RAILROAD AND CANAL STATISTICS.

FLOUR CARRIED OVER THE WESTERN RAILROAD.

THE total receipts taken during the year 1845, at Greenbush, for freight, amounts to $268,450, being an increase of nearly 100 per cent since the first year, and the number of bbls. of Flour carried over the road has been as follows:

RAILWAY DATA.-Railways made of wood were first used in Northumberland, about the year 1633; and were made of iron, at Whitehaven, in 1738. The first iron railroad was laid down at Coaldbrookdale, in 1786. Steam-power, to convey coals on a railway, was first employed by Blenkinsop, at Hunslet, near Leeds, and afterwards on the Stockton and Darlington railway.,

LOUISVILLE AND PORTLAND CANAL.

The annual report (the twenty-first) of the President and Directors of the Louisville (Kentucky) and Portland Canal Company for 1845, has been published, from which it appears that there was in the treasury, January 1, 1845, $113,490 78. That there was paid for 771 shares of stock held by individuals, which the company have been authorized to buy up by an act of the legislature of Kentucky, $129,528. The expenses on the canal in 1815 were $20,197 54 cents; office charges, salaries, etc., $1,892 32 cents, leaving a balance in the treasury on the 1st of January, 1846, of $100,164 86 cents; which, the report states, will be immediately applied in the purchase of about 665 shares of the capital stock held by individuals, which the company is authorized to purchase by an act of the General Assembly of Kentucky. This purchase, added to those purchased in the three previous years, will make the United States virtually the owners of 5,353 shares, leaving but 4,647 shares held by individuals to be hereafter liquidated.

The following is an abstract of the boats that have passed, and the tolls received on the canal, since its commencement in 1831, to 1845:

The report states that if the ice had not obstructed the navigation so much earlier in the fall of 1845 than usual, the amount of tolls for that year would have exceeded the amount received in 1844.

MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES.

MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK.

THE twenty-fifth annual meeting of this noble institute, was held in Clinton Hall, on Tuesday, January 13, 1846. The meeting was called to order by Mr. Charles E. Milnor, the president, on whose motion, that early and staunch friend of the association, Philip Hone, Esq., was called to the chair. The annual report, a copy of which is now before us, was read, and ordered to be printed. It is a business-like document, and records, without exaggeration, the success that has marked the career of the institute, in this the twenty-fifth year of its existence. The aggregate number of paying members, at the close of the last year, is stated in the twenty-fourth annual report to have been 1,891. The withdrawals in 1845 were 224, and the accounts closed in conformity with the requirements of the constitution, were 120. The number of additions during the year 1845, was 582; making the number of members at the present time 2,129. Of these, 2,012 pay $2 per annum, and merchants and others, to the number of 117, pay $5 per annum. The number of honorary members elected since the foundation of the institute, is 168; of these, there are deceased 48, leaving the number at present 120. There are also 292 stockholders of the Clinton Hall Association entitled to the privilege of the library. These tables, says the report, afford an abundant proof that the hopes expressed in the last annual report, that the result of that year's experience, gave “token of a more healthy and natural action of our system, and yielded rich promises of a more stable and enduring prosperity" than could have been expected after the gloom of the few years preceding. From the treasurer's report, it appears that the receipts of the present year have been $5,421 32; and the expenditures $4,818 16, leaving a balance on hand of $603 16. The library appears to have received the unwearied attention of the board of directors, and we are happy to state has been considerably augmented. The number of volumes in the library at the close of 1844, is stated in the last annual report to have been 21,312. The additions made in 1845 by purchase were 1,377, and by donation 51, in all 1,428; making the total number at the present time 22,740. The volumes added to the library during the past year, are classed in the report as follows:-Works of science and art, 232; general literature, 805; fiction, 381-total, 1,428. Of these, 7 were folios; 43 quartos; 724 octavos, and 554 duodecimos.

THE TOWN OF BOSTON, (ENGLAND.)

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MERCHANT'S MAGAZINE.

MR. HUNT-There is in your number for January last an article on the "Value and Prospects of Life in the United States," by Dr. Spore. At page 27, the writer states, without any qualification, that "the mortality of the town of Boston, (England,) situated in the fens," is 1 in 27: it is also stated, that the counties of "Kent, Essex," and the "East Riding of Yorkshire," are reported in "Parliamentary returns as essentially fenny," and "subject to agues."

Now, first, as to the average mortality of Boston. That town was undoubtedly situated in the fens half a century ago; but it is now surrounded by one of the richest grazing and grain growing regions in England, and without a foot of fen land within a circle of forty miles diameter around it. The following table of the population and mortality of Boston has been drawn from authentic records.

So much in justice to the healthiness of my native town. Great part of the surrounding fenny country was drained and cultivated before 1801, and the remainder shortly afterwards; and scarcely a case of what was used to be called "the fen ague," has occurred in the neighborhood for many years.

แ

Again, as to" Kent, Essex and the East Riding of Yorkshire being reported in Parliamentary returns as essentially fenny and subject to agues." I will not say what they may have been a century ago; but they certainly never were the fenny country of England. The great Bedford Level, of which the learned Dugdale has left us a good history in his work on "Drainage and Embankment," comprehended the counties of Cambridge, Huntington and Bedford, and much of Norfolk and Lincolnshire, as well as the Isle of Ely. This extensive level was, a century ago, essentially fenny" and "subject to agues." The whole, however, with the exception of a few shallow lakes called meres, has been drained and cultivated, and rendered highly productive as well as salubrious. Waving all question as to what "Kent and Essex and the East Riding of Yorkshire" may have been, the following statement of their average mortality in 1811 and in 1839, when compared with the average mortality of England, will help to remove the charge of present insalubrity.

These corrections do not affect Dr. Spore's argument, that elevated districts are more healthy than low, marshy, and fenny ones; but they are due to the districts which he has named, as furnishing the proof of it.

P. T.

THE GUANO TRADE.

It appears from a statistical document on Guano, published by the Peruvian government, that in the year 1841, the first year of commerce in this manure, there were 6,125 tons exported from the coast of Peru in 23 ships. In the following years the exportation was considerably augmented. Thus, from the year 1842, to the month of February of the past year, 106 vessels left Peru with about 32,000 tons, of which 2,522 were exported to France in eight French vessels, 300 to the United States, and 300 to Italy and Austria. The rest, nearly nine-tenths, took the direction of England.

THE BOOK TRADE.

1.-A System of Logic. Ratiocinative and Inductive being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. By JOHN STUART MILL. New York: Harper & Brothers.

This treatise supplies a long existing deficiency in philosophical science. The heterogeneous elements of logical systems have been a great drawback to the true progress of that science, and their influence has thus been ill directed because not concentrated, since the days of Aristotle, the first arttist of this "art of arts." The Scottish philosophers of the Inductive school; Kant, Fries, and the others of the German school, all possess kindred elements, and capable of being combined; and we are here convinced that the latter is but an extension of the former By supplying the gulf between them, viz., the logicians of the Pure Reason and those who refer only to the understanding, between the supporters and opposers of the syllogism, casting out the errors of both systems, and assimilating the benefits of others, this work is really made to embody the results of all late progress in Logic, and in the modes of investigating truth and evidence. It is no new system, but what is far better, a compend and harmony of all previous systems of any worth. It is adapted to a capacity little advanced, having not half the obscurity of Whately, though more philosophical, and compared with former treatises, from its eclectic character, appears the most valuable that has yet been published. It discusses the most general and comprehensive questions, and is yet sufficiently elementary and detailed. We know of no other writer who has so fully gone into the physical sciences, and analysed their laws, and shown how far analogy should be carried into the moral.

2.-The Addresses and Messages of the Presidents of the United States, Inaugural. Annual, and Special, from 1789 to 1846; with a Memoir of each of the Presidents, and a History of their Administrations; also the Constitution of the United States, and a Selection of Important Documents and Statistica' Information. Compiled from Official Sources, by EDWIN WILLIAMS. In two volumes. New York: Edward Walker.

The first volume, a large and handsome octavo of 728 pages, embracing all the messages and addresses of the Presidents from Washington to Jackson, with biographical notices of each, and a succinct history of their administrations, has been published. A second volume is soon to follow, which will include in the same order the messages, etc., from Jackson to Polk, completing the work to 1846. The arrangement adopted by Mr. Williams, the compiler, is judicious-he first gives us the Declaration of Independence; the Articles of Confederation; Constitution of the United States, and the Amendments to the same; and then proceed to a brief biography of Washington, foll wing it with all the messages of the first President, and closing with a comprehensive history of his administration; pursuing the same course throughout the work. The official writings of the American Presidents are thus rendered more valuable and complete, as a continued national history, from the adoption of our constitution to the present time. The very general value and interest connected with this enterprise, cannot fail of securing for it the most complete success. To the statesman and politician it will become an indispensable vade mecum, and the American who loves his country, will examine with pleasure, as well as patriotic pride, the political history here unfolded. "He will," to quote from the introduction of Mr. Williams, "behold the republic founded and e-tablished by the valor and wisdom of his ancestors, in the different stages of her progress-from the dawn of her existence as an independent power, through the blessings of Providence, overcoming every difficulty and danger-advancing in population, wealth and territory, until she has acquired the first rank in physical and moral ability among the nations of the earth."

3.-Memoir of the Life and Writings of Felicia Hemans. By her SISTER. With an Essay on her Genius. By MRS. SIGOURNEY. New York: C. S. Francis & Co's Cabinet Library. Boston: J. H. Francis.

The productions of one gifted should be criticised by a literary, but the biography should be written by a personal friend. The incidents of the latter can seldom be called romantic, but that of Mrs. Hemans was full of so much spirituality, her intercourse with the kindred minds of her day so interesting, her life so lovely and beautiful, and death so angelic, that it needs but the faithful narrative of a sister, and not the foreign ornament of the generous to add lustre thereto. Hence this is the best Memoir of Mrs. Hemans yet written, and that is not all, for an additional attraction is lent to the volume by Mrs. Sigourney's Essay. Milton's saying that he "who would write poetry must make his life an epic," has here a strong analogical illustration—that it requires a poet's pen to describe a poet's power. Our readers will find in the discriminating essay of Mrs. Sigourney, who has been sometime called the "Hemans of America," and in the truthful memoir, all the noble subject demands, and if they can read either with an undisturbed spirit, they have more marble in their nature than can be easily meited.

4.-Memoir of the late Rev. Alexander Proudfit, D. D., with Selections from his Diary and Correspondence, and Recollections of his Life, by his Son. By JOHN FORSYTH, D. D., Minister of Union Church, Newburgh. New York: Harper & Brother.

If, as Pope says, "the proper study of mankind is man," our daily intercourse with the living and communion with the departed, through their works, and the memorials of their lives presented to us by the impartial biographer, afford the best, and perhaps the only means of pursuing the study with advantage. The subject of the present memoir was an eminent and sincere minister of the Presbyterian Church, exhibiting in his life and conversation many traits of character that are worthy of all acceptation. His early years and education, number of good resolutions, diary, spiritual life, personal trials, pastoral efforts, last days, etc., are all comprised in this volume, and what renders it peculiarly interesting to us, is the statement, that a truly catholic spirit, and tenderness of the reputation of others were marked traits of his character. "He spoke not ill of his neighbor. If he could not speak well of a person, he would at least be silent; but the case was rare indeed in which he could not find some ground of commendation."

5.-The Wandering Jew. By EUGENE SUE. A new and elegant Translation. Profusely illustrated by the most eminent artists of Paris. In Two Volumes. New York: Harper & Prothers.

This remarkable romance, which has been read by millions, is too well known to require notice at this late day. Our only object at this time is to refer to the splendid edition, the first volume of which has just been completed. It is profusely illustrated, with characteristic designs and engravings executed in Paris, of the scenes and incidents that give interest to the story, and the characters that are described with so much power by the master mind of Sue. It is the only beautiful edition that has been published in this country.

6.-The History of John Martin, a Sequel to the Life of Henry Milner. By MRS. SHERWOOD, author of the ilistory of the "Fairchild Family," "Orphans of Normandy," etc. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Mrs. Sherwood has long been known to the readers of fiction, and has a large class of admirers. Impressed with the importance of a religious life, all her writings are designed to promote that end. In the present history the trials and temptations of a young minister are detailed with the writer's characteristic power. Her works of late years have less of the sectarian and more of the practical, and will therefore, doubtless, secure a wider circulation.

7.-Sketches from Life by the late Laman Blanchard, Edited, with a Memoir of his Life. By EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, Bart. In 2 Parts. New York: Wiley & Putnam's Library of Choice Reading.

The popular and original character of these sketches, the melancholy fate of their gifted and lamented author, and not a little the touching memoir of his life by Bulwer, have made this an attractive work to all classes. No one, we think, has read it without mourning for the terrible circumstance which deprived poor Blanchard of life and the world of his genius. And though more noisy and tumultuous strugglings of men may have gained admirers, none to us has the deep beauty of this ardent Soul, battling with the noblest of God's gifts, for that, which the very slave gets with the meanest of weapons. The papers here gathered are full of the digested wisdom of the world, and much of inspiration. They were written as occasion called them forth for periodicals, and display the man more than a longer or more permanent work.

8.-Stories from the Italian Poets, being a Summary in Prose of the Poems of Dante, Pulci, Borando, Ariosto and Tasso, with Comments throughout, Occasional Passages Versified, and Critical Notices of the Lives and Genius of the Authors. By LEIGH HUNT. In Three Parts. New York: Wiley & Putnam.

No translations have yet been made from the works of these narrative poets, the great pioneers of a refined national literature, more faithful, and embodying more clearly the spirit of the original. They have previously been translated into poetry; but with the exception of a few passages, the polished and elegant taste of Leigh Hunt has transformed them into English prose, and the difficulties of versification being thus set aside, they reflect more strongly the true meaning and effect of the originals The critical or rather biographical notice of the five poets, and of Dante in particular, are highly valuable, written in Leigh Hunt's best style, and exhibiting a most correct knowledge of their true history and characters.

9.-Explanations: a Sequel to "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." By the Author of that work. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 161 Broadway.

The statement of the nebular hypothesis regarding the arrangement of the bodies in space are given in the "Vestiges of Creation" attracted universal attention. It has been thought that it had a sceptical influence, and a strong article appeared against it in the Edinburgh Review, as an answer to which this "sequel" has been published; the author contending that it has not the infidel or Atheistical tendency charged upon it, and that instead of conflicting with the Mosaic account of creation, it only describes the mode of creation by the Deity. Much of the evidence adduced in support of his hypothesis, is obtained from an examination of geology, fossil remains, etc. While its logical power and scientific research el cits our highest admiration, the noble conceptions which the subject and the grand ideas here presented awaken, must have the most lof.y effect upon the mind.