sessed the art of mixing the materials and being able to sustain all the other departments appertaining to the business, he prevailed upon the proprietors to erect a small six pot flint furnace in part of their large unoccupied manufactory in South Boston. At that time the articles of flint glass imported by the earthenware trade, were confined to a very few articles, such as German straw tumblers, cruets, salts, and plain decanters of cheap fabric, of the finer articles, to cut finger tumblers, sham diamond cut dishes, and Rodney decanters; a quality of glass and cutting that would not at the present day command one fifth of their then cost.

War having interrupted the importation of glass, the manufactory supplied the then limited demand and gave full employ for their factory.

Contemporaneous with the South Boston enterprise, a company was formed and incorporated under the title of the Porcelain and Glass Manufacturing Company. Their factory was located at East Cambridge, then called Cragie's Point. Their china department was directed by a Mr. Braitan, but for want of proper materials it proved an entire failure. Their glass works were under the direction of a Mr. Thompson, who built a small six-pot furnace, similar in size to the one at South Boston. Thompson brought out a set of hands at a heavy expense, to work the furnace, but the result proved he was in no way qualified for the task, nor possessed the least practical skill or knowledge of the business, and of course proving an entire failure; the attempt to make porcelain and glass was abandoned by the company.

In 1815, some of the workmen left the South Boston Factory and hired of the Porcelain Company their six-pot furnace, and commenced the making of flint glass under the firm of Emmet, Fisher & Flowers. They succeeded for a time very well, and turned out glass suitable for the trade; but want of concert of action prevented a successful result, and they dissolved without loss. The Porcelain Company discouraged by so may failures, agreed to wind up their concern, and in November, 1817, they disposed of their entire property at public auction.

As one manufactory dies out only to give place to another, so the present New England Glass Company was formed, and became the purchasers of the Porcelain works. That Company, from 1817 to the present time, have pursued the business with signal success, beginning with the small capital of forty thousand dollars, they have from time to time increased it, until it amounts at the present time to half a million of dollars. They commenced business with a small six pot furnace holding 700 lbs. to each pot-employed, all told, about forty hands, and the yearly product did not exceed forty thousand dollars. They now run five furnaces, averaging ten pots to each ca pacity of 2,000 lbs. to each pot. They employ over 500 men and boys, and the yearly product is not less than $500,000.

In 1820, some of their workmen left them, built a factory in New York City, and conducted their business under the firm of Fisher & Gillerland. In 1823, Gillerland dissolved the connection and built on his own account a manufactory in Brooklyn, N. Y, which he conducts at this period with great skill and success, and is considered the best metal mixer in the United States.

In 1825, a Flint Glass Manufactory was established by individual enterprise in Sandwich, Mass. Ground was broke in April, dwellings for the workmen built, and manufactory completed; and on the 4th day of July, 1825, they commenced blowing glass, three months from first breaking ground. In the following year it was purchased of the proprietor, a company formed, and incorporated under the title of Boston and Sanwich Glass Company. Like their predecessors, they commenced in a small way beginning with an eight-pot furnace, each holding 800 lbs. The weekly melts at that period did not exceed 7,000 lbs., and yearly product $75,000, giving employment to from 60 to 70 hands. From time to time, as their business warranted, they increased their capital until it reached the present sum of three hundred thousand dollars. Their weekly melts have increased from 7,000 lbs. to much over 100,000 lbs; their hands employed from 70 to over 400; their one furnace of 8 pots to 4 furnaces of 10 pots; and yearly product from $75,000 to $500,000.

In 1820, another secession of workmen from the New England Glass Company took place, to embark on their own account their savings of many years, in the doubtful enterprise of establishing flint glass works in Kensington, Philadelphia, under the title of the Union Flint Glass Company. The proprietors being all workmen, were enthu siastic in the project, happy in the belief that they could carry it on successfully, work when convenient, and enjoy much leisure. All was then to them sunshine. Ere long they realized the many inherent evils attendant on flint glass works; the demon of discord appeared among them, and they discovered, when too late, that they had left a place of comfort and ease for a doubtful enterprise. Death thinned their ranks, and

the works after passing into other hands, for a short trial, have years since ceased to

exist.

From 1820 to 1840, very many attempts were made by corporations and firms, to establish the manufacture of flint glass in the Atlantic States, but almost with entire faiture. The parent tree, the old South Boston concern failed-the works were revived from time to time, by at least five different concerns, and all ended in failure; and for years the works remained closed, till the present occupant, Mr. Patrick Slane, hired the premises, and by his enterprise and great industry has greatly enlarged the works, and is now carrying on a large and active business. In his factory we learn the old system among the operatives he does not allow to have a foothold, and the individual industry of his hands is not cramped or limited, by the oppressive system of the old school operative.

As a record of the past and a reference for the future, we find in reviewing the various attempts to establish flint glass works in the Atlantic States, that it would not be just to place the names of those identified with them before the reader, for many were deluded by the proprietors with promises of the most flattering success, but realized only disappointment and loss.

In enumerating all the concerns, companies, and corporations, that have been engaged in the manufacture of flint glass in the Atlantic States, we find the number was forty-two; of which number, two concerns have retired, and ten are now in operation, viz. two at East Cambridge, three at South Boston, one at Sandwich, three near New York City, one at Philadelphia, leaving two concerns who retired with property, and twenty-eight out of the forty-two concerns entire failures, involving the parties interested in heavy loss, the fate of the existing ten to be determined by future events.

Before closing, we may allude to the repeated failure of permanently establishing window and bottle glass works in this vicinity; the primary cause has been in the construction of the furnace, no improvement for centuries having taken place, but the old defective plan being adhered to by workmen from Europe; a casual observer must see they are defective, and consume double the quantity of fuel really required for the weekly melts. The rate of wages for experienced workmen, about two-fold over the German rates, has heretofore checked success, but at the present time is more than compensated by machinery and materials.

The manufacture of plate glass offers a profitable and inviting field that should be improved, the consumption in this country is large and increasing yearly. Materials are cheaper than in Europe, and as the most essential part is performed by machinery and motive power, this more than equalized the extra wages that may be taxed upon a new undertaking.

THE AUSTRALIAN GOLD MINES.

D. J.

The discovery of gold in Australia was made three years ago, by a Mr. Smith, who was engaged in collecting iron ore. It is said that he proceeded to the government house at Sydney, on making the discovery, with a lump of gold in his hand, and offered to point out where the precious metal could be found, if the government would handsomely reward him. The authorities thought this a trick and paid no attention to his statements. In April of last year, Mr. Hargraves, who had been in California, again made the discovery of gold, and reported it to the colonial authorities, pointing out certain localities, which have since become famous for the richness of the golden deposit. The government surveyor was ordered to accompany Mr. Hargraves in his explorations, and after a few hours' examination, he reported that he "had seen enough-gold was every where plentiful." A proclamation was at once issued, forbidding any person to dig or search for gold without a goverment license. These licenses were readily sold, and then commenced the excitement and scramble for gold -a repetition of such scenes as were witnessed in our own country when California first opened its golden gates.

The acquisition of the precious metals in Australia, has been, if we may credit accounts from thence, much easier and surer than in California. It has been found in lumps and quantities almost exceeding belief. It is well authenticated that a Dr. Kerr found a lump weighing, with dross, three hundred pounds, and which yielded one hundred and six pounds of pure gold! It was purchased by Messrs. Thacker & Co., of Sydney, for $16,000, and was sent to an eminent firm in London. The London Illustrated News contains a picture and description of the "king of the nuggets," a lump of pure gold, from Australia, which weighs twenty-seven-and-a-half pounds. It

is eleven inches long and four to five broad, and represented to be twenty carets fine. If this statement is correct, the "king of the nuggets" is the finest and purest specimen of pure gold that has yet been found in Australia or California.

The Australian gold fields are many miles in extent, and are found in various parts of the island. At last accounts the prospects were as bright as ever, and the government authorities estimated that the amount of gold collected each day was equivalent to a pound sterling to each digger. Says the Australian and New Zealand Gazette, "To find quartz is to find gold. It is found thirty-two feet from the surface in plenty. Gold is actually oozing from the earth."

Up to December last, eight months after the discovery, there had been shipped from Australia gold valued at two millions of dollars. Since then a million dollars' worth a week, for three successive weeks, has arrived in London, from the same quarter.

The reception of the news attending these wonderful facts, has caused full as much excitement in England, Ireland, and Scotland, as similar intelligence from California excited in the United States. The result is an enormous emigration to the land of the glittering dust. The emigrants from London and Liverpool alone number 2,000 weekly. The amount of shipping thus engaged from the latter port is more than 100,000 tons, independent of steam vessels. Among the last are the gigantic propeller "Great Britain" and the Sarah Sands," formerly running to this country. The packet lines, of which there are eight, number over fifty ships.

The political and commercial consequences of this sudden peopling of Australia, and its conversion from a thinly-settled pastoral and poor colony into a populous and wealthy one, are of incalculable magnitude. No event of the present century is likely to have so great an influence on the welfare of Great Britain as this discovery of gold in Australia.

INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS OF MICHIGAN.

The following table of the production of the State of Michigan in the year 1837, immediately after that State was admitted into the Union, and the year 1850, shows the rapid growth of the State:

In 1840, the population of Michigan was 212,267; in 1850, 400,000. The difference of the rates of increase of the various articles is singular-while the population has more than doubled in this period, the amount of wheat is over four times greater; rye, five times; corn, eight times; oats show but a small increase; buckwheat, over seven times; cattle, three times; horses, four times; hogs have scarcely doubled; and sheep nearly 34 times. We should thence judge, that while the soil of Michigan has been found ill-fitted for oats, it is peculiarly adapted for corn and buckwheat, and that sheep are the favorite stock. In 1850, 2,007,598 pounds of wool were clipped; and 7,056,478 pounds of butter, 1,112,646 pounds of cheese were made, being not quite eighteen pounds of butter and three pounds of cheese to each individual.

In the year 1830, Michigan Territory, including what is now Wisconsin, contained 30,848 whites and 280 persons of color, of whom 27 were slaves. In 1810, the population was 4,762, and in 1820, 8,896.

PRODUCTION OF WINE IN MISSOURI.

The wine harvest of the present year, at Hermann, Missouri, has turned out favorable. The yield is 6,000 gallons; and, if the crop is as good next year, it will be 15,000 to 20,000 gallons. In the town, which is mostly inhabited by Germans, there are already two hundred acres planted with 200,000 vines, all of which will be in bearing in two years, yielding 25,000 gallons in common seasons, and 50,000 in good ones. An acre of land in vines is reckoned to be worth $1,000.

STATISTICS OF ANTHRACITE AND CUMBERLAND COAL.

The statistics of the anthracite trade may well awaken surprise. This trade is only about thirty years old. In 1820 the entire shipment was 365 tons.

In 1830.

In 1840

.tons

Think of it.

142,734

876,048

3,332,314

In 1850, it reached the enormous quantity of And still further, to show at what a rapid ratio the demand is increasing, in 1851 the amount was 4,383,736 tons, an increase over the preceeding year of more than a million of tons. Since 1820, more than thirty-three millions of tons have been supplied. It has been confidently predicted, upon calculations based on the past rate of increase, that the demand for anthracite in 1860, will reach ten millions of tons per annum. What will it be in 1870? What in 1880? For the encroachments of coal upon the uses to which wood has heretofore been applied, and the new uses it has discovered, are now accruing more rapidly than before. The statistics of the Cumberland coal trade are more astonishing, and hold out yet a brighter promise. This trade is but nine years old.

In 1843 the sales were

In 1851 they were...

..tons

4,964 162,500

And for the current year they may be safely estimated at.. 450,000

By the report of the Cumberland company, it appears that they send to market (which was over the railroad alone,) 400 tons per diem-an amount which, by the restoration of the canal, has been increased, since the date of that report, to six and eight hundred tons; and the directors announce that they expect to transport during the ensuing season, fifteen hundred tons per day or more.

BUFFUM'S PERFECTED GOLD SEPARATOR.

To FREEMAN HUNT, Editor Merchants' Magazine :—

Natural Philosophy has been a prominent study of learned men from the earliest ages to the present time; they have given much attention to investigation of the scientific principles which produce and regulate the movements of matter in all its forms and under all circumstances, until they have professed to understand and explain the laws of motion in all material substances.

But in this age of invention, discoveries are occasionally made, which demonstrate the fallacy of some of their theoretical conclusions, and open new fields to inventive genius, for the application to useful purposes of principles never before understood.

In relation to the action of fluids in a whirlpool, where the motion is given to the fluid by the application of mechanical power, the theory laid down by professional scientific writers has been, that the circular motion exerts a centrifugal force, tending to throw from the centre, everything that is moveable by the action of the fluid; and that the centrifugal movement of the fluid goes on, piling up a column at the periphery and forming a vertical gulf at the centre, till the weight of the pile balances the centrifugal force, after which, the entire movement is restricted to a regular circular motion. This view of the action of a whirlpool is regarded as a well known law long since universally conceded; so conclusive has been the idea of the soundness of this theory, that an application for a patent for a Gold Separator, based on a centripetal action in a whirlpool, was rejected on the ground that the principles set forth in the specification conflicted with this "well known law;" the applicant, however, succeeded in furnishing the Commissioner with such conclusive evidence, that this supposed "well known law" has no existence in fact, that the patent was issued, securing to Arnold Buffum for the term of fourteen years, the exclusive right to the specified application of the centripetal motive power in a whirlpool.

Mr. Buffum has given undisputable demonstrations, that in a whirlpool of water in a stationary cistern, produced by a horizontally revolving water mover suspended at an elevation from the bottom, there is a continued centrifugal movement in the oblique surface of the vortical gulf, which necessarily produces a constant downward movement at the periphery, and a centripetal movement at the base, carrying substances like crushed ore spirally from the periphery to the centre.

In Mr. Buffum's application of this principle, in a cistern but two feet in diameter, he passes gold bearing sand or pulverized quartz on the surface of quicksilver, over a

spiral distance of more than twenty feet, which insures the amalgamation and saving of all the gold, while the crushed rock or iron pyrites, and all other sands, are washed away at a discharge aperture at the centre of the cistern bottom.

This machine has won for itself the appellation of "BUFFUM'S PERFECTED GOLD SEPARATOR," having received the unqualified approval of all who have seen its operation. It is exhibited washing golden sands every day, at the Gold Mining Depot, No 8, Battery Place, New York.

FRENCH MANUFACTURES.

The Revue de deux mondes contains an instructive and copious article on the silk manufactures and operatives of Lyons; the political delusions and clubs, and the insurrections, by which that city was so injuriously disturbed. In France, there are 130,000 looms for silk, pure or mixed, of which the products amount, in value, to three hundred millions per annum. The fabrics of Lyons yield about or nearly two-thirds of that sum-a moiety of the whole is exported-three-fifths of the exports from Lyons. The United States consume the greater part. Competition is formidable abroad, especially in Great Britain and Germany; but it was acknowledged at the Great Exhibition that Lyons retained pre-eminence in designs and tissues. The seventy looms at Lyons occupy 175,000 individuals; one half of these are dispersed over a radius of from twenty to twenty five leagues; the other are in the bosom of the city. There are three hundred manufacturing firms, embracing from four hundred and fifty to five hundred names. The average earning of the operative is thirty sous per day. The manufacture is much injured by the mutability of fashion. Irreligion, dissipation, improvidence, revolutionary politics, have prevailed with the worst effects among the operatives, but amendment is already visible by reason of the overpowering force and energy of the new rule, and the popularity of the name of Napoleon. The whole population of Lyons is returned at two hundred and fifty thousand. Paupers swarm in all the manufacturing centers. Extreme indigence begets supineness, debauchery, indifference as to health and comfort. The most squalid and necessitous existence be comes inveterate habit, and one of predilection. At the recent inauguration of the grand statue of Napoleon at Lyons, enthusiasm seemed nearly universal. The artist has represented the emperor in his surtout and little cocked hat, so familiar to the memory and affections of the troops. The division of the army excels the corps of twenty thousand garrisoned at Lyons.

MANUFACTURE OF SCYTHES IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Near Wilmot, N. H., is the New London scythe factory village, where an extensive business in the manufacture of scythes is carried on by Messrs. Phillips, Messer, Colby & Co. Their works are located on the Blackwater River, just below the outlet of Pleasant Pond. They are furnished with six trip-hammers, and other machinery suitable for turning off a large amount of work with despatch.

The works, when in full operation, turn out from twelve to fourteen dozen of scythes per day, and produce annually about three thousand dozen, most of which are consumed in the New England States. In their manufacture, from thirty to forty tons of iron, one hundred and fifty tons of hard coal, five or six thousand bushels of charcoal and twenty or thirty tons of grindstones are consumed.

WASTEFUL METHOD OF PROCURING GUTTA-PERCHA.

It is stated in an English Journal that in 1845 Great Britain imported only 20,000 lbs., but in 1848 the quantity brought in amounted to 3,000,000 lbs., since which time it has been constantly increasing, and, if it can be had, will continue to increase. The mode of obtaining gutta-percha is most wasteful; instead of tapping the tree at intervals to obtain the sap, the trees are cut down, so that, unless their artificial cultivation be taken up by civilized people, the supply will be shortened. Dr. Oxley, who wrote in Singapore, whence all we get at present comes, says, that for the quantity which was exported between January 1st, 1815, and July, 1847, nearly 70,000 trees must have been destroyed.