the more "speedy enlargement”—a work, to the disgrace of the State or the engineering talents she has employed, has been twenty-four years in the course of prosecution, and as yet the Canal Board for the season of 1859 have ordered, by resolution, that "no boat be permitted to draw over five feet," yet with this depth of water the new and improved canalboat has carried 213 tons from Rochester, and about the same through the Oswego Canal. They have also touched bottom on the long level at Rome, during the summer, drawing only four-and-a-half feet-pro pudor. As our remarks on the history of canals in the United States, although as brief as possible, have extended beyond the space we had intended to confine ourselves, we will therefore merely say of Ohio, (a State that has been bit with the canal fever to the extent of 796 miles of canals,) that her Governor has told the last two Legislatures in his messages, that railways were yearly reducing the receipts on the State canals-like in the State of New York-and the question must be met-whether, from past experience, it would not be better for the State to sell out her public works, and let them be managed by private enterprise.

We will not now touch on the errors and the past experience of New York, in her log-rolling system of latteral, pauper canals. If time and health permits, we will give the readers of the Merchants' Magazine “our experience" on this subject, and their political management, for more than one third of a century, and endeavor to show that it is high time to pause in our mad career of further spending money on our canals, beyond perfecting a uniform depth on all our canals to six feet of water, and to foster and protect railways and private enterprise, and not tax it.

J. E. B.

Art. IV.-COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

NUMBER LXXI.

CINCINNATI, OHIO.

CINCINNATI THE PIONEER-LAYING OFF-VALUE OF THE SITE-TRIBUTARY TERRITORY-ADVANTAGES OF A CENTRAL SITUATION-POPULATION-COMPARATIVE POPULATION-WEALTH OF CINCINNATIHAMILTON COUNTY CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL-ITS ACCUMULATION-MANUFACTURES-VALUE OF LEADING ITEMS-STEAM TONNAGE-RAILROADS-COST-MINERAL REGION-ITS EXTENT AND CONNECTION-COAL-IRON-IMPORTS AND EXPORTS-IMPROVED CONDITION OF THE CITY-CROPS-RECEIPTS OF LEADING CROPS-PROGRESS OF PRODUCTION-HAY CROPS-COMPARISON WITH 1854-EFFECTS OF GOOD HARVESTS.

CINCINNATI has been the pioneer of Western cities, and the model for emulation among all the cities which have sprung up with such rank growth, "west of the mountains," during the first half of the present - century. In that period it has witnessed the greatest vicissitudes, as successive waves of speculation have rolled over it, each one, like the rising tide, carrying the line of population further to the westward, and subsiding into a season of depression, but leaving signs of greater wealth and abundant elements of more enduring prosperity. In 1788, September 6, there appeared in the Kentucky Gazette, printed at Lexington, an advertisement, signed by three persons, who, being owners of land at

the mouth of the Licking River, proposed to "lay off a town" there. The meeting took place. The town was laid off by marking the streets on the trees, and it was called Losantiville, subsequently Cincinnati. That city has now swollen to a great magnitude, but has apparently just begun to grow.

The natural site of any place has much to do with its prosperity; indeed, more than any one thing. In this respect, Cincinnati has been peculiarly fortunate. It is central to the Ohio Valley in situation, and in its actual locality could not be better placed for convenience and comfort. The Ohio Valley comprehends full 220,000 square miles of area, and in the very center of this immense space, containing greater natural resources than any other equal area on the earth, lies Cincinnati, which is, and must forever be, its natural metropolis, controlling the great body of its trade and production.

The commerce of the Miami, of the Wabash, of the Scioto, the Muskingum, and the Kenhawa, almost exclusively belong to Cincinnati; while, on the other hand, the trade, at particular points, extends far beyond the natural boundary of the Ohio Valley. Thus iron is brought to Cincinnati from Northwestern Georgia, while the stoves, which are manufactured from iron, are carried to Missouri, Iowa, and Kansas. Sugar is sold from Cincinnati on the shores of the lakes, and immense amounts of provisions and general produce are carried to the Gulf of Mexico. These facts, geographical and commercial, prove that Cincinnati, by its central position, is naturally the metropolis of the Ohio Valley. The territory, which is thus exclusively within the control of Cincinnati trade, extending from the sources of the Kenhawa to those of the Wabash, and comprising 220,000 square miles, is equal to the extent of France, and is double that of Great Britain and Ireland. Its capacities for feeding a population, and of furnishing materials for manufactories, are greater than that of either of those great empires. It is safe to say that it will contain a population of not less than fifty millions, and that it will attain that within a century. Within the circle of population, defined by the trade of a city, experience has proved that the population of the central mart may, and generally does, reach one-tenth that of its commercial district. At present, the population of Cincinnati, Pittsburg, and Louisville, taken together, make about one-tenth of the population of the Ohio Valley proper.

A central city enjoys the great advantage of collecting products from every quarter. It is not a coast city, accessible to the interior only on one side. This advantage enables it to centralize industry and production; but, as one city cannot consume all products, it must have equal means of diffusion, and an ability to choose between foreign and domestic markets. Interior cities are now furnished with this ability, united with the utmost speed and greatest facility of transit by railway locomotion. The moment this is accomplished, the comparative commercial power of interior cities is measured by the extent of the radial lines to the places of supply, and to the ports of foreign commerce; and in this view, no place is more entirely central than Cincinnati, since it is nearer the Atlantic and the Gulf, at every point, than Chicago, and nearer than St. Louis and Louisville to every point except Mobile and New Orleans.

The country which contributes its agricultural wealth to this central city, is of unsurpassed fertility, and abounds with every element of suc

cessful manufactures. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that its population has increased with marvelous rapidity. This rapidity of growth being relative, can be compared only with other American cities. Cincinnati was founded in 1788; Louisville in 1773; Pittsburg in 1784; St. Louis in 1764; New York in 1613; New Orleans in 1717. The population of each has progressed as follows:

The average increase of Cincinnati has been higher than that of either of the other cities, and the wealth of Cincinnati has increased quite as fast as its population. This may be known best by the successive valuations of the county. Four-fifths of the wealth of the county is in the city, and they may be taken, for this purpose, as nearly identical. The valuations of Hamilton County have been as follows for many years:—

From 1840 to 1857, the increase of population was 300 per cent; but the increase of wealth was 1,100 per cent. From 1850 to 1857, inclusive, the increase of population was 56 per cent; but the increase of wealth was 120 per cent.

This fact shows the concentration of capital and industry in a very high degree, without which no such result could occur. In 1840, the property of Cincinnati amounted to $230 for each living soul. In 1850, it was $400 to each person. In 1857, it was $660. Absolutely, then, the people of Cincinnati have added 50 per cent to their wealth in the last seven years.

Looking at this fact in another point of view, we can readily see the relation of production to consumption, or, in other words, the accumulation in Cincinnati. This accumulation is precisely equal to the increased value of its property-which is seven per cent annually. This accumulative value is a gain on capital. It is just so much as the products of the earth, industry, and skill, exceed the consumption of the people. In 1855, 1856, and 1857, this was $5,000,000 per annum. If, as we suppose, the exports amount to about $60,000,000, it was nearly seven per cent on the exported values.

This, however, is not the true test of the value of interest; for it is the accumulation, or the use of capital, not regarding either the labor, or raw material. It may be they would be idle, without borrowing money. In that case, a loan of half the amount of capital employed would afford a profit of 14 per cent, and thus justify the manufacturer or tradesman in borrowing at 10 per cent.

The manufactures of the city of Cincinnati have increased in a surprising ratio. According to the census returns of the United States for 1840 an 1850, and a careful canvass made by C. Cist, Esq., for the Gazette of that city, the aggregate value of the various departments in

1840, was $17,780,033; in 1850, $54,550,134, and in 1860, $112,254,000, having more than doubled in the last ten years.

These embrace every variety of handicraft, of which boots and shoes figure for $1,750,000; agricultural implements, $1,290,000; butchers, $4,370,000; candles, $6,114,000; builders, $2,760,000; clothing, $15,000,000; flour, $3,500,000; castings, $6,353,400; furniture, $3,656,000; iron, $5,334,000; liquor, $17,800,000; medicines, $1,960,000; milling, $1,750,000; pork packing, $6,300,000; publishing $2,610,000; sashes, $1,380,000; stone cutting, $1,125,000; tailoring, $2,035,000; tanning, $1,520,000; tobacco, $1,667,000.

Of the 37,000 miles of coast, belonging to the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio, with their several tributaries, each and every part is as accessible to boats from Cincinnati, as they are to any other place on these great rivers. As a consequence of this fact, the increase of navigation at Cincinnati has kept pace with the increase of commerce in the whole valley of the Mississippi. Since 1811, the era of steam navigation in Ohio, Cincinnati has been one of the chief places for steamboat building in the West.

The increase of navigation at Cincinnati is indicated by the following table of the number and tonnage of steamboats and barges arrived at Cincinnati annually :

At an early day the people of Cincinnati recognized the importance of railways as a means of transportation, and they proceded to plan and execute those vast lines which now radiate from Cincinnati to every point of the compass, and which have so much interfered with the traffic of the State canals. Of these roads there are ten or twelve direct commercii radii, of which most are complete. In this relation the New York lines terminate at Cleveland, the Philadelphia line at Pittsburg, the Baltimore lines at Wheeling; the North line direct at Sandusky, the Northwest line at Chicago, the West line at St. Louis, the Southwest line at Nashville, the direct South line at Pensacola, and the Southeastern lines at Savannali, Charleston, and Norfolk. There are 10 roads now centering in Cincinnati, of which the cost was $50,000,000, and these carry a very large proportion of the produce to and merchandise from Cincinnati.

Great and important as is the railway development, in considering the future growth of Cincinnati, it is perhaps of less importance than another, which we shall now mention. This is the future development of the mineral region around Cincinnati. The past experience of the city, as well as that of Philadelphia, proves that it is not at all necessary that a city should be in a mining region, in order to derive advantage from the raw material used in manufactures. But it is necessary that such a city should be comparatively near, and have commercial facilities of transportation to such a mining region. In this respect Cincinnati is almost unrivaled, and it is this fact which has made her what she is as a manufacturing place. The advantages which Cincinnati has as a manufacturing place, she has hardly more than begun to enjoy. This will appear from

certain geological facts, stated by geologists who have made personal examinations of the surrounding country.

From the summits of the Alleghany and Cumberland mountains, southward for hundreds of miles, the whole country is underlaid with coal, forming a part of the great central coal basin. In Ohio it extends nearly to the Scioto River. It comprehends Western Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, and East Tennessee. Within easy reach of Cincinnati by railway there must be at least 40,000 square miles of coal-strata, three times the amount possessed by Great Britain. These coal-beds crop out in thousands of places, so as to be convenient for the common fuel of the people, while in numerous places the coal lies in thick strata, intersected by various railways now constructing, and enumerated in the foregoing tables. Over thousands of miles the beds of coal are interstratified with iron, in quantities sufficient to supply the demands of manufactures through countless ages. Already between sixty and seventy furnaces, in Southeastern Ohio and Eastern Kentucky, are actively and profitably engaged in supplying iron, chiefly for Cincinnati. The demand for this article is so constant and so increasing, that many new furnaces are now erecting on the lines of the new railways. On the other hand, the demand for coal at Cincinnati, to manufacture the raw iron into castings and machinery, is so great, that in the last few years the consumption of that article has increased fourfold, and in time, the railways, by moving coal at all seasons of the year, will make the supply of this important product certain and uniform. Passing further into the Southeast, we find the mountain country of East Tennessee, Southeastern Kentucky, and Southwestern Virginia, filled with the most valuable mineral productions; some of which are the only ones necessary to perfect the machinery and manufactures of Cincinnati. In that region are not only coal and iron, in inexhaustible quantities, but also copper and zinc; two metals, in modern manufactures, of inestimable value. From the copper mines of East Tennessee, millions of pounds of copper have already been carried to Savannah, Georgia, and shipped thence to the manufactures of the East. From these mines to Cincinnati is a much less distance, by railway, than to Savannah and Charleston, and less than half the distance from Cincinnati to the mines of Lake Superior, or from the latter to the nearest Eastern manufactures. Hence, the manufacture of all wares involving copper, may, at Cincinnati, have a double advantage over all others, for the supply of the whole interior of the West and South. She may obtain the raw material cheaper, and she may transport the manufactured article to the consumer cheaper. The same is true of the entire iron manufacture, which, it is said, in the West can be carried on far cheaper than anywhere on the Atlantic. It is estimated, that by railway, iron can be obtained at Cincinnati, from East Tennessee, cheaper than from any other quarter. The iron men of East Tennessee make iron at the prime cost of $10 per ton-carry it down the Tennessee, and up the Ohio, and sell it in Cincinnati at a profit. It is estimated that iron may be brought from these furnaces by railway, at $5 per ton, and sold in Cincinnati for $15; thus cheapening the raw material to the manufacturer below any price which can possibly rule in the Atlantic States; and affording Cincinnati, if she should avail herself of these advantages, a substantial monopoly of the iron manufacture for millions of people.

Nor is this all. Zine, lead, and marble are found in East Tennessee,