and all so clear that he who runs may read | should be swept away in a moment by a sudtheir lessons. There can be seen a con- den and unforeseen calamity; but we must figuration of surface quite resembling what remember that sooner or later every one of telescopes show in the most volcanic districts those lives must be called for, and it is by no of the moon. Let not the reader be startled; means the most sudden end that is the most half the moon's face is covered with craters afflictive. It is well, too, that we should conof extinct volcanos. template occasionally, if it were only to teach us humility and submission, the immense energies which are everywhere at work in maintaining the system of nature we see going on so smoothly and tranquilly around us, and of which these furious outbreaks, after all, are but minute, and for the moment unbalanced surpluses in the great account. The energy requisite to overthrow a mountain is as a drop in the ocean compared with that which holds it in its place, and makes it a

Many of the lavas of Auvergne and the Puy de Dôme are basaltic; that is, consisting of columns placed close together; and some of the cones are quite complete, and covered with loose ashes and cinders, just as Vesuvius is at this hour.

In the study of these vast and awful phenomena we are brought in contact with those immense and rude powers of nature which seem to convey to the imagination the impress of brute force and lawless violence; but mountain. Chemistry tells us that the forces it is not so. Such an idea is not more derog- constantly in action to maintain four grains atory to the wisdom and benevolence that of zinc in its habitual state, when only parprevails throughout all the scheme of creation tially and sparingly let loose in the form of than it is in itself erroneous. In their wild- electricity, would supply the lightning of a est paroxysms the rage of the volcano and the considerable thunder-storm. And we learn earthquake is subject to great and immutable from optical science that in even the smallest laws they feel the bridle and obey it. The element of every material body, nay, even in volcano bellows forth its pent-up overplus of what we call empty space, there are forces in energy, and sinks into long and tranquil re- perpetual action to which even such energies pose. The earthquake rolls away, and in- sink into insignificance. Yet, amid all this, dustry, that balm which nature knows how nature holds her even course: the flowers to shed over every wound, effaces its traces, blossom; animals enjoy their brief span of and festoons its ruins with flowers. There is existence; and man has leisure and opportumighty and rough work to be accomplished, nity to contemplate and adore, secure of the and it cannot be done by gentle means. It watchful care which provides for his well-beseems, no doubt, terrible, awful, perhaps ing at every instant that he is permitted to harsh, that twenty or thirty thousand lives remain on earth.

they have more than recovered their losses. They profess Christianity, but their religion sits lightly upon them. Says a city missionary in Montreal, the term gypsy has often been applied to vagrant Canadians who sometimes cross the boundary lines.

"HE seemed to lose his own face, and look like some of his near relatives. Before our end

GYPSY EMIGRATION TO AMERICA.-At a recent | have taken them in, but on subsequent occasions meeting of the American Ethnological Society in New York, a communication was received from Dr. Macgowan, written in Buffalo in April last, giving an account of some gypsies who are temporarily residing in that city. It appears that while a gypsy occasionally crossed the Atlantic, there was no general emigration of the tribe, until about five years ago, since which time the gypsy population of America numbers not less than a thousand souls. In this short period they have explored the country, after their fashion, from Canada to the Gulf States. On the commencement of the rebellion those who were in the South returned to the Northern States and Canada. They like the country, and will probably be joined by many more of their brethren. The men trade a good deal in horses, and in peddling generally. The women make baskets and tell fortunes. They confess that in swapping horses Yankee jockeys

by sick and languishing alterations, we put on new visages, and, in our retreat to earth, may fall upon such looks which, from community of seminal originals, were before latent in us."-SIR THOS. BROWNE, Letter to a Friend.

A virtue of extremity. So it is often only when at its last gasp, and at the end of its career, that a sly argument is forced to betray its real motive and origin.

It seems, then, that England is still dependent for cotton upon America, and of course we, too, are in the same situation.

Mr. Edward Atkinson, who has recently made a report to the Boston Board of Trade on the Cotton Manufacture of 1862, from which we have made the foregoing quotation, shows that the growing demand of the world for American cotton could not be satisfied by the former mode of cultivation by slave labor. He points to the fact that with a cotton region of vast extent, the area actually devoted to cotton was, in 1860, but 9,270 square miles, a trifle less than the area of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In 1850 free labor made oneninth of the cotton crop, and under the stimulus of high prices-which in themselves prove

It is believed by those who are best informed that Indian cotton cannot be much improved. It may be cleaned more carefully, but the staple will not be better. Moreover, a supply inadequate to the rapidly increasing cotton is cultivated in India as a rotation crop; the average product per acre is less than seventy pounds, and the number of acres per hand only two to three, against a product in this country of two hundred to seven hundred pounds per acre and from four to twelve acres to the hand.

The English used, before the war, eightyseven and a half per cent. of American cotton, and only twelve and a half per cent. of all other kinds. Their machinery could not be fitted for the general use of Surats without enormous expense; and even if they did turn their attention to the manufacture of the coarser fabrics, this would be to give up their market; for they spin and weave the finer cotton goods almost entirely; and it is in this branch that they monopolize the trade of the East. That even now, in the general scarcity of cotton, Surats are not used readily, is made evident by the fact that

demand-free labor was gradually but surely taking the place of slave labor in cotton eulture, and working the overthrow of the lat❤ ter.

Though the planters did their best to increase the supply of slave-grown cotton, the demand outstripped their best efforts, so that while the crop of 1844-1845 was 2,394,503 bales, and the average price in Liverpool eight and three-quarters cents, the crop of 1859-1860 was 4,675,770 bales, yet the average price in Liverpool was eleven cents. The excess of price of 1860 over 1845 was nine dollars sixty-seven and one-half cents per bale, equal to over $45,000,000.

The average annual increase in spindles in England for ten years, to 1860, was 1,160,196, and this required an annual increase in cotton of 87,880 bales of four hundred and fifty pounds each. To meet this growing demand it is shown that the Cotton States, imported from the border Slave States, in the ten years 1840 to 1850, 297,616 slaves, and in the next ten years 190,632-investing in this way, in twenty years, over one hundred and ninety-five million dollars.

-"with a smaller shipment from India in 1862 than in 1861, the stock of Surats in Liverpool was, on the 30th January, 1862, 246,659 bales against 283,924 in 1861, while the stock of American was only 65,901 against 216,941 bales. At the same date, January Nevertheless the supply of cotton did not 30, 1862, the price of middling to fair Surats was fourteen and a half to eighteen pence, equal the demand. In fact, the comparative while the price of middling to fair American supply of cotton decreased as the price and was twenty-two to twenty-six pence. There the demand increased; and the principle anis no such difference in the value for the man-nounced by Mr. De Bow was proved correct, ufacture of goods for which Surats are avail- that whenever cotton rises to ten cents, laable, but the demand upon England being for bor (slave-labor, that is) becomes too dear to fine goods, she cannot avail herself of the comparatively large supply and low price of Surats."

* Report to the Boston Board of Trade on the Cotton Manufacture of 1862. By Edward Atkinson.

increase production rapidly." And here we see the reason why the cotton-planters were so eager to re-open the African slave trade, that among their first acts at Montgomery was

one re-establishing that traffic. The Border States could not supply them with slaves, and they were determined to obtain an unlimited supply of cheap slaves from Africa. It was, in fact, their wish to completely Africanize the Southern and most fertile half of this continent, and thus shut out from it all white working men. With all the slaves they could draw from the other Slave States, and their own increase, they were able to cultivate but a little more than one and a half per cent. of the available cotton lands of the Southern States.

But, it being demonstrated that Europe and the Northern States must remain for many years dependent upon the South for cotton, and that with the available slave labor the demand will every year further outstrip the supply, and thus raise prices continually, while to import cheaper slaves from Africa, if it were tolerated by Europe, would not be suffered by the white men of this country, who will not submit to this Africanization of half the Union-it remains to see what can be done. We have the monopoly of the cotton markets of the world; how can we make use of it?

It is known that the cotton lands are generally healthful. White men raised twelve years ago one-ninth of the crop, and Olmsted saw cotton raised by free labor in every State. What, then, is to hinder the general cultivation of cotton by free white labor? Certainly not the return, for it is likely to be for many years to come a most profitable occupation. There can be no doubt, says Mr. Atkinson, that "during the re-organization of labor upon the new system, the crops of cotton must be small and prices very high-probably not less than twenty-five cents for many years. The standard for fair work for an able-bodied negro is eight bales of four hundred and fifty pounds each per annum, besides corn enough for the support of his family. Three thousand six hundred pounds of cotton at twenty-five cents gives nine hundred dollars for the year's work of a common laborer, in a commodity which brings gold on demand. Where else can be found such an inducement for emigration and colonization? An industrious laborer can easily raise five thousand pounds, worth one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars."

crops and other accidents, this is a statement which will astonish many a Northern farmer. It is shown that slave labor has, with every effort, failed to keep up with the demand of the world; it belongs now to free labor to step in and take its place. Slavery once out of the way, which alone has prevented the emigration of whites to the Southern States, because honest free labor does not like to come in contact with slave labor-we may hope to see the culture of cotton established on a firm and truly prosperous foundation by free white farmers. This seems to Mr. Atkinson, as it seems to us, the true solution of the cotton question; and that solution is not so difficult as it has been thought. When once the cotton region is thrown open to emigration the working men of Europe will see a new temptation for removal to our shores.

From The Boston Daily Advertiser.

A VERY carefully prepared and valuable report on the cotton manufacture of 1862, made by Mr. Edward Atkinson for the Board of Trade has just been published in pamphlet form. Accompanying the report is a map of "the Cotton Kingdom," which places before the eye of the reader in a distinct shape some very singular facts. The limits of the cotton culture and of the principal cotton region are shown by lines obtained from a map prepared by the State geologist of Alabama. The northern boundary of Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina may be said in general terms to be the northern limit of the cotton region, and, perhaps excepting Tennessee and North Carolina, this limit defines the territory within which the cotton crop and its supposed interests, social and political, have complete sway. It is interesting to see how large a place this dominant staple actually holds in the cultivation and development of the region described.

Mr. Atkinson has shown this by a very ingenious method. Estimating the number of acres devoted to cotton in each State, by a process which overstates the amount rather than otherwise, he draws upon the map of each State a parallelogram, upon the same scale with the map itself, to represent the actual proportion of the territory given to the culture of cotton. Thus, in the middle of the map of South Carolina, as it stands

on Mr. Atkinson's map, is a strongly shaded | acter of the system, than the evidence thus parallelogram, which shows at a glance the exact proportion borne by the 706,826 acres given to cotton in that State to the 16,217,600 acres of land in the State. The total area given to cotton in all the States is also represented by a parallelogram drawn in the same way upon the scale of the map, so as to be easily compared with the ample territory of the States. The facts placed before the eye in this striking manner are of no small importance.

The States comprised in the cotton region have a total area of 666,196 square miles of which 10,888, or 1.634 per cent. of the whole are actually devoted to cotton. This calculation is probably above the truth; Mr. Atkinson estimates the amount more exactly at 9,270 square miles, or almost precisely the same as the area of New Hampshire, or 1.391 per cent. of the territory of the Cotton States. With fractions so small, however, we may well afford to take the larger estimate for use. In some cases the disparity between the land given to cotton and the area of the State is truly extraordinary. Thus, Texas raises not far from one-twelfth of the whole cotton crop of the country, and is said to be able to produce from her fine cotton lands twenty millions of bales; yet she employs in this culture less than one-third of one per cent. of her area. The Cotton States taken together have 10.7 per cent. of their territory in improved lands, of which less than one-sixth is given to cotton,-the interest, on which, as we have said, everything is made to turn.

presented of the extent to which it has improved territories, which it has been abandoning for others more attractive. Professor Cairnes discusses with great force of reasoning the false economy on which slavery proceeds, which compels it to rely constantly upon a transfer to some new and virgin soil. In a comparison of this sort, we see how the process has been going on, how the cream, as it were, has been taken from one district after another, and new lands have been demanded before the wealth of the older ones had been so much as guaged. No country less favored by nature than our own could have supported a system, which thus proceeded upon the plan, not of improving and developing the territory open for settlement but of exhausting the vegetable riches stored by nature in the richest parts of the soil.

Mr. Atkinson develops from the statistics of the last ten or twenty years the confirmation of Mr. De Bow's announcement, that the real limitation to the production of cotton is the price of slaves and that "whenever cotton rises to ten cents, labor becomes too dear to increase production rapidly." This extraordinary inversion of the ordinary rules of political economy is substantiated by the fact, that the Border States have not been able to supply slaves so fast as the increasing demands of consumers of cotton have required, while economical application of free labor to any great extent has been prevented by the presence of slavery. We may not subscribe fully to Mr. Atkinson's conclusion that secession and the war were therefore undertaken to secure free trade in negroes, or the renewal of the slave trade; but it is certain that the state of things explained by De Bow creates a strong temptation for re-opening that traffic, which would be nearly certain finally to prevail over the virtue of a government

The comparison becomes very instructive when we consider that, in spite of the trifling extent to which the lands in the Cotton States have been taken up, the cotton interest has for years been clamorous for new lands, new territories and States. There is no better illustration of the essentially wasteful char- devoted to the interests of slavery alone.

GROWTH OF BOGs.-Edward Moon, of Liverpool, in the year 1667, indites a rental of his property there for the guidance of his son and heir. At page 72 of The Moon Rental, as published by the Chetham Society, he says:—

"You may sell fifty pounds' worth at least of

to the town in a year; for, of my knowledge,

you have good black turf at least four yards deep; if so, it may be worth two hundred pounds an acre, and you have ten acres of it; in a word, you know not what it may be worth, lying so near a great town; and if you have half a yard at the bottom ungotten, once in forty years it swells, and grows again."-Notes and Queries.