BOSTON BANK DIVIDENDS. The following are semi-annual dividends declared for the first six months of 1849, and paid out in October: The same banks paid in April for the six previous months $736,800, which shows an excess over the April dividend of $3,750. The Shoe and Leather Dealers' pay in addition, for interest on new stock Also, an extra dividend of 18 per cent, which is received in part payment 2,000 5,000 740,550 Total amount paid out in October. $747,550 UNITED STATES TREASURY NOTES OUTSTANDING OCTOBER 1, 1849. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, REGISTER'S OFFICE, October 1, 1849. Amount outstanding of the several issues prior to 22d July, 1846, as per records of this office.. Amount outstanding of the issue of 22d July, 1846, as per records of this office... Amount outstanding of the issue of 28th January, 1847, as per records of this office.... Total..... Deduct cancelled notes in the hands of the accounting officers, of which $1,950 is under the act of 22d July, 1846, and $150 under acts prior to 22d July, 1846... Total..... $143,989 31 87,000 00 2,961,450 00 $3,192,439 31 2,100 00 $3,190,339 31 BANK OF ENGLAND DIVIDENDS. At the half yearly general court of the proprietors of the Bank of England, held in September last, for the purpose of considering a dividend, the Governor, Mr. Prescott, said, I have to inform the court, that the profits of the half-year have exceeded the usual dividend of 34 per cent, by £14,522; that the amount of rest, out of which the dividend is to be declared, is £3,567,328 7s. 10d., and that the Court of Directors propose that a dividend of 34 per cent be made (if this court think fit,) out of interest and profits for the half-year ending the 10th of October next, without any deduction on account of income-tax. After the payment of a dividend of 34 per cent, the amount of the rest will be reduced to £3,057,973. Mr. De Winton moved, as an amendment, that out of the rest of £3,574,861, a dividend of 4 per cent on the bank capital be paid to the proprietors on the 10th of October next. Mr. De Winton jun., seconded the amendment. After considerable discussion, the amount was negatived, only the mover and seconder voting for it, and the original motion was agreed to. JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES. QUANTITY OF GOLD FROM THE URAL MOUNTAINS. The Journal of the Franklin Institute translates from the Archives of Physical and Natural Sciences, published at Geneva, the following account of the production of the gold mines of the Ural and of Siberia, in 1847. The washings of the auriferous sands gave, in the year 1847, the following results:Washings of the Ural... ..pouds 324.628 25.000 1431.315 Total product of the Russian washings..... Or about 29,100 kilogrammes (77,969.6 lbs. troy) of gold. 1780.943 To complete the account of the Russian production of gold in 1847, we must add the gold of the Altai, and of the silver mines of Nertschinsk, which is 45 pouds; so that the total production is 1825.943 pouds, or about 29,835 kilogrammes (79,938.9 lbs. troy) of gold in 1847. The following table shows the increase of the product of this important working :— It appears that the space susceptible of being profitably worked-which is left to future generations-is immense. BLAKE'S PATENT FIRE-PROOF PAINT. Our attention was called to this new discovery some months since, but we have delayed referring to it, in the pages of the Merchants' Magazine, until the present time, for the purpose of obtaining more accurate and reliable information, touching its value and its uses. The raw article, which we have examined with much interest, is a kind of natural paste, as black as charcoal, found in large quantities in a stratum of rock, in the township of Sharron, near Akron, Ohio. Mr. Blake, the discoverer and pantentee, has removed from Ohio to the city of New York, and established a depot, in order to bring the article into more general use in this section of country. It will, there can be little or no doubt, in time, work a radical change in the mode of covering the exterior of our public and private buildings. It is a singular phenomenon, in the great works of nature, being composed of silica, alumina, prot-oxide of iron, and magnesia, with a small admixture of lime and carbon. We have seen the pigment, as taken from the mine, and it really is a most singular substance. It has all the appearance of the finest indigo, and may easily be mashed between the fingers, but an exposure of a few days, turns it to a hard stone. The examining committee of the fair of the American Institute, of 1848, reported that it was an article superior to every thing that had previously been presented, as a fire and weather proof covering, and awarded to Mr. According to Kupffer, (Travaux de la Commission des Mesures et des Poids, dans l'Empire de Russie, 1841, tom. 1, p. 331,) the value of the Russian poud is 16,381 kilogrammes, which would but slightly alter the above results.-ED. FR. JOURN. Blake a medal. The fair of the State of New York, held in Buffalo, also awarded a diploma. The agents of all the fire insurance companies in Akron, Ohio, (where the paint is best known,) have issued circulars, to the effect, that they will insure buildings, the roofs of which are well covered with this paint, at lower premiums than those covered with tin or zinc, as they consider it a better fire-proof. It forms a complete stone covering, impervious to the action of the weather and of fire, and the longer on, the harder and more permanent it seems to become. The chocolate color produced with a slight mixture of white lead, is the fashionable color of the day, for the sides of our dwelling houses, and forms a coating through which not a particle of moisture can penetrate. It never, we are informed, peals off, and cannot fade, as it is the natural color of the substance. We have so much confidence in the character of the article, that we have decided to cover the roof and sides of our residence with it, and shall take occasion to speak of it hereafter from our own personal knowledge and experience. THE VANCLUSE (S. C.) COTTON MANUFACTURING COMPANY. We take great pleasure in recording in the pages of the Merchants' Magazine every circumstance in any way bearing upon the industrial interests of the country, and particularly those parts of it that are beginning to direct their attention to the introduction of new branches of industry which promise to promote the moral, social, as well as the material interests of the people. That the southern States possess the facilities of engaging in many branches of manufacture, and particularly the cotton, we never entert..ined a doubt, and we look upon every movement in that direction, as highly favorable to the happiness of our common country. The more our friends in the South diversify their pursuits, the more rapidly will they advance in whatever tends to promote their general prosperity. As an illustration of their ability to manufacture cotton goods advantageously, it will not be deemed irrelevent to quote in this place from the Republic, published in the city of Washington, the following statistics in relation to the Vancluse Company, in South Carolina: During the year 1848, the wheel ran 283 days, and consumed 367,404 lbs, of cotton, costing 6 cents, (7,388 mills per lb.,) the total of which was $24,758 81. The amount manufactured was 71,614 pounds of yarn, worth 14 cents per lb., and 290,789 pounds, or 591,579 yards of cloth, netting 7 cents per yard. The following details exhibit the various outlays and receipts:— 6,859 days picking, at 6,175 mills per lb.,. . . . 7,922 days spinning, 6,9 38 mills per lb.,. 1,114 days hnk'g yarn, 4,95 3 mills per lb.,... $2,268 39 2,547 37 485 98 630 24 187 30 2,768 64 344 34 840 days machinist with roller-cover and all extra work, 1,509 mills lb., 743 gallons oil, Contingencies which include materials, commissioners insurance upon 354 75 572 90 908 03 4,123 49 323 20 1,416 73 82 80 8,500 00 7,826 81 Total cost of cloth per lb., 12 cents, 4,999 mills, or 6 cents, 2,499 mills per yard. Total cost of yarn, 11 cents, 6,322 mills per lb. ; capital factory, and buildings, $30,000; flo ati ng capital, $20,000-$50,000. The above facts demonstrate how valuable manufactories are to any country, especially to those where raw material is to be had without the expense of far transporta tion. The cost of the yarn to the consumer was $10,026 10, and the cotton cloth $11,410 53-making an aggregate of $51,436 68; which sum, minus the cost of the raw material, leaves a balance of $26,676 82, to reimburse the cost of labor, interest on investments, profits, &c. The section of the country, therefore, in which is the Vancluse Company, had, during the year, been enriched by $26,667 82. Scarcely a factory in the whole north has worked to such advantage, on account of the fact that at least 20 per cent is added to the cost of the raw material by the transportation thither, and that labor is more expensive. The lower the price of cotton, the greater becomes this per centum of charges, freight rarely or never varying. The same company will here serve us as a further illustration. In 1848 the cost of cotton at Augusta was 6,710 cents per lb., amounting to $23,758, to which, if we add 20 per cent for transportation, we have an aggregate of $29,709; adding again ten per cent for wastage, we have $32,679, as the cost of the raw material to any northern factory. This cost, after deducting the freight of the articles sent south to pay for the raw material, may be estimated at 15 per cent, making the total yet higher by $1,980. The total cost would then be $30,699-evidently $4,941 more than it cost at Vancluse. An appreciation of these immense advantages is what is rapidly converting Georgia into a manufacturing State, and at the same time improving her agriculture by supplying a home market. The data made use of above, were drawn from the American Agriculturist. LECTURES ON THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. Mr. Frederic Warren, of Manchester, England, has recently delivered in that city a course of lectures on the cotton manufacture. The subject is one of so much interest to a large number of the readers of the Merchants' Magazine in the northern and southern States, that we are induced to give an abstract of three of the lectures, as we find it in one of our foreign exchanges:— The cotton, said Mr. Warren, was the beard of a plant of the same order as the common marsh-mallows; in color it was either pure white, or white tinged with yellow, the latter being that used in the nankin fabric, and being indebted for its color to a salt of iron, peculiar to the soil of its growth. The fibers seen through a microscope present the appearance of hollow cylinders, tortuous in their length, and tapering at their extremities, a constitution in a high degree favorable to their being spun into thread. Botanists differ in the enumeration of the varieties of the plant; but for practical purposes three divisions are necessary. The tree cotton, the shrub cotton, and the staple cotton. Of these, the first and second are useless in trade; the third is divided into the long staple and the short staple. The long staple is grown in the country bordering on the Gulf of Florida, and in the Delta of the Ganges. The short staple is the produce of the entire peninsula of India and of the southern States of North America. These particulars being given, Mr. Warren gave a history of the cotton trade in Great Britain; pointed out how it has been the moral lever in the elevation of both England and America, and exhibited the dangers to which it was exposed either from the commercial jealousy of the American people, a failure from natural causes in their supply, or the probable rebellion of the American slaves. "Should," he said, “the manufacturing population of this country increase during the next ten years in the ratio in which it has during the ten years just past, it will become necessary, in order to support and employ them, to secure a permanent and cheap supply of cotton. This can be done by cultivating it in British India, where, on the authority of Major General Briggs, Sir Charles Forbes, and others, there can be produced a supply sufficient to meet the wants of the entire world, equal in quality to the article supplied from New Orleans, and cheaper than it by one-half, the wages of the American slave being 18. 6d. per diem, that of the free Hindoo, 2d. The advantages derivable from such a course are, the certainty of a good supply, the consolidation of our Indian possessions by the means of commerce, and the emancipation of the American slaves by rendering their labor profitless to their owners. Mr. Warren's second lecture was devoted to an extended history of the cotton trade; the enumeration and explanation of the various improvements introduced into factory machinery, from the flying shuttle and picking peg of John Kay, of Bury, down to the self-acting mule of Richard Roberts; and illustrated, by working models, some of the . manifestations in that wonderful process by which the cotton wool is manufactured into calico web. The position taken by Mr. Warren at his former lecture, that British India was capable of affording to Great Britain a sufficient, steady, continuous, and cheap supply of raw cotton having been disputed, he reiterated that opinion, and quoted, in support of it, the statement of Major General Briggs, who, in either a civil or a military capacity, had been for thirty-two years in the service of the East India Company. He also quoted largely from a memorial of the merchants of Cochin, presented some time since to the then Secretary of the Board of Control, and gave an account of the social improvements in the condition of the Hindoos, resident in the district under the supervision of Mr. Williamson, revenue commissioner, consequeut upon the steps taken by that gentleman to foster the growth of cotton, until, in 1838, the East India Company officially condemned his proceedings, and rendered void all contracts made by him with the people; yet, with a strange inconsistency, in 1840, they (the East India Company) sent out to India ten American planters to teach the Hindoo people the manner of growing cotton. India, he showed, on the authority of all historians and geographers, from Herodotus and Strabo down to the present time, not only excelled in the fineness of its cotton fabric, but was the original seat of the manufacture. In 1641, a writer named Lewis Roberts first makes mention of a cotton trade in England. This was the manufacture of articles dignified with the names of fustians, dimities, and vermillians, but of equal coarseness with housemaid's rubber. Even at this early period Manchester was the seat of the manufacture. Again, in 1662, Dr. Fuller mentions that the founder of the Manchester Blue-coat School was in that town proprietor of a cotton factory. The progress of the trade was in a great measure impeded by the jealousy of the woolen manufacturers, for, in 1760, there was not more than £500,000 capital embarked in the trade, which then employed only 40,000 people at the average wages of 68. per week. At that period were introduced into the machinery the mechanical improvements of Key, of Paul, and of Wyott. Since then, improvement has followed improvement, until the apparatus has acquired a comparative perfection. In this (upon the authority of Mr. Warren) Sir Richard Arkwright has no share, as he never invented a single improvement, but had the tact to patent the invention of others as his own. In his third lecture Mr. Warren resumed the history of the cotton trade, gave a detail of the obstacles to its progress, the jealousies of the woolen and linen manufacturers, and the restrictive duties imposed by the Legislature on the home made fabric. The trade was at first confined to pure cotton yarn, manufactured chiefly by the firm of Means, Strutt, & Co., the partners of Richard Arkwright, and was only used in hosiery in the districts of Derby and Nottingham. In the 14th of George III. the restrictive duties were removed. Freedom of trade being thus acquired, the machinery being improved and the steam-engine being adaptod to it as a motive power, such was the progress of the trade that in the year immediately subsequent, on the repeal of the restrictive duties, the cotton exports were increased from £1,200,000 to £5,500,000. With this improvement the facilities of transit were also increased in common roads, and by the introduction of canals. In 1760, only per cent of the population was employed in the trade, which now employs 2,000,000 persons, or 10 per cent of the whole population. The improved condition of the people is no less striking. They at that period received an average wages of 68. per week, they now receive the average of 11s. for the same period. The cotton exports were then not more than £500,000 per annum. In 1846, the exports amounted to £25,592,895. The differences in the prices of the conveniences and necessaries of life in 1760, and of those at the present period is not so great as to justify the assertion that the 68. received then went in trade parlance farther than the 118. received now. The prices of corn are nearly the same, it having sold, in 1760, at 388. 4d. per quarter, and is selling now at 40s. Clothing is now one-twelfth cheaper than at that period. Every other branch of trade, even those which felt the greatest jealousy of the cotton trade in its infancy, has progressed in its growth. PRODUCTION OF COPPER AT THE CLIFF MINE. It is pretty well known to most of the readers of the Merchants' Magazine, that the operations of the Pittsburg and Boston Mining Company, at the Cliff Mine, have been eminently successful. The Cliff Mine is nearly three miles square, bounded on its northern side by the shore of Lake Superior. The mine is situated in a cliff overhanging the west branch of Eagle River, and having an elevation of 250 feet above |