statistics, which, from the best information I have been able to obtain, I believe to be mainly correct :

ESTIMATED QUANTITY OF SALT MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES PER ANNUM,

In the State of Massachusetts, (mostly in vats built along the sea shore).

In the State of New York, (Onondaga County,) about..

In the State of Pennsylvania, (Alleghany and Kiskiminetas rivers)..
In the State of Virginia, (Kanawha and Kings Works)..

In the State of Kentucky, (Goose Creek).

In the State of Ohio, (Muskingum, Hocking River)...

In the State of Ohio, (Pomeroy and West Columbia).

In the State of Illinois

In the State of Michigan

In the State of Texas...

Bushels.

46,000 6,000,000

900,000 3,500,000

250,000

500,000

1,000,000

50,000

10,000

20,000

In the State of Florida.

100,000

Total......

12,376,000

There are salt lakes in the United States territories-one in the southwesterly

part of Texas and one or more in Utah, where salt of good quality is found in great abundance.

Nearly all of the salt manufactured in the United States is made by boiling. excepting what is made in Massachusetts, Florida, and the Solar Works at Onondaga.

The amount of salt manufactured at the Solar Works of Onondaga in 1856, was 709,391 bushels. The amount of salt manufactured in kettles in Onondaga in 1856, was 5,258,419 bushels.

When the works (at Onondaga) are generally running, they require 3,000,000 gallons of brine daily, and the supply is not less than 2,000,000 gallons per day for six months.

The annual report of V. W. Smith, Esq., the State Superintendent of the Onondaga Salt Springs, which I herewith hand you, furnishes valuable information in regard to the manufacture of salt, the saline deposits within our State, and such other general information pertaining to this necessary article of animal subsistence, as to render it one of the most accurate and interesting public documents published in our country,

The wells in the Virginia Salt Springs are about 900 feet deep. The wells at Pomeroy and West Columbia are from 1,000 to 1,200 feet deep.

The estimated quantity of foreign salt consumed in the United States and territories is about 13,500,000 bushels per anum.

The amount of salt consumed in the United States (for various uses) is about sixty pounds to each inhabitant.

The consumption in France is estimated at 21 pounds; in Great Britain at twenty-five pounds for each inhabitant.

The cost of manufacturing salt by boiling in Onondaga, as per estimate, during five consecutive years, averages about $1 per barrel of 280 pounds.

The freight charged on our canals on domestic salt, in barrels of 280 pounds each, from Onondaga to Buffalo, 198 miles, is about 15 cents per barrel over the toll paid to the State, which is 1 mill on 1,000 pounds per mile in the canals. To Oswego, 35 miles, the freight is about 6 cents per barrel over the toll.

The freight on foreign and domestic salt from Albany to Buffalo, 364 miles, is about $3 per ton (of 2,000 pounds) over the toll. Freight from Albany to Oswego, about 209 miles, is $2 per ton over toll. The freight from New York city to Oswego and Buffalo, via Albany, is precisely the same as though shipped at Albany, although 148 miles further.

The toll on foreign salt on our State canals is five mills on 1,000 pounds per mile.

The freight on a barrel of salt from Oswego to the principal ports on Lake Erie (average distance about 450 miles,) is 12 cents per barrel. The freight to the principal ports of Lake Michigan, distance about 1,000 miles, is 25 cents per barrel. The freight from ports on Lake Erie (say Cleveland and Toledo,) to the Ohio River and Cincinnati is 50 cents per barrel. The freight from Chicago to the Mississippi River and St. Louis is 50 cents per barrel.

The minimum price of salt at the Onondaga works in 1849, 50, and '51 was from 70 to 90 cents per barrel; in 1852, $1 per barrel; in 1853, $1 12; in 1854, $1 25; in 1855, $1 30; and in 1856, $1 40 per barrel.

The solar salt costs about the same price to manufacturers as boiled salt

The solar salt weighs about 70 pounds to the bushel, (measure.) The boiled salt weighs about 56 pounds to the bushel, varying, however, according to the position of the kettles, to a weight considerably above and also considerably below this standard.

The duty paid to the State of New York on salt manufactured at Onondaga is always reckoned on 56 pounds, (this being the statute bushel.) and covers the expense incurred by the State for pumping up the water and delivering it to the premises of the manufacturers.

A salt block at Onondaga of the largest size, is made of brick about 12 to 15 feet wide, four to five feet high, and forming two parallel arches, extending the whole length of the block. Over, and within the top of these arches, are placed

common cast-iron kettles, holding about 50 to 70 gallons brine, placed close together in two rows the whole length of the arches. A fire built in the mouth of the arches passes under each kettle into a chimney, built generally 50 to 150 feet high, averaging from 50 to 70 kettles in each block. A single block with one row of kettles is about half of this width.

The quantity of salt made in one of these double blocks in the year, (say eight months) averages 20,000 to 25,000 bushels of 56 pounds.

The cost of a bushel of salt at Kanawha is about 174 cents.

The price of freight on a sack of Liverpool salt from New Orleans to Louisville, averages about 35 cents per sack.

A good portion of the coarse hard salt imported into the United States from the most southerly islands of the West India group, is kiln-dried, cleansed, ground very fine, and put in small packages for culinary or dairy use. The amount of coarse and fine salt imported into the United States from foreign countries for the year ending June 30, 1856, was 15,405,864 bushels. The amount of domestic salt exported during the year ending June 30, 1856, was 698,458 bushels. The amount of foreign salt exported during the year ending June 30, 1856, was 126,427 bushels.

Yours truly,

COTTON MANUFACTURES IN SAXONY.

SAMUEL HOTALING.

According to the Washington Union, (a journal that enjoys the advantage of deriving much of the information in regard to the commercial and industrial condition of foreign nations from the consular correspondents of the Department of State,) cotton-spinning has became the fixed fact of Saxony. From a somewhat minute examination of the progress of this branch of industry in that country, aided by Dr. Engel, chief of the Bureau of Statistics at Dresden, who recently (1856) issued from the press of that city an interesting volume on cotton-spinning in Saxony, since the commencement of the present century, under the title of "Die Baum-Wollen-Spinnerei, im Koenigreich Sachsen." The Union gives some interesting particulars, which we condense for this department of the Merchants' Magazine:

In 1830 the number of cotton spinning factories in the kingdom of Saxony was 84; in 1837 that number was increased to 130, and in 1856 to 135. Of these there are in the circle of Zwittan, 121; in Leipsic, 13; and in Dresden, 1. Sixtyfive spin on private account, and 68 exclusively or principally on account of cotton manufacturers; 107 are propelled by water-power, 7 by steam, and 19 by waterpower and steam combined. One hundred and thirty-three spinning factories keep constantly in motion 544,646 spindles-giving an average to each factory of 4,170 spindles, with a maximum of 21,444, and a minimum of 120. Their effective machinery is thus classified :

2,268 machines for spinning fine numbers.

hand mule-jennies for spinning fine numbers......spindles.

2,157