On tobacco, going from tide-water, per 1,000 lbs. per mile..... On pressed hay, per 1,000 lbs. per mile.. On corn, corn meal, and oats, per 1,000 lbs. per mile... On wheat, flour, barley, rye, peas, and beans, per 1,000 lbs. per mile On all other agricultural productions of the United States, not par- MERCHANDISE. On bartyes and veneering, per 1,000 lbs. per mile......... ARTICLES NOT ENUMERATED, ETC. On all articles not enumerated or excepted, per 1,000 lbs. per mile.. BOATS AND PASSENGERS. On boats used chiefly for the transportation of persons navigating the canals, per mile... On the same if they elect to commute for tolls upon passengers, per mile... On boats used chiefly for the transportation of property, per mile.. On the same, if they elect to commute for tolls upon passengers, per mile.. On all persons over ten years of age, per mile.. PROGRESS OF PLANK-ROADS IN NEW YORK AND CANADA. 90 0 5 Among the many improvements in the means of communication which have been prosecuted in the last few years, plauk roads are assuming a very important rank. A little work by Mr. Kingsford, of the Hudson River Railroad, is of great interest, and should be well circulated throughout the country. It appears that the first plankroad in Canada was laid down in 1836, and in New York in 1837, but it is only within the last four years that they have been much prosecuted. There now exist as follows:- Very nearly four million of dollars have been expended in New York upon these roads, and the resulting advantages are immense. The roads have all been subscribed for by individuals, and all pay handsome dividends. For instance, the Troy and Lansingburg road pays 10 per cent semi-annually; the Utica and Burlington 20 per cent, and we believe none in operation pay less than 10 per cent, and none of the stocks can be bought in the market. The importance of plank-roads in farming regions becomes self-evident, when it is stated that on the Salina road a two-horse team drew six tons of iron twelve miles, without unusual strain. Four-and-a-half tons is an ordinary load, and a team will travel with it eight hours per day, four miles an hour, day after day. A farmer, in a heavy country, stated that the tolls paid saved themselves in the labor of cleaning horses. In all localities where these roads are in operation, land rises greatly in value. On the Salina road farm land rose from $9 to $15 per acre; on the Syracuse road the increase was $10 per acre. It will be observed that an amount of property equal to $4,000,000, bearing a high rate of interest, has been created, and that property has added in addition several millions to the value of the land through which it runs, and that all this property is mere saving from the old cost of transportation. As the existence and operation of these roads is but little known out of their localities, we append the statistics :- Every section of the country should be lined with these roads as tributaries to the railroads. The progress at the west is very great already. APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES MAIL BY OCEAN STEAMERS. AN ACT MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE TRANSPORTATION OF THE UNITED STATES MAIL BY STEAMERS AND OTHERWISE, during the FISCAL YEAR ENDING THE THIRTIETH OF JUNE, ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following sums be and the same are hereby appropriated, to be paid out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the year ending the thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred and fifty-three: For transportation of the mails from New York to Liverpool and back, eight hundred and fifty-eight thousand dollars. For transportation of the mails from New York to New Orleans, Charleston, Savannah, Havana, and Chagres, and back, two hundred and ninety thousand dollars. For transportation of the mails from Panama to California and Oregon, and back, three hundred and forty-eight thousand two hundred and fifty dollars. SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the following sums be and the same are hereby appropriated for the service of the post-office department, for the year ending the thirtieth of June, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, out of any moneys in the treasury arising from the revenues of said department, in conformity to the act of the second of July, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six : For transportation of the mails in two steamships, from New York by Southampton to Bremen and back, at one hundred thousand dollars for each ship; and in two steamships from New York, by Cowes, to Havre and back, at seventy-five thousand dollars for each ship, under the contract with the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, of New York, in addition to an unexpended balance of former appropriations, two hundred and ninety-four thousand dollars. For transportation of the mails between Charleston and Havana, under the contract with M. C. Mordecai, fifty thousand dollars. For transportation of the mails across the Isthmus of Panama, one hundred thousand dollars. Approved August 30, 1852. FATALITY OF INLAND ROUTES. Investigations made by a committee of Congress show the following losses of property and life on the rivers and lakes of the United States in each of the last four The number of lives lost in 1850 was mainly occasioned by the explosion of boilers on board two steamboats, and the burning of a third crowded with emigrant passengers. The present year already registers a greater number of victims than even 1850. Without looking further than the steamers Atlantic, Henry Clay, and St. James, we find a total of at least four hundred. STEAMBOAT PROPELLERS. There have been brought to light, recently, two new inventions: the one adapted to give increased speed to screw, the other to paddle navigation. Mr. G. Bovill's screw propeller, described in the Mining Journal, is an entirely novel affair. Its central portion is fitted up with a hollow sphere, occupying one-third of the entire diameter of the propeller, and the blades are made narrower at the outer extremity than at the base. The blades are also made to revolve, so as to admit of the pitch being altered to meet the various circumstances of speed and power. From a table of the comparative result of trials on three different boats, it appeared that important advantages have been obtained from the new propeller. The paddle invention is that of a Liverpool shipwright named Hampson, and was tried a few days ago in the Brunswick dock. A piece of wood, perhaps about a foot quare, and connected to a movable framework, so as to be capable of being moved to and fro, was fixed to the stern of the boat; the paddle, so to speak, being covered by the water, and assuming a slightly diagonal position. By moving two handles rapidly with his hands in the direction of his body from the stern, the Mr. H. brought the paddle in rapid motion, the action resembling that of the fin of a fish, the result being to propel the boat with great speed through the water. Mr. Hampson contends, that by this simple appliance alone he can propel row-boats at much more than their ordinary speed, and with infinitely less manual labor; but his grand object is to apply it to seagoing vessels by means of steam and machinery. EXPULSION FROM CARS. In the Boston Court of Common Pleas, the jury, in the case of Simeon Gilbert vs. the Boston and Maine Railroad Corporation, gave a verdict for plaintiff with nominal damages of one dollar. Gilbert, the plaintiff, was expelled from the train in consequence of having refused to pay extra fare in accordance with the rules of the road, he not having procured a ticket. The case has once before been tried, the jury then not being able to agree. MAIL FROM NEW ORLEANS TO VERA CRUZ. The following "act to provide for a tr-imonthly mail from New Orleans to Vera Cruz, via Tampico, and back, in steamers," was passed at the last session of Congress, and approved by the President, August 30th, 1852: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the postmaster-general be and he is hereby authorized and directed to enter into a contract for a term of five years, and for a sum not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars a year, with such person or persons as may offer sufficient and satisfactory security, after due public notice, for the transpor tation of the mails of the United States, upon the best terms for the United States, three times a month from New Orleans, via Tampico, to Vera Cruz and back, in steam vessels of not less than eight hundred tons burden, of the best form of construction, adapted to war purposes and the navigation of the Southern waters, the same to be ready in the shortest possible time. JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES. THE MANUFACTURE OF GLASS. NUMBER II. The decline of this art in Rome is clearly defined by various writers; and its gradual introduction into Bohemia and Venice is plainly marked out. At this latter place the art flourished to a remarkable degree, and being marked by constant progress and improvement enabled Venice to supply the world without a rival, and with the beautiful manufacture called " Venice drinking-cups." The beauty and value of these are abundantly testified by many authors, among whom is "Halinshed," referred to in a former article. The manufacture of these and similar articles were located, as stated in the "Chronicles," at Murano, a place about one mile from the city, where the business was carried on and assumed a high position in the order of the arts. And from thence we are enabled to date its future progress, and gradual introduction into Europe, Germany, England, and the Western World. It is not strange that the strict secrecy with which the business was conducted in these times, should have invested the art with an air of romance; and legends, probably invented for the purpose, created a maximum of wonder among the uninitiated. The government of Venice also added, by its course, to the popular notions regarding the high mystery of the art, conferring, as it did, the title of "Gentleman" (no idle title in those days) on all who became accomplished in the manufacture. Howell, in his "Familiar Letters," dated from Venice in 1621, says:-" Not without reason, it being a rare kind of knowledge and chemistry, to transmute the dull bodies of dust and sand, for they are the only ingredients, to such pellucid, dainty body, as we see crystal glasses is." That the art had greatly improved at the hands of the Venetian artisans, cannot be doubted. The manufacture was carried to a degree far beyond any previous period; and the more so, because sustained by the governmental protection and patronage. Venice being then at the hight of her commercial glory, she herself being Queen of the Sea," ample facilities existed for the exportation of her manufactures to every part of the known world; and for a long period she held the monopoly of supplying the cities of Europe with crystal glass in its various departments of ornament and utility. A French writer, who published an elaborate work in twelve books upon the subject of Glass Manufactures, after it had been introduced into France, gives an interesting account of the rise and progress of the art in that country, the encouragement it received, and the high estimation in which it was held. After stating that it was introduced into France from Venice, he says: "The workmen who are employed in this noble art are all gentlemen, for they admit none but such. They have obtained many large privileges, the principal whereof is to work themselves, without derogating from their nobility. Those who obtained these privileges first of all were gentlemen by birth; and their privilege running, that they may exercise this art without derogating from their nobility-is a sufficient proof of it-which has been confirmed by all our kings; and in all inquiries that have been made into counterfeit nobilities, never was any one attainted who enjoyed these privileges, having always maintained their honor down to their posterities." Baron Von Lowhen states in his Analysis of Nobility in its Origin, that "So useful were the glass makers at one period at Venice, and so considerable the revenue accruing to the republic from their manufacture, that to encourage the men engaged in it to remain in Murano, the Senate made them all Burgesses of Venice, and allowed nobles to marry their daughters, whereas, if a nobleman marries the daughter of any other tradesman, the issue is not reputed noble." From this statement a valuable lesson can be drawn, viz.: that a strict parallel is constantly observable between the progress of this art and the intellectual and social elevation of its possessors. Those engaged in it now do not indeed occupy the same social position; still it is probable that in foreign lands the blood of such ancestor still run in their veins; and even in our own democratical land, with all the tendencies of its institutions, workers in glass claim a distinctive rank and character among the trades; and in the prices of labor, and the estimate of the comparative skill involved, are not controlled by those laws of labor and compensation which govern most other mechanical professions-and similarity of taste and habit is in a degree characteristic of the modern artisan in this department, as in the case of those who, for their accomplishment in the art, were ennobled in the more remote period of its progress. The same writer says: "It must be owned those great and continual heats which these gentlemen are exposed to from their furnaces are prejudicial to their health; for coming in at their mouths it attacks their lungs and dries them up, whence most part are pale and shortlived, by reason of the diseases of the heart and breast, which the fire causes; which makes Libarius say, they were of weak and infirm bodies, thirsty and easily drunkthis writer says is their true character; but I will say this in their favor, that this character is not general, having known several without this fault." Such was the character and habits of noble glass makers four hundred years since ; and whether their descendants retain their blood or not, the habit of drinking, believed at that time necessary as consequent upon the nature of the employment, is at the present day confined to the ignorant, dissolute, and unambitious workmen. The habit will doubtless, ere long, be done away. Still, so long as the workmen of the present day cling to their conventional rules-act as one body, the lazy controlling the efforts of the more intelligent and industrious-so long will the conduct of the dissolute few affect the moral reputation of the entire body. They must not forget the old adage that "One bad sheep taints the flock." The spirit of the age in no degree tends to sustain the old saying that "Live horses must draw the dead ones." The writer already referred to, dwelling with great interest upon the social position and character of those then engaged in the art, goes on to say: "Anthony de Brossard, Lord of St. Martin and St. Brice, gentleman to Charles d'Artois, Count of Eu, a prince of noble blood royal, finding this art so considerable, that understanding it did not derogate from their nobility, obtained a grant in the year 1453 to establish a glass house in his country, with prohibition of any other, and several other privileges he had annexed to it. The family and extraction of this Sieur de Brossard was considerable enough to bring him here as an example. The right of making glass being so honorable, since the elder sons of the family of Brossard left it off, the younger have taken it up, and continue it to this day. Messieurs de Caqueray, also gentlemen of ancient extraction, obtained a right of glass making, which one of their ancestors contracted by marriage in the year 1468, with a daughter of Anthony de Brossard, Lord of Saint Martin, that gentleman giving half of his right for part of her fortune-which was afterwards confirmed in the Chamber of Accounts. Messieurs Valliant, an ancient family of gentlemen, also obtained a grant of a glass-house for recompense of their services, and for arms a Poignard d'Or on azure, which agrees with their name and tried valor. Besides these families, who still continue to exercise this art, there are the Msssieurs de Virgille, who have a grant for a little glasshouse. Messieurs de la Mairie, de Suqrie, de Bougard, and several others, have been confirmed in their nobility during the late search in the year 1667. "We have, moreover, in France, several great families, sprung from gentlemen glassmakers who have left the trade, among whom some have been honored with the purple and the highest dignities and offices." Enough is recorded to show in what estimation the art was held in France by the government and people of that period; and it is in no wise wonderful that an art invested with so much distinction, conducted with so much secrecy, and characterized with so great a degree of romantic interest, should have given rise to strange reports and legends, hereafter to be referred to. The writer referred to above states that there were two modes of manufacturing glass. One he denominates that of the "Great Glass-Houses," the other the "Small Glass-Houses." In the large houses the manufacture of window glass, and bottles for wine or other liquors, was carried on. He states: "The gentlemen of the Great Glass-Houses work only twelve hours, but that without resting as in the little ones, and always standing and naked. The work passes through three hands. First, the gentlemen apprentices gather the glass and prepare the same. It is then handed to the second gentlemen, who are more advanced in the |