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and eleven thousand five hundred and sixty dollars. Of these shares, two hundred and twenty are the property of the state of Maryland, and seventy of Virginia.-The company has power to increase that capital by additional shares. The particular management and inspection of the works, are confided to a president and five directors, elected for a term not exceeding three years, and invested with powers to appoint the treasurer, clerk, and other officers. The shareholders meet once a year, and vote according to their number of shares; one hundred of which constitute a quorum, to whom all proceedings is communicated. Every ten shares, and every fifth share above ten, give a yote. The shares of defaulters are sold publicly, Foreigners not naturalized may be subscribers. The fund is still unproductive, as the annual amount of tolls and tonnage has been chiefly expended on the improvement of the navigation.

In the year 1810, a lottery was granted to this company, for raising three hundred thousand dollars. The first class of this lottery has been drawn.

The utility of this work is now in a great measure superseded by the Ohio and Chesapeake Canal. This great work was commenced on the 4th day of July, 1828, near Georgetown, D. C. John Q. Adams, the then President of the United States, dug the first spadeful of earth amidst the shouts of the multitude and enlivening strains of music: the spade being handed by Col. Mercer, president of the company.

By the report of the president of the Chesa

peake and Ohio Canal Company, and the other proper officers, it appears that the entire length of the line, from Georgetown to Cumberland, is one hundred and eighty-four miles. From Georgetown to dam No. 5, seven miles above Williamsport, a distance of one hundred and seven miles is now navigable. From dam No. 5, to dam No. 6, at the Great Cacapon, twenty-seven miles, is under contract and the work is in progress. From dam No. 6 to Cumberland, is fifty miles, including the tunnel, deep cut at Old Town, and other works, is also under contract.

By the same report, it appears that five million, nine hundred and fifty-eight thousand, five hundred and twenty-seven dollars, and forty-three cents, have been expended; and that three hundred and forty-eight thousand, two hundred and sixty-five dollars, and forty-eight cents remain on hand unexpended.

FISHERIES.

The following account of the fish caught in the Potomac, is given by Mr. Blodget.

Mean Weight. Sturgeon, Accipenser Sturgeo, fr. 40 to 150 lbs. Rock Fish, Sparus calo cephalus, Shad, Culpea,

,

White,

Taylor,
Winter,

1 to 75

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There is no place in the United States where shad is more plenty, nor of a better quality than that caught in the Potomac. The Belvoir or White House Fishery, formerly belonging to the late Ferdinando Fairfax, is one of the chief on the river. There are usually taken each season, from three to four hundred thousand shad, at a single landing; and large quantities of herrings. Those who wish to obtain cargoes of these fish cannot get them on better terms, or of superior quality, any where else than at this place. The supply is abundant, and the price usually not more than onethird of that at the great landings on the Hudson river.

In the distance about a hundred miles above and

below Washington, four hundred thousand barrels of herrings are caught annually, of which a considerable quantity are cured and exported.

They are salted without being gutted, and the blood mixed with the brine, which in a few days is poured off, when the herrings are taken out, washed, and salted anew. The fisheries continue

during the month of April.

In 1768, an act was passed by the legislature, which in 1798 became a permanent law, not to destroy young fish by wears or dams. The penalty is twenty pounds of the currency of that time. Another act was passed in 1796, to prevent persons from beating the Patuxent river with cords or poles, from the commencement of February to that of June. The penalty of the offence, of a white person, is a hunded dollars; if a slave, he is to receive ten lashes on his back, unless redeemed by his master, by the payment of ten dollars.[See laws of Maryland.

GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY.

The material of the soil is clay, discoloured by the oxide of iron. It becomes fixed by fire, and on the whole no place can boast of greater facilities for brickmaking.

Rock Creek, and its immediate vicinity, is the line between the primitive formation and the tertiary: from Rock Creek up the Potomac, the borders of the stream is pregnant with primitive rocks

in situ and in boulders, with the exception of a few small pieces of alluvial here and there, in the valley of the river. This is the case for twenty miles or more, when the country changes to old red sandstone, which continues twenty or twentyfive miles farther up the river, with occasional ridges of breccia or pudding-stone; marble shows itself in various places along the valley below and above Monocacy. About a mile, however, east of the entrance of Rock Creek into the Potomac, on southern point of the city, near the glass-house, the final termination of the primitive rocks that line the bed and banks of the Potomac above, clearly takes place. In digging wells beyond this point, rocks or stones seldom obtrude; the alluvial everywhere prevails.

In the

Mr. Warden states that Goden, in his "Observations to serve for the mineralogical map of Maryland," also remarks that Rock Creek separates the primitive from the alluvial soil. former, gneiss abounds, which is succeeded by the amphibolic rock or grunstein. The gneiss contains small crystalized tubes of magnetic iron, veins of feldspath and quartz of an opaque white coluor. The rock of the Great Falls of the Potomac consists chiefly of micaceous schist-mica schistoide of Hauy, or glimmer schiefer of the Germans; and contains grains of iron which attract the magnetic needle.

The stone, with which the basons of the Potomac canal are lined, is a species of sandstone (gres) similar to that known by the name of gres des houillieres, [sandstone of coalbeds.] The rock employed to form the foundation or

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