CALIFORNIA MINES AND MINING.

COUNT WASS, one of the best scientific and practical miners in California, who was born and bred in a mining country, Hungary, makes some statements and observations in a letter to the editors of the Alta California, which are worthy of notice. In regard to the origin of the rich gold deposits in the so-called placers, he says:—

"The more I make observations about their origin I am more and more confirmed in the opinion that they are the results of one or more eruptions by which not only gold, but some other metals also, especially a large quantity of iron, was thrown out and spread over the gold region. Every piece of gold in the diggings has the shape of a drop, as if flattened by rolling, by pressure, or other circumstances. Still it wears the indication of a state of fusion, and being found frequently joined with quartz, and generally in connection with broken quartz, instead of thinking that the gold deposits came from the neighboring quartz veins, I come to the probable mineralogical conclusion that the gold bearing formation in California chiefly must be the quartz.

Although I am not thoroughly convinced yet that only the quartz veins should contain the precious metals, but being certainly the principal formation, attention must be particularly paid to this: the diggings are only a temporary benefit to this country, and although new ones will be discovered hereafter, yet in a couple of years they will be exhausted surely, and the real riches of this country and its future prosperity must be based upon the great many gold bearing veins which are intersecting the gold regions in all directions.

It is astonishing to see the quantity of this rich natured rock in pure white formation: the quartz rock is generally known as a principal formation, bearing precious metal, but no country has it in such abundance as California. The white formation is prominent, and particularly so in this country. How far will this superabundant formation satisfy the expectations of mining enterprisers? Nobody can tell yet, and and although a great many of them are showing and promising extraordinary riches, their real value will be proved only in the course of some years."

MANUFACTURE OF OIL FROM POPPY SEED.

DR. J. V. C. SMITH, an eminent practical writer, in his editorial correspondence to the Boston Medical Journal, in a recent letter from Switzerland, speaking of the products of that and the adjoining country, says:

"Immense crops are raised here of articles wholly unknown to American farmers, and perhaps the kinds best fitted to particular localities, where grain and potatoes yield poorly under the best efforts. One of these is poppies. Thousands of acres are at this moment ready for harvest-which the traveler takes for granted, as he hurries by, are to be manufactured into opium. They are not, however, intended for medical use at all, but for a widely different purpose,-from the poppy seed a beautiful, transparent oil is made, which is extensively used in house painting. It is almost as colorless as water, and possesses so many advantages over flax seed oil that it may ultimately supersede that article. Where flax cannot be grown poppies often can be, even in sandy poor soil. Linseed is becoming dearer, and the demand for paint is increasing. With white lead, poppy oil leaves a beautiful surface, which does not afterwards change by the action of light into a dirty yellow. In short this oil is destined to bring about a revolution in domestic economy. Another season some one should make a beginning at home in this important branch of industry. The oil may be used for other purposes and even put in the cruet for salads."

CALIFORNIA NATIVE LEAF GOLD.

Among the most remarkable discoveries of native gold in the California regions are some specimens of native gold from "Woods Diggins." The Alta California, published at San Francisco, (and the editor of that journal has seen them) says, "they consisted in leaves of gold rolled up and twisted in various convolutions, imbedded in the quartz, in some instances connected with the crystals, in others apparently having been rolled or flattened out by immense pressure, then twisted and beat up, and the quartz formed around these golden plates. One of them-the only one we examined with a microscope, showed well defined lines, and angles as correct and uniform, as if done by a cun

ning workman. Some persons pronounced it real, artificial chased work, others said it was from Solomon's Temple. It is our opinion that it was pressed originally between masses of crystalized matter, and then embedded in quartz as the deposits were formed."

MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES.

INTEGRITY THE FOUNDATION OF MERCANTILE CHARACTER.

Our cotemporary of Cumming's Evening Bulletin, (a neutral and independent journal,) occasionally turns aside from the passing news of the day and treats his readers to an essay on some topic connected with the morals and manners of man and society. These essays are necessarily brief, and the better for that, because they are more likely to be read and remembered. As the subjoined editorial from a late number of the Bulletin touches upon a subject that should interest a part, at least, of our particular parish,"and as it embraces a homily too good to be lost, we take the liberty of giving it a more permanent record among our "Mercantile Miscellanies":

Faith and trustfulness lies at the foundation of trade and commercial intercourse, and business transactions of every kind. A community of known swindlers and knaves would try, in vain, to avail themselves of the advantages of traffic, or to gain access to those circles where honor and honesty are indispensable passports. The reason why savage hordes are suspected and shunned, is because they are deceitful and treacherous. We have no faith in their promises. If they manifest kindness and friendship, we apprehend it is for the sake of more successfully accomplishing their selfish and malicious purposes. So of cheats and knaves under whatever circumstances we may meet them. However fair may be their exterior, we know they are black at heart and we shrink from them as from the most deadly poison. Hence the value which is attached, by all right-minded men, to purity of purpose and integrity of character. A man may be unfortunate, he may be poor and penniless, but if he is known to possess unbending integrity, an unwavering purpose to do what is honest and just, he will have friends and patrons whatever may be the embarrassments and exigencies into which he is thrown. The poor man may thus possess a capital of which none of the misfortunes and calamities of life can deprive him. We have known men who have suddenly been reduced from affluence to penury from some dispensation of Providence which they could neither foresee nor prevent. A fire has swept away the accumulation of years, or misplaced confidence, or a flood, or some of the thousand casualties to which we are exposed, has stripped them of their possessions. To-day, they are prosperous; to-morrow, every earthly prospect is blighted, and everything in its aspect is dark and dismal. Their business is gone, their property is gone, and they feel that all is gone. But they have a rich treasure which the fire cannot consume, which the flood cannot carry away. They have integrity of character, and this gives them influence, and raises up friends, and furnishes them with pecuniary aid.

Young men, especially, should be deeply impressed with the vast importance of cherishing those principles, and of cultivating those habits which will secure for them the confidence and the esteem of the wise and the good. Let it be borne in mind, that no brilliancy of genius, no tact or talent in business, and no amount of success will compensate for duplicity, shuffling and trickery. There may be apparent advantage in the art of dissimulation, and in violating those great principles which lie at the foundation of truth and duty. But it will at length be seen, that a pound was lost where a penny was gained; that present successes are outweighed, a thousand fold, by the pains and penalties which result from loss of confidence and loss of character. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon our young men to abstain from every course, from every act, which shocks their moral sensibilities, wounds their consciences, and has a tendency to weaken that nice sense of honor and integrity so indispensable to character. The habit of concealment, of dissimulation, of telling "white lies," as Mrs. Opie calls them, is most disastrous in all its influences and issues. How many have become confirmed liars, and been consigned to dishonor and infamy, who began their career in this way! Language is utterly inadequate to describe the amazing, the infinite importance to our young men of forming their characters by the right models, and

in accordance with the unchanging principles of truth. Who has not read with deep interest the incident in the life of Washington, who, when he had injured a favorite tree of his father's, frankly confessed his offense, because he "could not tell a lie." Here was manifest one of those essential elements of character which made Washington "first in war, first in peace, and first in the heart's of his countrymen."

INTEGRITY OF CHARACTER! who ever possessed it, that did not derive untold advantages from it? It is better than the gold of Ophir; it is of more value than diamonds "and all precious stones." And yet every man may possess it. The poorest may have it, and no power can rest it from them. To young men, we say with earnestness and emphasis, look at integrity of character with the blessings it confers, and imbibe such principles and pursue such a course, that its benefits may be yours. It is a prize so rich, that it repays every sacrifice and every toil, necessary to secure it. Suppose a mercantile community could be found whose every individual was known and acknowledged to possess strict and uncompromising integrity; the representations of each one were in strict accordance with truth; "his word as good as his bond!" Such a community would have a monopoly of plying the demand. The tricky of the trade, so far as they had the means of sup impair confidence, and in the end, injure those who practice them far more than they trade," whatever be their apparent advantages, benefit them. It is a short-sighted, as well as a guilty policy, to swerve, under any circumstances, from those great principles which are of universal and everlasting obligation. Let a man maintain his integrity at all times, and he will be satisfied there is a blessing in it, and a blessing flowing from it, and a blessing all around it.

The local native demand for cotton is always greater than for export, except in a very few districts. In Guzerat, apparently, the growth must be chiefly for export; so to some extent must it be in some parts of the South Mahratta country, but I think hardly in any other parts of India. What we receive, therefore, is merely a fraction of that produced for another and a very different market; and as our demand for Indian cotton, always fluctuating and uncertain, from its subordination to the chances of the American supply, becomes extremely fitful and capricious by the time it has reached the cultivator in the induced to lay out his

means in providing for interior of India, nobody is t has been estimated at

The native consumption of cotton quantities varying from little under 1,000,000,000 lbs. to 3,00,000,000 lbs. per annum, while the demand for Britain has been but 60,000,000 lbs.; and the total export from India, including that to England, China, and all other places, has not been much more than 150,000,000 lbs., or from one-eighth to a twentieth of the whole growth; and this, being drawn from particular districts, favorably situated for the purpose, has left the greater part of the country wholly unaffected by the demand, and other parts only fitfully affected by it, and that in slight degrees. Under these circumstances, it seems more surprising that we should obtain any cotton from India than we should obtain so much less than we want; and we may be little astonished that that which we do obtain conforms in quality and cleanness rather to the more slovenly requirements of its greater and nearer market than to the higher and more precise conditions of our own. -Chapman's Cotton and Commerce in India.s

COMMERCE AND CONSCIENCE.

The following passage occurs, (as we find it reported in the newspapers,) in a lecture on Character, delivered by HENRY WARD BEECHER, first before the Mercantile Library Association of Boston, and afterwards at the Tabernacle in New York, at the instance of a number of conscientious merchants, who "like to be preached to":

"Commercial men do not lose conscience. I speak of them not as men, but as commercial men. Practical commerce, at best, is as cold as a stone, Business is business. On Sunday, the exemplary merchant hears from the pulpit, "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others," and he says amen to that. On Monday he hears the genius of Commerce say, "Every man for himself," and he says amen to that. He has one conscience for Sunday, and another conscience for Monday. If I wished to send consternation along the exchange, and panic to the tables of the money changers, I would not send war nor pestilence, but I would bring down love's brightest angel, Benevolence, before the sweet splendor of whose face the

financial men would flee away. Why! the Lord's Prayer would bring down fire from heaven if answered. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," would be the death-knell of banks and offices; the caucus would vomit out its impurity; the slave go up; the master would go down; the crooked places would be made straight, and the rough places smooth. If every brick in every wall that had been laid in transgression, and every nail driven in sin, and every bale and box brought forth in iniquity, were to groan and sigh, how many articles around us would remain silent? How men would shriek and cry out," Art thou come to torment us before the time?" If every article of trade in any store, that was there through wrong, were to fly through the air to the rightful ownership, what a flight of bales and boxes and sugar casks should we see! The Lord's prayer would be a very unsafe prayer to pray, if it were an swered. But is not the wrong as much here, as if it were thus demonstrated before our eyes ?"

THE BRAZILIAN SLAVE TRADE.

Private advices from Rio Janeiro say-" The Government is periling its very existence in its efforts to suppress the slave trade. The once notorious slave steamer the Serpente, (now the Golfinho of the Brazilian navy,) has made several captures. Last week she carried off 200 newly-imported negroes from the island of Marambaia. They are supposed to have belonged to Joaquim Breves, the well-known and opulent slavedealer. This man is the owner of ten large farendas, and the master of some 2,500 slaves. His large possessions give him great political influence, and this seizure of his slaves shows plainly the energy and determination of the Government. It is to be hoped, now that the Brazilian authorities have given such substantial proofs of their good faith, and sincere determination to put an end to the traffic, that the officers of our cruisers will abstain from interfering, and confine their operations to the high seas. Irritating the people will be merely throwing new difficulties in the way of the Government, whose task is already sufficiently arduous."

DECLINE OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.

The United Service Journal says:-Our private accounts from the coast of Africa state that the slave trade is on its last legs, and nearly all the slave-dealers on the South Coast are bankrupt. Such was the vigilance of the cruizers that there were 8,000 slaves in the barracoons at Ambriz which they would not run the risk of shipping. The Phoenix, screw sloop, Commander Lysaught, was stationed off that place. The prize captured by the Cyclops, steam frigate, Captain the Hon. G. F. Hastings, on the 19th November, 1850, had been waiting four months for the chance of slipping away with her cargo. She had actually passed under the flag-ship's stern, at Loando, without suspicion, but was fortunately pounced upon by the Cyclops. She was of 100 tons burthen, but had no less than 620 slaves. She shipped her cargo one morning twenty-five miles north of Loando, at three o'clock, and at eight, P. M., she was under the guns of the steamer. She had no slave deck, and was so crowded that the Cyclops, for humanity sake, took out 300 of the poor wretches and conveyed them to St. Helena. The health of the squadron was fully as good as that on the Mediterranean or Pacific stations.

www

FFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON COTTON.

While the John Bryant, Capt. Dyer, was midway across the Atlantic, on her voyage to England very recently, laden with cotton, she was struck by lightning. The electric fluid passed down the mainmast, and after causing some damage to the woodwork of the vessel, ignited the cotton in the hold. It continued smouldering for eight days, at the end of which time the vessel had been brought to Dublin where she was scuttled. A large portion of the cotton was destroyed, but some of it which was only charred, presents a very peculiar appearance, being in fact, more like sheep's wool dyed black than partially burnt cotton. Its tenuity is not destroyed, though considerably weakened by the heat which it has undergone. Some of the men upon the vessel were injured by the lightning, but not seriously.

THE BOOK TRADE.

1.-William Penn: an historical Bi graphy from New Sources, with an extra chapter on the "Macaulay charges." By WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON. Philadelphia: Blanchard & Co., 1851.

Every American and every "Friend" owes a double debt of gratitude to Mr. Dixon for this admirable biography of the founder of Pennsylvania. He has not only brought out into fuller relief and clearer light than ever was done before, the features of a character which, though world-renowned, the world knew very little, but he has also completely relieved it of the dark reputation lately cast upon it. In Mr. Dixon's pages, Penn ceases to be what the author justly complains he has always been heretofore, in history-—a myth, and stands out a man in all the reality of his public and private walk and conversation. Mr. Dixon's style is animated and picturesque. The book abounds in those personal and familiar details which give life to historical narrative. The author has had access to many new and original sources, of which he gives a list of over thirty. Penn's life forms no unimportant part of the history of the times in which he lived, and this work is truly what it purports to be, a historical biography, throwing much light, or rather placing in a true light, many events of the reign of James II. Mr. Dixon's refutation of the Macaulay calumnies is about as complete and searching a criticism as we have lately seen. It is so quiet and cool, too, but it cuts like cold steel. These charges of Macaulay were pointed with all the spite of a political partizan, and with all his own love of paradox. Here was a great and good character to be demolished, which all the world had always admired, and Macaulay set about it with all the gusto of twenty village gossips in one. Mr. Dixon's refutation is complete and humiliating in proportion to the violence of the attack; humiliating, not so much to Macaulay, who seems to care less to tell the truth than to turn a period, but to the student of historic truth. If the passages relating to Penn are any test of Macaulay's average accuracy, what reliance can be placed on his history; on any history, unless the student is to follow his teacher with the original authorities as you would track a thief? The reader rises from the perusal of Mr. Dixon's volume deeply impressed with Penn's greatness as a historical character, as the Friend of Sydney, the Friend of religious liberty, the lawgiver whose forethought anticipated (not in the closet) universal suffrage, vote by ballot, abolition of imprisonment for debt, an elective judiciary, and inculcated liberty of conscience.

2.-Travels in Siberia; including Excursions Northward down the Obi to the Polar Circle, and Southward to the Chinese Frontier. By ADOLPH ERMAN. Translated from the German by W. D. COOLEY, 2 vols., 12mo., pp. 371 and 400. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard.

The author of this work, in 1844, was presented with the medal of the Royal Geographical Society, as more deserving of it than any other individual after the Great Humboldt. In the present narrative, he spreads before our view a counterpart and indispensable supplement to the account of the equatorial regions of America, in a philosophical survey of the oldest quarter of the earth, and of a portion of the Old World, whence many European nations may trace their origin. He entered into the spirit of the people by whom he was surrounded, and gives as some most charming pictures of what he saw. He exhibits, in bright and lively colors, the life of the roaming Samogade, under the polar circle; the opulence and comfort of the Gukuts, in a climate, which, at first view, seems hardly compatible with human existence. The scientific portion of this work was noticed by us in an article entitled "German notices of California," in the May number of the present year. Of these important matters, it will be sufficient here to point out the statements of the existence of a Siberian magnetic pole; the perpetual congealation of the ground to a great depth at Yakutsk, and the decrease of the atmospheric pressure towards Okhatsk. Much information will also be found in these pages respecting the trade carried on from the frontiers of Siberia to Bukhara and Taskend; the fisheries of Obi; the mineral riches of Ural; the fossil ivory in the valley of the Lena; and generally respecting the face of nature and vegetable life throughout the northern half of the Old World. On the whole, we must regard this as one of the most interesting and valuable works which has lately issued from the press, whether we consider its scientific or general information.