crease alone is more than a thousand tons per day, and rapidly compounding upon that. With these facts before us, and the new elements daily introduced into the problem of future demand, who shall solve it?

Without dwelling on the importance of coal in a national point of view, I will briefly quote from a few eminent British writers to show the vital influence it has had on the prosperity of Great Britain, and certainly will have on this country.

McCulloch says "it is hardly possible to exaggerate the advantages England derives from her vast beds of coal"-that her coal mines are the principal source and foundation of her manufacturing and commercial prosperity.

Another writer, Porter, says "her coal mines are the source of greater riches than ever issued from the mines of Peru "--" that but for the command of coal, the inventions of Watt and Arkwright would have been of small account."

Another writer says that coal, by the agency of steam, has enabled Great Britain to undersell the world in her manufactures.

Dr. Buckland says the amount of work done in England by means of coal is supposed to be equivalent to that of between three and four hundred millions of men by direct labor. And we are almost astounded at the influence of coal, and iron, and steam upon the fate and fortunes of the human race.

Mr. Page, in his evidence before Parliament, said "the manufacturing interests of this country, colossal as is the fabric which it has raised, rests principally on no other base than our fortunate position in regard to the coal formations. Should our coal mines ever be exhausted it would melt away at once."

In the United States no fears need be entertained of exhausting our coal mines. On either side of the Alleghany Mountains we have more coal than has yet been found in the whole of Europe. The Ohio or Appalachion coal field is the largest in the world. Indiana has one-fifth and Illinois not less than three-fourths of her entire area occupied by the carboniferous strata.

It only remains for our government to foster home industry to insure to us all the advantages which have been realized in Great Britain. Her experience proves that the amount of mineral coal in a country is the measure of its material greatness and prosperity. The uses to which her coals have been applied furnish the true exponent of her great wealth, power, and

resources.

And it seems most providential that the discovery of the uses of coal was reserved for an age in which it was most essential. The history of the uses of coal in the United States belongs to the present generation, and had scarcely any existence anterior to the year 1820. Now a wide field is open before us for the development of those economic applications in its use, which in late years have been so remarkable in all that relates to scientific and mechanical progress

Coals are far more important to the world than gold and silver, because they accomplish more for man; not only in extending the comforts and refinements of life, but in wonderfully advancing science, Commerce, and navigation, the industrial arts, trades, and manufactures. And by the generation of steam they have practically annihilated time and space, and are rapidly carrying knowledge and civilization to the remotest corners of the

habitable globe. The prodigious moral influence which it is destined to exert defies all estimates.

Among the many influences which mark the age in which we live, none is more potent than this. We almost realize in it the power of the fabled eagle, ever pressing upward and onward with an eye that never winks, and wing that never tires.

GENEVA, August, 1855.

Z.

Art. VIII-COMMERCE AND RESOURCES OF FINLAND.

GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION-ITS RELATIONS TO THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE-POPULATION-GOVERNMENTTRADE AND COMMERCE-MANUFACTURES-BLOCKADE OF PORTS-PORT OF HELSINGFORS, ETC.

FINLAND (capital Helsingfors) is situated between latitude 59° 48' and 70° 6' north, and longitude 21° and 32° east; bounded north by Lapland, east by the governments Archangel and Olonetz, south by the Gulf of Finland and government of St. Petersburg, and west by the Gulf of Bothnia. It has an area of 136,000 square miles, with a flat surface, and is traversed in the center by a chain of low hills, separating the basins of the White Sea and the Baltic. The coast of Finland is deeply indented.

For the following information touching the trade, Commerce, manufactures, and resources of Finland, we are indebted to a correspondent of the Department of State :

"Finland, elevated to the rank of a grand duchy by the Swedish king Johan III., belonged, as it is generally known, to Sweden until the year 1809, after the war of which year it fell under the Russian scepter. The emperor of Russia is grand duke of Finland. The emperor is represented by a Senate at Helsingfors, consisting of fourteen members His Majesty, the Emperor Nicolai, guarantied, as the Emperor Alexander did before him, the Lutheran religion and the Swedish fundamental laws of the country, in a manifesto of December 12, 1825. Finland has a population of about one million and three-quarters; the Swedish and the Finlandian are spoken, and Helsingfors is the capital of the country.

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Agriculture is the principal business of the majority of the inhabitants. The manner in which it is carried on is very singular in some regards. I hope in my next, when I have gathered some necessary details, to treat of this subject.

"The Commerce is pretty flourishing in proportion to the width and situation of the country; the fleet consisting of about 500 vessels, of which the greater part carries on the trade with Sweden, Russia, and Germany. Many sail on the Mediterranean, a dozen go to Brazil, and a few to the East Indies. The principal articles of export are wood products, such as planks, beams, potash, rosin, tar, pitch, fire-wood, &c.; and products of cattle breeding, such as black cattle, sheep, hogs, butter, cheese, tallow, and skins; further, herrings, salmon, grease of sea-dogs, fur-skins, game, &c. The principal articles of import are tobacco, sugar, coffee, tea, cotton, salt, copper and other metals, haddock, stock fish. pigment, wine, arrack, rum, fruits, spices, silken, linen, and stuffs, glass, porcelain, drugs, &c.

"As to the industry, three cotton manufactories occupy the first place.__One of these is conducted on a very large scale, with a thousand workmen. These manufactories have the privilege to export their productions to Russia, and consume a considerable quantity of cotton, which has been imported from England. I am this moment negotiating with the manufactories for their drawing the cotton directly from America, as more advantageous for themselves; and I hope

they will pursue the same course with tobacco, which has been bought up in a large quantity in Bremen and Hamburg, at second hand. Here are, also, three manufactories of steam-engines, twenty tobacco, eight cloth, seven porcelain, nine paper, five leather and tan manufactories, &c. These manufactories employ foreign masters and workmen to the number of 160, for the most part Englishmen. Seven docks are much occupied with ship-building, of which two, for the most part, have orders for the Russian government.

"The blockade of the ports at the Baltic Sea by the enemy's fleets stopped, in the year 1854, all communication by sea between Finland and foreign countries. Late in the autumn there arrived, however, in Finland some vessels from Lubeck, loaded with coffee, sugar, spirits, and wine.

"Between northern Finland and Sweden, and between Helsingfors and St. Petersburg, along the coast, communication was, on the contrary, very lively. From Sweden there were brought in, principally, salt, coffee, sugar, and wineeven cotton, tobacco, indigo, and other raw productions for the manufactories. In the month of November, as the blockade discontinued, the port of Stockholm was visited by eighty Finnish vessels.

"The port of Helsingfors was, in the year 1854, visited by 1,689 vessels, large and small, with a tonnage of 31,922 Swedish lasts, (100 Swedish lasts equal to 240 English tons,) and by 3,136 boats. With these were brought in 15,881 cords of wood, 16,027 barrels of salt, 4,898 barrels of salt fish, 8,221 barrels of rye, &c., &c.; and from St. Petersburg, 249,282 mats with meal, of which 227,779 were for the army."

JOURNAL OF MERCANTILE LAW.

COLLISION BETWEEN A SLOOP AND THE STEAMBOAT EMPIRE STATE.

In the United States District Court, New York. In Admiralty, before Judge Ingersoll. Jedediah Chapman and others vs. the Steamboat Empire State.

This libel is filed by the owners of the sloop New York against the steamboat Empire State, to recover damages which they have sustained by a collision between their sloop and the Empire State, which took place in the month of July, 1853. The collision occurred at a little before six o'clock in the afternoon, at a point in the East River a little to the east of Pot Rock, in Hell Gate, at about the middle of the river, between Negro Point, on Ward's Island, and Woolsey's Dock, near the bath-house on Long Island shore. The sloop was loaded with a cargo of coal on freight, and the collision, soon after it took place, caused her to sink with the coal on board.

She was bound from New York up the Sound to New Haven. The steamer was also bound from New York up the Sound to Fall River. The guards of the steamboat came in contact with the main rigging of the sloop as she was passing her on the starboard side, which forced out her bolts, thereby causing an opening in the side of the sloop, by which she soon filled with water. The wind at the time was light and baffling, and was from the eastward of south, and was at the rate of from one to two knots. The tide was flood, at the rate of from four to seven knots. At the time the sloop was heading with the tide from a place nearly opposite Negro Point to a point near Woolsey's Dock, on the Long Island shore.

From the time the boat was opposite Hallet's Point the sloop had not altered her course. From Negro Point the tide sets over to Woolsey's Dock. Often there will be two contrary whirls of the tide near the place where the collision happened. When the two vessels came together, the sloop was not far from the middle of the turn tide. The sloop, when she was approaching near to Negro Point, was seen by the captain and pilot of the boat, before the boat

passed Hallet's Point. The sloop had a little steerage way on her. From the time the sloop was first seen by the boat she continued to keep her course. When the sloop was first seen by those having charge of the management of the boat, they assumed that she could bear away after passing Negro Point, and hug the shore of Ward's Island. Whether she could or not in season to have got out of the way of the steamboat, with the wind light and baffling as it was, and the tide strong as it was, does not satisfactorily appear. She did not, however, hug the shore of Ward's Island, but kept on without altering her course in the turn tide. When the pilot of the boat first saw the sloop, before the boat passed Hallet's Point, he made up his mind to pass the sloop on her starboard side, and directed the movements of the boat with that view. In passing Hallet's Point, the boat was slowed, and approached the sloop nearly in her wake, towards her starboard side.

As the boat came near the sloop, the engine of the boat was stopped. The headway which she had on brought her up broadside to the sloop. The bells of the boat were then rung to go ahead, and in passing the sloop the boat crowded the sloop; her guards pressed against the standing rigging of the sloop with such force that the injury was occasioned which caused her to sink. The captain of the boat thought he could pass the sloop without touching her, and supposed at the time that he had so done. At the time the bells of the boat were rung to go ahead, the boat was drifting with the tide towards the shore, and there was danger that she would have gone on shore if she had continued to Idrift with the tide.

The boat could have passed the sloop in safety on her larboard side, if the captain of the boat, when he passed Hallet's Point, had directed the movements of the boat with that view. He did not, however, so direct her movements, supposing that the sloop would hug the shore of Ward's Island, though the captain of the sloop gave no indications that he would do so. The ordinary course of navigation for sailing vessels in going up the Sound, with the wind from a point east of south, was, after passing Negro Point, to bear away some if they could.

The captain of the sloop did not see the boat until the boat had passed Hallet's Point and was approaching near the sloop. The sloop was in no fault, unless her keeping her course in the turn tide is to be considered as a fault.

In the case of the Jamaica, steam ferryboat, New York Legal Observer, vol. 2, p. 242, the district judge, in giving his opinion, says: "A steamboat having had a sailing vessel in full view, time enough to have avoided her, is to be held responsible, prima facie, for steering clear, without requiring the latter to do anything." In the case under consideration, the steamboat had the sloop in full view before the boat came up to Hallet's Point, and in time to have avoided her, by pursuing a different course, and the sloop did nothing but keep her

course.

In the case of the Naugatuck Transportation Company vs. the steamboat Rhode Island, tried before Judge Nelson, which was a case of collision happening near the place where this collision occurred, the judge, in giving his opinion, remarks as follows: "Upon the evidence I should feel bound to hold any vessel responsible for a collision that occurred in attempting to pass another, while struggling in this dangerous strait, there being no fault on the part of the leading vessel."

It is claimed on the part of the Empire State, that after she came near the sloop she could not back, or remain with her engine motionless, and that the only course she could pursue with safety to herself was to go ahead. The remarks of Judge Nelson in the case of the Rhode Island are a sufficient answer to this claim. He says: "The pretext set up for exposing the Naugatuck to the hazard is, that the slowing or stopping the Rhode Island after she had passed Flood Rock, would greatly endanger her own safety and the safety of the lives of the passengers. The answer is, if this be admitted, it was her own fault that she was brought into the dilemma. The Naugatuck was seen in time to have avoided it. Neglecting to avoid it subjects the Rhode Island to all the conse

quences that followed." And as there was no fault on the part of the sloop in this case-her keeping her course while close-hauled not being considered a fault-the Empire State must be holden responsible for all the consequences which followed the collision.

The answer of the court, therefore, is, that the libelants recover the damage which they have sustained by the collision, and that it be referred to a commission to ascertain and report what the damage is.

For libelants, Mr. Morton and Mr. Haskett; for claimants, Mr. Lord.

PROMISSORY NOTES-MAKERS AND INDORSERS.

In the city court of Brooklyn, (New York,) before Judge Greenwood. June, 1854. Kelsey & Kelsey vs. Bradbury.

A man named Cox made a note, payable to Rouse, or order. He indorsed it to Elliot and Holden. The indorsees obtained a judgment upon it against the maker and indorser. The latter paid the judgment, received back the note, and transferred it to the defendant, who sets it up against a demand, upon which the plaintiffs sue as assignees of the maker. It is contended by the plaintiffs' counsel that the note was merged in the judgment, so that it was no longer the subject of an action, or capable of being transferred by the indorser.

There can be no doubt that if the indorser had paid the note before judgment, although after maturity, he could have recovered upon it against the maker, or put it again in circulation, (1 Cowen, 387, Havens vs. Huntington, Leavit vs. Putnam, 3 Comst. R., 494,) payment would not have extinguished the note.

So, after judgment against maker and indorser, the latter may purchase and take an assignment of the judgment, as against the maker, and enforce it against him. (Corey vs. White, 3 Barb. S. C. R., 12.) But here the indorser did not take, and perhaps could not have obtained, an assignment of the judgment, and the question is, what is the effect of the judgment upon the rights of the indorser, or of a new indorser, as to the remedies upon the note itself. In Corey rs. White, ub. sup., the court say:" A judgment extinguishes merely the liabilities of the defendant to the plaintiff, and leaves unaffected the liability of the prior parties to the defendant." A judgment against the indorser alone would not, therefore, affect the liability of the maker to him.

All that the indorser would have to do would be to pay the judgment, and then by repossessing himself of the note he would become again invested with all the rights against the maker which he before had. It would be the same in effect as if the indorser had paid the note before judgment; for the court observes in the same case :--“ A judgment has no greater effect in extinguishing a demand than payment." It is settled by the case to which I have last referred, that a recovery in a joint action under the statute against the several parties to a promissory note, has no effect on the contract which exists between them, as among themselves, although the plaintiff in the action could not afterwards sue either of them.

Then suppose the maker in this case had been sued separately to judgment, and the indorser had paid the judgment, and received back the note, how could the rights of the indorser against the maker have been prejudiced? The judgment would have been extinguished by the payment, but not the indorser's demand against the maker. The indorser's right of action on the note would have been merged and gone, but not the indorsee's, for that of the latter is not derived from the indorser's, but arises from his relation to the maker upon the note. There is a wide difference between the merger of a demand of a particular party and a merger of the note itself, upon which demands of other parties depend.

The maker cannot be prejudiced by holding this doctrine. He has never paid the note, nor is there any judgment remaining against him, for that has been extinguished by the payment by the indorser.

That the effect of a joint judgment is the same as if separate suits had been brought, is settled by the case of Corey and White.

The precise question here raised has not, that I am aware, been determined in