In addition to the ahove roads, there are two railway projects in Canada West, one of which is already in process of execution, and both of which are almost certain of completion, that are to exercise an important bearing upon the commercial interests of Chicago. One is a railroad from Toronto to Goderick, on Lake Huron. The other, a road from Prescott, on the St. Lawrence, opposite Ogdensburgh, to Georgian Bay, an arm of Lake Huron. The completion of these two roads will result in the establishment of a daily line of steamers between Chicago and the western terminus of each. The advantages that would result are too obvious to require mention.

These are the present and some of the prospective railroad connections of Chicago. That their effects will be to make Chicago a great commercial center, and give it advantages such as no other city in the interior of the continent enjoys, must be apparent to every unprejudiced mind.

PLANK ROADS. From no other improvement has Chicago derived more direct and manifest benefit, in proportion to the capital invested, than the plank roads which connect it with the adjacent country. It is gratifying also to know that the various companies which have engaged in this enterprise, while they have contributed to the general advantage, have invested their money wisely and profitably to themselves. As was to be expected, many mistakes were made at the outset. The road bed in some cases was not raised sufficiently high to protect it against the spring and other freshets; pine boards were used instead of the more enduring and solid oak, and some other errors, all of which experience has corrected. The more recently constructed portions of our roads are made of substantial material, and with strict attention to the subjects of grading and draining.

The total number of miles of plank road leading from the city is about seventy, the cost of which, including bridges, gates, gate-houses, &c., will not vary much from $168,000. The first road constructed was the

SOUTH-WESTERN PLANK ROAD, leading from Chicago to the eastern boundary of Dupage county, a distance of sixteen miles. Here it connects with the Naperville and Oswego plank road, which, when completed, will extend it to the latter place, on Fox River, distant from Chicago forty miles. Twelve miles only of the Naperville and Oswego road have been finished, which extends it to the vicinity of Naperville, and makes, in connection with the South-Western Road, twenty-eight continuous miles. Some three miles east of Naperville, the road is intersected by the St. Charles and Warrenville plank road, two and a half miles of which have been constructed. From St. Charles to the point of intersection is thirteen miles. At St. Charles it will connect with the St. Charles and Sycamore road, several miles of which have been finished. Thirteen miles of the South-Western Road were laid down with pine boards; these have given way in many places, and the company are having oak substituted in every such case. In a very short time the whole road will have thus been replaced by oak. The Naperville and Oswego Road, as far as built, is said to be a model road, in every respect superior to the other plank roads of the country.

A provision in the charter of the South-Western Company confers the privileges of banking-a circumstance which the company has not been slow to avail itself of, and no small portion of our local currency is derived from this

source.

The next road undertaken was the

NORTH-WESTERN. This road is to connect Wheeling with Chicago. fifteen miles of the main road have been constructed, and two branches, one five and a half miles, the other two and a half, each of which terminates at the O'Plain River. The cost of this road and branches, including one bridge twice built, four gate-houses and five gates, was $51,000. The company has a similar charter to that of the South-Western, though we have heard no intimation that banking is contemplated under it. The company did, however, deal a little last year in marine risks, from which it realized a snug little sum in the way of premiums, and met with not a single loss. This road is the best paying road connected with Chicago, its net income ranging from thirty to forty per cent on the original

cost.

THE WESTERN ROAD connects with the first branch of the North-Western, at the O'Plain River, and is completed to Salt Creek, a distance of six miles. It is the intention to continue this road either to Dundee, or to Genoa, via Elgin. The company have erected a steam saw-mill on the line of the road, for manufacturing the lumber requisite for its construction. The six miles completed cost about $2,000 per mile.

THE SOUTHERN ROAD is the last we have to notice. It is built due south a distance of ten miles. It was the original intention to continue it to Middleport, in Iroquois county, a distance of seventy-five miles, but the subsequent location of the Chicago Branch of the Central Railroad has, we believe, led to the abandonment of this design. The ten miles completed cost about $21,000. A cash dividend of fourteen per cent has been declared by the company for 1851.*

Art. IV. THE UNITED STATES IN 1950.

THE report of the Superintendent of the Census, showing the progressive increase of population in the United States, during decennial periods of their existence as an independent people, from the first census in 1790 to the seventh in 1850, affords matter of curious speculation as to their progress for the next century. The following calculations, based upon data furnished by this report, and various estimates as regards the future, may be of some interest to the public. They are given, not as predictions of what will be our numbers a hundred years hence, but rather as the product of a leisure hour devoted, for amusement, to this prospective glance at our coming greatness. If the readers of Hunt's Merchants' Magazine derive as much pleasure from the results of this labor, as it afforded us while engaged upon it, we shall be well satisfied, without claiming any credit for possessing the fabled power of second sight.

The following tabular statement, taken from Mr. Kennedy's abstract, gives the data on which are founded the calculations here presented:

By this it will be seen that the per centage of increase was greater during the past ten years, than in any similar period since the establishment of our Government, with the single exception of that between 1800 and 1810, when it was a trifle larger than 1840 to 1850. This has been composed of the natural increase, together with accessions to our population by the acquisition of territory, and by foreign immigration. Territorial extension, however, has contributed but a small proportion; Louisiana, Texas, and California, with our other newly acquired lands, furnishing less than two per cent increase upon the population of 1840.†

For a statement of the manufactures of Chicago the reader is referred to our "JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES," in the present number of the Merchants' Magazine.

+No attention has been paid in our calculations to this source of our increase. Greater nicety would have been attained, had we given its due weight; but as they would have somewhat increased the complicacy, without very materially changing the results of our processes, we concluded to disregard it.

* Immigration has been a much more important element in our advance, growing more and more powerful as we have become less dependent upon it. In our infancy as a nation, when our downfall was confidently predicted by the false prophets of despotism, who asserted that man was incapable of selfgovernment, but few from the old world cared to stake their fortunes upon the desperate chance of so doubtful an experiment.

But since the problem of independence has been demonstrated; since we have grown up into a vigorous manhood, and taken our place among the ruling powers of the earth, our free institutions have been a load-star to the poor and oppressed of every people. Assured of finding in this strange land, a protection for life, liberty, and property, not secured to them in their own, they have poured in a steadily increasing tide upon our shores. The following table presents a succinct view of this source of our growth:—

By this it appears that while for the twenty years between 1790 and 1810, immigration exercised but a trifling influence, in the ten years from 1840 to 1850 it became a very important consideration, exceeding as it did, during this latter period, all the foreign arrivals in this country for the fifty years previous, and being but little less than one third of our entire increase since the last census. We leave this element for the present out of the question. Adopting for the basis of our calculations the results of the past, as shown in the first table above, and assuming various ratios for the future progress of population, we have the following tables, which will show our numerical strength in decennial periods, and the increase between each two successive periods for the next century ending with 1950.

Taking for our first bypothesis the actual ratio of increase since 1840, as 36.25 per cent, gives us :—

The average ratio of increase for the sixty years from 1790 to 1850 is 34.5 per cent. This yields the following results:

The average ratio of natural increase from 1890 to 1850, without including immigrants or their descendants, is about 30 per cent. At this ratio we have:

Or, making the natural increase from 1840 to 1850, or 26.12 per cent, the ratio of our future advance, we have :—

These results are indeed stupendous-that a mere handful of people, as we were in 1790, should advance with such gigantic strides, as in the brief space of one hundred and sixty years to number itself by hundreds of millions, and to equal one-half, one-third, or even one-fourth of the present population of the globe, staggers belief.

That we shall in this period attain the enormous numbers of the first, second, or even the third of these tables, is exceedingly improbable, and indeed almost impossible. Various causes will conspire to prevent our future increase equaling the rapidity of our growth hitherto, although the additions to our population in decennial periods in coming years may greatly exceed the increase in similar intervals of time in our past history, yet the per centage of increase in such accessions must, almost of necessity, be reduced. In the course of thirty or forty years, foreign immigration, now so powerful an auxiliary in swelling our numbers and raising the ratio of our progression, must become a comparatively unimportant item in our periodical advances. The arbitrary governments of Europe have thus far looked with indifference upon the rapid efflux of their surplus population to our ample domain; or have encouraged it for the sake of more easily governing those who remain behind as a prudent husbandman lops and prunes offshoots and scattered branches to preserve the tree in its full vigor. But this carelessness or policy, whichever it may be, cannot be expected to continue. The gradual depopulation of Ireland, and the constant drainage of other crowded districts, will serve as a warning, and render some restriction upon emigration necessary. But should this not be the case, and should this human tide which is now setting upon our shores experience no ebb, still the per centage of increase from this source must eventually be greatly diminished. To illustrate this position, we will assume that in each of the three next decennial periods immigration and its natural increase, (by which is intended the children of immigrants born in this country,) between their arrival and the subsequent census, will amount to 2,000,000, and that the increase other than this shall proceed in the ratio of the past ten years. In the first period this extraneous accession will be somewhat less than 9 per cent, in the second less than 7, and in the third not quite 5 per cent.

If this be true, as we think will be admitted after the lapse of a few more periods, we shall be forced to depend almost entirely upon the natural increase, which will in all probability decline from its present ratio. What this has hitherto been will be seen by the following table;

By this it appears that there has been a gradual diminution, until the ratio from 1840 to 1850 is more than 5 per cent less than that from 1810 to 1820. How this will continue in the future none but omniscience can tell, and our calculations must of course be hypothetical. We may, however, safely venture, we think, to assume for the next fifty years our progress will be at the same average ratio with that from 1790 to the present time, or 34.5 per cent.

This gives us in 1900 a population of 102,381,389, as a new basis, and with still other estimated rates of increase from that time till 1950, we have these additional tables:

The average ratio of increase in England, Wales, and Scotland, from 1800 to 1840, and in Holland and Belgium from 1815 to 1837 was 15 per cent.

While we admit that our first estimates of the prospective increase of population were too large, we think that the final one, by which our numbers in 1950 amount to 164,886,246, will fall short of the reality.

Great Britain, despite her long and bloody wars involving a vast expenditure of life, and notwithstanding the heavy drafts made by emigration to various quarters of the globe, increased from 1800 to 1840 at the average ratio of 15 per cent. Holland and Belgium also advanced at the rate from 1815 to 1837. Now if our assumption that we shall for the next fifty years continue our progress at the average ratio of our past growth, be correct, the estimated increase of 15 per cent from 1900 to 1950 we deem quite low. If Great Britain with all her drawbacks, and with every consideration impelling the masses of her citizens to a voluntary exile, has in this century experienced this augmentation of her numerical strength, what reason is there why this country, in its full vigor and with unrivaled advantages, should not in the next increase at a still more rapid rate? By the tables it will be seen that this ratio from 1900 makes our population in 1950 207,248,038, that 20 per cent for same period makes it 254,757,654, and that the ratio of our natural increase since 1840, continued from the present time, gives us 236,813,729. Any one of these would in our opinion be nearer approximation to the actual result than that based upon 10 per cent. Notwithstanding our former modest disclaimer of the prophetic power, we