nearly every county, and carefully examining and exploring each. He says that Virginia possesses every metal and mineral that all the other States possess, and any specific one in as great abundance and of equal quality with an other single State.

Of the metals examined by him may be enumerated gold, silver, iron, lead, tin, zinc, platinum, molybdenum, tellurium, cobal, nickel, bismuth, antimony, arsenic, plumbago, etc.

Of the minerals, coal, marble, kaolin (porcelain clay), potter's clay, fire clay, fuller's earth, hydraulic cement, asbestos, soapstone, slate, red and yellow ochre, mineral paints, manganese, gypsum, salt, marl, white sand, numerous mineral springs, etc.

Dr. GRANT has visited over one hundred gold mines, forty silver mines, twentyfive consecutive mines of copper, lead and zinc, three tin mines, one platinum, two of molydenum, one of tellurium, one of cobalt, one of nickel, one of bismuth, one of antimony, four of arsenic, and twenty of plumbago.

There are about two hundred square miles of coal lands in the Shenandoah Valley, one hundred square miles in Chesterfield County, twenty square miles in the Farmville fields, and two hundred and fifty square miles in Botetourt, Montgomery, and other counties of Southwestern Virginia.

Of the valuable ores he says: The gold ores of Virginia are more brittle, more easily crushed, and by analysis equally valuable with those of Colorado, and cover fully as great an area.

Silver is found both in simple ore, in argentiferous galena, and with native copper.

There are lead mines in Southwestern Virginia as rich as any in America. They supplied the whole South during the war, and show no signs of exhaustion. The ores are compact blue sulphuret, and are frequently found in solid veins six feet wide.

The coppers are carbonate and sulphuret. Masses of native copper have been found in this State of great size. The mines extend through at least eight counties.

The iron ores are red and brown hematite, ferruginous ochre, specular, magnetic, spathic, black band, sulphuret.

The coals found are adapted to the furnace.

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL STATISTICS.

CROPS, LIVE STOCK AND FARMS-ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE.

The annual report of the Commissioner of Agriculture shows that, with the exception of wheat, the yield of the crops during the past year has been very large. The following tables exhibit the result:

The above tables do not show the exact comparative differences between the years 1863 and 1864, because the latter year embraces the crops of Kentucky, which are not in the year of 1863 Deducting from 1864, the comparison will be as follows:

The table of comparison between 1863 and 1864 exhibits much that is impor tant. The increase in the bushels of grain is large and the decrease in the pounds of tobacco raised is also great. The decrease in acres cultivated is 1,185,451, but the increase in the value of the above crops is $484,651,113.

The first increase is from the corn crop, and the last may be attributed to an increase in the currency, or a spirit of speculation.

GENERAE SUMMARY OF THE AMOUNT OF THE CROPS OF 1865, COMPARED WITH THOSE

In the Western States the Wheat crop is very deficient in quality. It has been estimated by the department that the deficiency in both quantity and qual ity is 20.241,698 bushels; in quantity alone, 12,172,944 bushels. The quality of the corn crop is excellent, and that of the remaining crops is believed to be an average. The number of bushels in 1865 exceeds those of 1864 by 215,710,411

DIVE STOCK.

The following table shows the total number of live stock for January, 1864 and 1865, the increase and decrease thereof, the general average price of each kind, the value of each kind, and the total value of all;

NUMBER, AVERAGE PRICE, AND TOTAL VALUE IN JANUARY, 1865.

The Commissioner gives the following account of the farms in the Southern

States:

The average size of farms in the United States, in 1860, was 199 acres; almos double the average for Great Britain, which, in 1851, was 102 acres only, notwithstanding the great size of many baronial and aristocratic "holdings"-there being no les than 170,814 farms in the kingdom, or considerably more than one-half of the entire number, having less than 50 acres each. But the average in the Southern States is for greater than the general average for the United States, as the following table will show

The large proportion-almost three-fourths-of unimproved land in firms, in addition to the unimproved public lands, illustrates pointedly the necessity that vastly more labor be applied to their cultivation. The most populous states in the Union have the smallest farms, commanding the highest price per acre; and the value per acre is, as a general fact, inversely proportionate to the size of the farms. Thus the farms of Massaahusetts average ninety-four acres; of Rhode Island, ninetysix; of Connecticut, ninety-nine; of New York, one hundred and six; of Peunsylvania, one hundred and nine, and of Ohio, one bundred and fourteen."

SEEDS.

In the distribution of seeds, 234,945 packages have been delivered to senators and representatives in Congress, 119,692 to agricultural and horticultural societies, and 408,583 to regular and occasional correspondents, and in answer to personal applications-making total of all varieties of seeds of 768,231 packages.

The distributions from the experimental and propagating garden during the past year have been mainly confined to varieties of small fruits, such as grapes, strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries and currants. Of these about thirty-five thousand plants have been distributed through the usual channels.

PHOTOGRAPHIC DISCOVERIES.

We take the following account of the results of experiment in photographs from a contemporary, assured that they will interest as well as instruct our readers.

NEGATIVES WITHOUT A NITRATE BATH.

The oft-repeated attempt to dispense with a nitrate of silver bath in producing negatives has received attention during the year, and renewed experiments have been made with some degree of success. Our own attempts made years ago were chiefly directed to getting rid of the nitrate baths in the wet process. We have made some experiments in the same direction during the past year. Herr Paul Liesgang has done the same, and Messrs. Sayce and Bolton have successively experimented in producing dry plates by similar means. In their experi. ments they use a colodion containing five grains of pyroxytine, five grains of bromide of cadmium, two one-half grains of bromide of ammodium, and nitrate of silver eleven to twelve grains, by which bromide of silver in a finely suspended state, which is formed in the colodion plates coated with this, immersed in water until there is no appearance of greaseness, and then immersed five or ten minutes

which we added three grains each of This gives good negatives after very

in a fifteen grain solution of tannin, to
grape sugar and gallic acid, and dried.
short exposure on the application of an alkaline developer.

COMBINATION OF THE SALTS OF SILVER AND LEAD IN PRINTING.

M. Grune has produced some positives with the double oxide of silver and lead. His process rests upon Wohler's discovery that if we precipitate a mixed solution of a salt of lead and a salt of silver by potassa, a yellow precipitate is formed, which is a true alloy of the oxide of the two metals. This alloy, consit ng of sixty-six parts of oxide of lead and thirty-four parts of the oxide of silver, is sensitive to the action of light. It is said that the paper to which it

is applied is printed as rapidly as paper coated with chloride of silver, yields the most delicate half tones, and the fixing and toning are effected in the ordinary manner. Ordinary paper is placed on a batb composed of

When dried the paper is floated a second time upon a bath composed of one part of potassa dissolved in thirty parts of water. The paper now becomes yellow brown. it is dried and then exposed. Under the luminous action the lights become brownish, but they return to a pure white under the action of the byposulphate of soda. The process tones in the gold bath exactly like those upon albuminzed paper.

NEW METHOD OF PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTING.

Mr. Thomas Fox has patented a process of pringing without nitrate of silver, which he states pro luces p ctures of an intense black, equal if not blacker than any known process, and which will not fade from ordinary exposure. Sensitize the paper with a solution of bichromate of potass and sulphate of copper, mixed in the proportions of one part of the former to two of the latter, and either float or steep the paper for a few minutes, then dry in the dark by a fire, (this paper will retain sensitiveness for some days if carefully preserved from the light) then print from a glass transparency or a paper print. The time of exposure is much the same as in printing with nitrate of silver; in sunshine from one to three minutes is amply sufficient for glass. Prepare a strong decoction of logwood, and filter such a quantity as will float the print, add a little hot water to hasten the development, float the sensitized picture from half a minute to a minute, print side down, and then holding it by one corner gradually raise it from the logwood-a perfect delineated copy is the result. Next dip it into hot or cold water and varnish. This gives a very distinct picture, with the shades of a deep black, and the lights of a rather greyish yellow tint. In order to obtain a white ground, I use a weak solution of alum, put in hot

water.

RECOVERY OF SILVER FROM WASTE SOLUTIONS.

It is stated that out of every one hundred ounces of silver used by a photographer, that ninety-three ounces may be recovered, which would be and is to a great extent in this country lost. It is but lately that they even saved the clip