Yearly amount in yards, &c. Spindles. 160,000 Name and location. Ralph & Field, South Scituate... Smith, A. D. & J. Y., Woonsocket.. Steam Cotton Manuf. Co., Providence ..... Valley Falls Mills, Smithfield ... Shirtings. 350,000 1,540 Sheetings.. 160,000 1,216 Tweed and Jean Warp. Sheetings and Print. 6,000 Print Goods..... 7-4, 11-4, 12-4 Sheetings. Print Goods... Print Goods... 2,800 Satinet Warps.. Cotton Thread.. Warps and Sheetings... 34 Inch Sheetings Fine Shirting.. Name and location. Williams, John D. Newport.... Fisk, Stephen C., S. Kingston ... Hiscox & Pierce, North Kingston.. Lawton, D. P. & Co., Burrilville, Warner, D. E. & C. L., Warwick.. "CULTURE AND MANUFACTURE OF COTTON." In the article on this subject by Gen. C. T. James, published in the March number of the Merchants' Magazine, page 311, fourth line from the top of the page, the writer (Mr. James) is made to say that he has erected "about one-eighth of all the cottonmills in America." Our attention having been called to this statement, we referred to the manuscript copy of the article, and find that our printer has inadvertantly substituted the word "mills” for “spindles." The latter word was distinctly written in the manuscript of Gen. James. There is a vast difference between one-eighth of the mills and one-eighth of the spindles. The mills of Gen. James have, we believe, been of the comparatively larger class. For instance, the Naumkeag Mill, and the James Mill, referred to in the article, are larger, in the aggregate, to say the least, than twenty cotton-mills in operation that could readily be named. It should also be remembered, that the writer of the article in question did not read a proof of, or see the article in print, until its appearance in the Magazine. Since the above was in type, we have received a note from Gen. James, which we here subjoin: FREEMAN HUNT, Esq., Editor Merchants' Magazine. DEAR SIR-In the closing part of my reply to A. A. Lawrence, Esq., published in your Magazine for March, 1850, you make me say that I have erected nearly one eighth of the cotton-mills in the United States. I feel very certain that I said in my manuscript cotton spindles. However that may be, please to correct the error in your April number, as it is important. The factories built and put in operation by me are much larger than the average, and hence I have put in operation nearly one-eighth of the cotton spindles, without having erected nearly one-eighth of the cotton-mills. Such was my meaning. Yours truely, Providence, March 18th, 1850. GUTTA PERCHA: AND ITS USES. CHARLES T. JAMES, Most of our readers are no doubt aware that to Dr. Montgomerie is due the honor of having first drawn public attention to the useful properties of Gutta Percha. The discovery, like so many others of the kind, was accidental, the attention of Dr. Montgomerie having been drawn to the handle of a "parang" in use by a Malay woodsman, which was made of this material. Subsequent inquiries satisfied him of its singular applicability to mechanical purposes. Gutta Percha is a gum which exudes from a tree. "Illness prevented Dr. Montgomerie, at that period, from visiting the forests where the tree grows. He, however, ascertained from the natives that the percha is one of their largest trees, attaining a diameter of three or four feet; that its wood is of no use as timber, but that a concrete and edible oil, used by the natives with their food, is obtainable from the fruit. It many parts of the island of Singapore, and in the forests of Johore, at the extremity of the Malayan peninsula, the tree is found; it is also said to grow in Coti, on the south-eastern coast of Borneo; and Dr. Montgomerie accordingly addressed his inquiries to the celebrated Mr. Brooke, resident at Sarawak, and was assured by that gentleman that it commonly inhabits the woods there also, and is called Niato, by the people, who are not, however, acquainted with the properties of the sap. The tree is often six feet in diameter at Sarawak, and is believed by Mr. Brooke to be plentiful all over Borneo. Its frequency is proved by the circumstance that several hundred tons of the Gutta Percha have been annually exported from Singapore since 1842, when the substance first came into notice here. To account for that extraordinary range of applicability for which Gutta Percha is remarkable, it is necessary to understand its properties. They are thus described:"It is highly combustible, yet it inflames only at a very high degree of heat, and is not injuriously affected by atmospheric heat. It is soluble in essential oils, but to a great extent resists the action of grease and unctuous oils. It mixes readily with paints and most coloring matters. It is repellent of, and completely unaffected by, cold water or damp. It may be softened by dipping in hot water, and then is capable of being molded or rolled out, or pressed into any desired shape, and to almost any extent of thinness. It is, when heated, of a strongly adhesive or agglutinating nature, yet, when dry, is quite free from the stickiness found in caoutchouc or india rubber. In its solid state, it is flexible, and to a slight degree elastic. The last, although by far not the least important property, is its being little injured by use. Nay, more, after it has been employed in a manufactured state, it may be recovered or renovated, and manufactured again." This summary of the chief properties of Gutta Percha certainly presents an union of qualities so opposite yet so useful as naturally to lead to the supposition that the material would be applicable to a variety of purposes; but we certainly were not prepared to find the range of those purposes so extensive as a classified list in one of the Gutta Percha company's little publications shows them to be. Here is the list : "Domestic purposes:-Soles for boots and shoes, lining for cisterns, &c., picture frames, looking-glass frames, ornamental moldings, bowls, drinking-cups, jars, soapdishes, ornamental inkstands, vases, noiseless curtain-rings, card, fruit, pin, and pen trays, tooth-brush trays, shaving-brush trays, window-blind cord, clothes-line, nursing aprons, colored material for amateur modeling, ornamental flower-stand and pots, sheets for damp walls and floors, conveyance of water, gas, &c., drain and soil-pipes, tubing in lieu of bells, tubing for watering gardens, washing windows, &c., lining for bonnets, &c., jar covers, sponge-bags, watch-stands, shells, foot-baths, lighter stands. Manufacturing:-Millbands, pump-buckets, valves, clacks, &c., felt edging for paper-makers, bosses for woolen manufacturers, flax-holders, shuttle-beds for looms, washers, bowls for goldsmiths, bobbins, covers for rollers, round bands and cord, breasts for water-wheels. Surgical:-Splints, thin sheets for bandages, stethescopes, ear-trumpets, balsam for cuts, bed-straps, thread, bedpans for invalids. Electrical, &c. :-Covering for electrical telegraph-wire, insulating stools, battery cells, handles for discharging rods, &c., electrotype molds. Chemical:-Carboys, vessels for acids, &c., syphons, tubing for conveying oils, acids, alkalies, &c., flasks, bottles, lining for tanks, funnels. Uses on shipboard, &c.:-Sou'wester hats, life-buoys, (which are more buoyant than cork,) buckets, pump-buckets, hand speaking-trumpets, powder-flasks, fishing-net floats, sheathing for ships, water-proof canvas, air-tight life-boat cells, tubes for pumping water from the hold to the deck, round and twisted cords, (these cords do not sink in the water like the hempen ones,) lining for boxes, speaking tubes for communicating between the man on the look-out and the helmsman. Ornamental applications:-Medallions, brackets, cornices, console tables, an endless variety of moldings, in imitation of carved oak, rose-wood, &c., for the decoration of rooms, cabinet work, &c., picture frames. Agricultural purposes:Tubing for conveying liquid manure, lining for manure tanks, driving bands for thrashing machines, &c., traces, whips. For offices, &c.:-Inkstands, ink-cups, in lieu of glass, pen trays, cash bowls, washing basins, &c., (which cannot be broken,) tubes for conveying messages, canvass for covering books, &c., architects' and surveyors' plan Miscellaneous:-Suction pipes for fire-engines, fire and stable buckets, lining for coffins, sounding-boards for pulpits, tap ferules, communion trays, tubing for venti lation, hearing apparatus in churches and chapels for deaf persons, cricket balls, bouncing balls, portmanteaus, police staves, life-preservers, embossed book backs, embossed globes and maps for the blind, railway conversation-tubes, miners' caps, beds for paper-cutting-machine knives." cases. The very fact of such a mass of heterogeneous objects being heaped together is the simplest proof of the extraordinary capabilities of this material. Some of the foregoing are worthy of special notice. THE PIG IRON TRADE OF SCOTLAND. The number of pig iron works in Scotland on the 31st December, 1849, was 144, of which 113 were in blast, 27 out of blast, and 4 building. The following table will show the exports for a series of years:— The 94,212 tons exported to the United States in 1849 were sent to the following The following table will show the annual production of pig iron, the stock and prices at the close of each year, and the quantity of malleable iron annually produced in Scotland: EXHIBITION IN LEIPZIG OF GERMAN MANUFACTURES. We cheerfully comply with the request of a highly respectable German merchant of New York, by publishing, in this department of the Merchants' Magazine, the official notice of the "Committee for the Central-Hall Exhibition of German Manufactures at Leipzig," which is to take place from the 1st of April to the 31st of May, 1850. This exhibition will afford an excellent opportunity for our American merchants to become acquainted not only with the numerous articles manufactured in Saxony, Berlin, Vienna, Rhenish Prussia, Nuremberg, and innumerable other places in Europe, but with the manufacturers themselves, who will be present to represent the products of their industry. The Central Hall, in Leipzig, the place of exhibition, is a building covering about four thousand square feet of ground, erected at the expense of Mr. Lungenstein, a member of the corporation of the city of Leipzig: CENTRAL-HALL EXHIBITION IN LEIPZIG. The rising importance of German manufactures has not escaped the attention of American men of business. The want of a central market, like London, Paris, Manchester, or Lyons, has, however, been long felt as a serious inconvenience, as the German manufactories are scattered over the country in many small towns and villages. By this means goods are indeed manufactured much cheaper than they could be in great cities, where higher wages, rent, and other circumstances necessarily increase the cost of production, but from this same reason it is only with considerable trouble, and at a great loss of time, that a knowledge of the manufactories and of the articles manufactured can be acquired. This objection is of considerable weight with American commercial men, who more than any others act upon the principle "time is money." The object of the undersigned committee is, as far as possible, to remove this objection. Under the patronage of the government of Saxony, and with the support of the corporation of the city of Leipzig, they have resolved: 1st. To hold in the newly erected Central-Hall in Leipzig a general exhibition of all kinds of articles manufactured in Germany. 2d. The exhibition is to take place from the 1st day of April to the 31st of May, 1850. 3d. The manufacturers of all Germany, including Austria and Prussia, are invited to send in their productions. During the period appointed for the exhibition, including the whole duration of one of the principal Leipzig fairs, visitors will find on the spot most of the manufacturers of the articles exhibited, with extensive stocks, enabling them to transact business with the persons whose attention may have been attracted by the articles exhibited. The committee do not intend to follow exactly the example of the exhibitions in Paris, namely: to aim at obtaining articles of uncommon elegance and costliness, and consequently less adapted to the purposes of trade. Their more practical object is to display before the men of business, and the public in general, the true state of German manufactures, thus enabling them, at one glance, to judge which of the numerous articles manufactured in Saxony, Berlin, Vienna, Rhenish Prussia, Nuremberg, and innumerable other places many hundred miles distant from each other, may suit their wants or markets. The committee flatter themselves that what the exhibition may lose in brilliancy, by the plan adopted, will be more than counterbalanced by its greater practical utility. Dresden and Leipzig, January, 1850. Signed by the Committee for the Central-Hall Exhibition of German Manufactures in Leipzig. C. A. WEINLIG, Ph. Dr., Privy Counsellor to H. M. O. KOCH, L. L. D., Mayor of the city of Leipzig. GUSTAY HARKORT, Merchant of the firm C. & G. WM. SEYFFERTH, Banker of the firm Vetter & Co. Royal Commissioners. Commission of the Leipzig Corporation. |