in America. The following table shows the work done in the several States during the year 1860

Look at these figures. Here are 884,474 tons of pig-iron prepared in a single year, worth $19,487,790. Contrasted with the year 1850, it is an advance of nearly $6,000,000. "Bar and other rolled iron amounted to 406,298 tons, of the value of $22,248,796; an increase of 39.5 per cent over the united products of the rolling mills and forges, which, in 1850, were of the value of $15,938,786. This large production of over one and a quarter million of tons of iron, equivalent to ninety-two pounds for each inhabitant, speaks volumes for the progress of the nation in all its industrial and material interests. The manufacture of iron holds relations of the most beneficial character to a wide circle of important interests, intimately affecting the entire population. The proprietors and miners of ore, coal, and limestone lands; the owners and improvers of woodlands, of railroads, canals, steamboats,

ships, and of every other form of transportation; the producers of food, clothing, and other supplies; in addition to thousands of workmen, merchants, and capitalists, and their families,― have directly participated in the benefits resulting from this great industry. It has supplied the material for an immense number of founderies, and for thousands of blacksmiths, machinists, millwrights, and manufacturers of nails, hardware, cutlery, edged tools, and other workers in metals, whose products are of immense aggregate value, and of the first necessity. The production of so large a quantity of iron, and particularly of bar-iron, and the demand for additional quantities from abroad, tell of the progress of the country in civil and naval architecture and all the engineering arts; of the construction of railroads and telegraphs, which have spread like a net over the whole country; of steam engines and locomotives; of spinning, weaving, wood and metal working, milling, mining, and other machinery; and of all the multiform instruments of science, agriculture, and the arts, both of peace and of war; of the manufacture of every conceivable article of convenience or luxury of the household, the field, or the factory." The aggregate statistics of iron exhibit the extent to which the general condition of the people has been improved by this great agent of civilization during the ten years embraced in this retrospect. "The materials for the manufacture of iron-ore, coal, and other fuel, water-power, &c., are so diffused, abundant, and cheap, that entire independence of foreign supplies appears to be alike desirable and attainable at no distant period;" practicable, we may add, at any time determined by the convenience or political economy of the American people.

Technical chemistry is just beginning to reveal its power to enhance the wealth and comfort of our people. Its products in 1850, exclusive of white lead, ochres, paints, varnish, glue, perfumes, cements, pot and pearl ashes, &c., amounted to nearly $5,000,000; since which time, this practical science has made rapid advances.

Gas manufactured for illumination and other purposes amounted, in a single year, to 5,000,000,000 cubic feet, worth about $13,000,000.

Salt was manufactured in 1860 as follows:

In 1850, we employed 340 establishments in the manufacture of salt, producing $2,177,945 in value of this article, indispensable for culinary and other purposes.

These created supplies are all marvellous, and equally so are the exact adjustments of our developing resources to the wants of our growing population. Well does Mr. Kennedy speak of "that beneficent law of compensation which pervades the economy of Nature, and, when one provision fails for her children, opens to them another in the exhaustless storehouse of her material resources, or leads out their mental energies upon new paths of discovery for the supply of their own wants. Thus, when mankind was about to emerge from the simplicity of the primitive and pastoral ages, the more soft and friable metals no longer sufficed for the artificer; and veins of iron-ore revealed their wealth and use in the supply of his more artificial wants, and became potent agents of his future progress. When the elaboration of the metals and other igneous arts were fast sweeping the forests from the earth, the exhaustless treasures of fossil-fuel, stored for his future use, were disclosed to man; and, when the artificial sources of oil seemed about to fail, a substitute

was discovered, flowing in almost perennial fountains from the depths of these same carboniferous strata."

Now, let the reader pause, and inquire, "Whence are all these wonderful adaptations, these various elements of national prosperity? Who formed this continent with a variety so vast, and materials so rich for the development of a great population?" God, let us reverently answer, formed the land, with its immense agricultural resources. He made the silver and the gold. His are the cattle upon a thousand hills. It would seem that no man could be so much an atheist as to deny to Omnipotent Power the glory of this splendid creation. Just as unworthy of us would be the denial of his omniscient wisdom in the exact adjustment of so fine a portion of a large continent to the purposes of a great free people; in the wide and improbable combinations which brought our ancestors here, and gave them the energy to grapple with the formidable difficulties of a new country, conquer their liberties, and then turn themselves so promptly and vigorously to the avocations of peaceful industry; in the inspirations of genius, seen in their inventions, the growth of inquiry, with population leading to a system of railroads, telegraphs, and internal commerce, so vast as to outrun the calculations of enthusiasts, and bewilder the political economists of other nations. Who but God could have foreseen the gathering of these thirty-four millions here in an era so momentous in the history of the race, and provided for it? made them the representatives of principles so vital to the civilization of the world, and imbued them with the spirit and energy, the high moral qualities, necessary to defend and develop them? drawn attention, at the right time, to the concealed treasures of a continent, and produced the business energy to develop them? We know absolutely that such wisdom and power, such combinations and achievements, are not the prerogatives of mere man. With what gratitude, therefore, should we ascribe them to Him whose are "the king

dom and the power and the glory for ever"! How thankfully should we acknowledge the Providence which has infused into the minds of so large a number of this great nation the spirit of true Christian enterprise and Protestant liberty, and given to the purest forms of Christianity in the world the disposal of all these immense resources! Surely the infidelity which would refuse here to acknowledge and reverence the Infinite Being would be most impious, and deserving of signal retribution.