The exports of flour from Baltimore to foreign countries chiefly to Brazil, the West Indies and the British North American Colonies for the same years were as shown in the following statement:

The following table shows the receipts of wheat and other grain from

The great bulk of the wheat here represented is manufactured in the city, and furnishes a flour which has a high standing in all markets.

The chief returns from foreign countries are coffee from Brazil, sugar from the West Indies, and fish from British America. The imports of coffee for the last four years are represented thus:

The quantity of sugar and molasses imported in the same years was as

follows:

The great bulk of these imports is sent West by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for the markets of the interior, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis.

Baltimore has been long noted for its copper smelting works, and of late years also for its iron founding. The Baltimore and Cuba Mining and Smelting Company has a capital of $1,000,000, and carries on its operations at two establishments-one at Canton on the east, and the other at Locust Point on the south side of the harbor, and these jointly work thirty four reverberatory (including four refining) furnaces. The number of hands employed as refiners, smelters and laborers is about 300, at wages

ranging from $1 50 to $4 per day. These two establishments consume from 30,000 to 36,000 tons of Cumberland coal annually. The ores are chiefly brought from Cuba, but also largely from the Lake Superior and other domestic mines. The copper finds its chief market in New York. In the iron interest there are nine blast furnaces which in 1866 produced about 30,000 tons of 2,240 lbs., and about equally divided between the charcoal and anthracite varieties. The rolling mills have been in fair activity during the year, but less so than when there was a war-demand for the celebrated boiler iron made here.

No other market is so largely engaged in the guano trade as Baltimore. The trade, however, lost its usual proportions during the war. The arrivals in 1866 were eleven vessels from the Chincha Islands, bringing 13,000 tons, and twenty other cargoes principally of Navassa, amounting to 7,000 tons-making an aggregate of 20,000. Most of the Chincha was taken by the South, the cargo price having been $60 (gold) per ton. The Navassa imports also found ready sale, being chiefly used in the manufacture of other fertilizers. Baltimore continues to be one of the great centres of the oyster and canned fruit business. The houses prosecuting the trade now number upwards of forty and employ more than 4,000 persons of both sexes in the various departments of shucking, packing, peeling, preserving, &c.

The oyster packing commences in September and continues to the middle of June. The quantity of oysters brought to this market annually is variously estimated at five to seven million bushels, some 2,000,000 bushels are packed raw in cans (iced) of 2 to 5 quarts in size requiring about 4,250,000 cans and 200,000 cases; and about 3,000,000 bushels are done up in hermetically sealed cans. The raw or fresh oyster branch gives employment to about 1,500 persons, shucking, packing, &c. The shuckers are principally negroes. The hermetically sealed branch requires about 2,500, chiefly white families. The new process of steaming renders the opening of oysters so simple that children may do it. The num ber of cans of one, two and three pounds each, hermetically sealed daily during the active season is quite 75,000; and in this branch about 8,000,000 cans are used annually. About the same number of cans is used in the sealing of fruits and vegetables in the summer season. Thus some fifteen or sixteen millions cans of oysters, fruits and vegetables are the products of this industrial pursuit and these again require about 600,000 cases in which they are packed. The manufacture of cans gives employment to upwards of 400 persons, and the value of tin, solder, &c., used in the manufacture is near a million dollars. The case making employs from 240 to 250 carpenters. The total value of this business is between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000 a year. The vessels employed in taking oysters for this market aggregate about 50 tons to each vessel; and some 500 or 600 vessels of a larger class are engaged in running them to market. The crews of these vessels number about 6,000 persons. In the summer and autumn or the fruit and vegetable season as many more are engaged packing, boxing and shipping these products to Baltimore by steamers and bay craft; and when all these oysters and fruits and vegetables reach the wharves there is a teeming hive of carters, carmen, and draymen who derive a living from the delivery of the same.

This trade has so rapidly grown to prodigious proportions within a few

years, as to excite astonishment with those even who have had most experience in it. The chief points of shipment for these goods are to the West, far West, and the North and Southwest. The trade to California, once so large, has now become insignificent.

RAILROAD EARNINGS FOR FEBRUARY.

The gross earnings of the under-specified railroads for the month of February, in 1866 and 1867, comparatively, and the differences (increase or decrease) between the two periods, are exhibited in the subjoined state

ment:

Railroads.

Atlantic and Great Western...

Chicago and Alton

Chicago and Great Eastern.

1,804

Chicago and Northwestern

Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific

2 9,069

184,497

21,572

Cleveland and Pittsburg..

151,930

Erie

70,296

Illinois Central

505,266

554,201

48,935

McGregor Western

Marietta and Cincinnati.

5,288

Michigan Central

265,796

283,661

17,865

Michigan Southern

19,253

Milwaukee and Prarie du Chien..

The statement which follows shows the miles of road operated, and the gross earnings per mile of the same roads for the same months:

On a less mileage by 50 miles than in 1866 the aggregate gross earn

The earnings of the Chicago and Alton and Pittsburg and Cleveland railroads for 1867, are estimated.

ings of the above nineteen roads have exceeded those of that year by $109,472, or $20 per mile of road operated. Ten of the nineteen roads represented in the table, measuring 5,022 miles, have increased their earnings by $302,608 or $60 24 per mile; and nine roads, measuring 2,402 miles. show a decrease of $193,472, or $80 50 per mile. The Chicago and North Western appears to have increased its earnings more largely than any others of the series-the Cleveland and Pittsburg, the Ohio and Mississippi, and the Rock Island are those exhibiting the largest decrease. The Erie, though showing a decrease in absolute amount, has actually in. creased its earnings to the extent of $15 per mile of road operated. The statement on the whole will no doubt be considered favorable; and, indeed, it shows better general results than have been witnessed for a long time past.

PUBLIC DEBT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Abstract statement, as appears from the books and Treasurer's returns in the Treasury Department, on the 1st of February, the 1st of March and the 1st of April, 1867, comparatively:

rately at the dates in the foregoing table:

$430.163,804 $424,126,528 $417,225,344

$2,685,773,540 $2,690,587,289 $2,663.713,374 142,423,791 159,823,399 140,285,304

$2,543,349,749 $2,530,763,890 $2,523,428,070

The following statement shows the amount of coin and currency sepa

Gold Coin..............

Currency.

Feb. 1. Mar. 1. April 1. $97,354,604 $107,271,031 $105,956,477 45,069,187 52,253,368 34,328,827

Total gold coin and currency.

$142,423,791 $159,823,399 $140,285,504

LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY,

RELATIVE TO A PROPOSED CHANGE IN THE MINT

LAWS OF THE

UNITED

STATES UPON THE SUBJECT OF THE REFINING OF GOLD AND SILVER.

SAN FRANCISCo, Nov. 13, 1866.

DEAR SIR: In compliance with your request I hereby submit to you in writing a statement of such facts connected with our mining and minting operations as, in my opinion, are necessary to a clear understanding of the important interests to which they are germain, and without which no intelligent action can be taken.

I may be permitted to refer to the recent instructions of the Secretary of the Treasury to Mr. J. Ross Browne, the special agent of the department, as embodying succinctly the whole field of inquiry upon these important subjects. The Secretary justly observes that "whatever tends to develop the vast resources of our new States and Territories must add to the wealth of the whole country;" and he desires Mr. Browne to ascertain "what financial facilities may tend to develop the country and enhance its products."

Having yourself visited several of our mining districts, it will be only necessary to refer to your own sources of information upon many points of inquiry connected with these subjects.

As an indication of the magnitude of our mining interests, I will here merely premise that it would be an under-estimate to say that the mines of this State, and the adjacent Territories which are tributary to it, have for the past seventeen years produced an average of $60,000,000 per annum, or an aggregate of $1,000,000,000. And yet so unremunerative are mining operations as a whole, that it would be difficult to-day to find in this State one man for each $100,000,000 produced who has grown rich by working the mines. There is no subject upon which there exists such widely diffused error in the public mind as this, and perhaps there can be no more overwhelming refutation of the fallacy of these impressions than the simple statement of the fact, which is within the knowledge of every one having any personal acquaintance with the history of our mining operations. In early days, when the bars and beds of our mountain streams glittered with gold, and our surface diggings offered rich rewards to individual labor, there were, doubtless, many who reaped golden harvests with little labor and no capital. But these have long since been exhausted, and mining now can only be carried on successfully by a combination of labor and abundant capital. Indeed, mining here is not essentially different from what it has always proven the world over—a facinating illusion, in which the exceptional instances of success seem alone to be remembered, and to supply the incentive which still lures on its votaries, regardless of the overwhelming preponderence of the disastrous experience of others. And yet, while it involves nine out of ten in heavy pecuniary loss, if not absolute ruin, its result and effect is to "enhance the product" and add to the wealth of the whole country."

The development, therefore, cf this important element of national wealth