Total earnings as per last report Net do. Per mile. *Cleveland and Columbus...... $341,680 96 $230,969 28 $1,710 Little Miami 487,815 89 297,457 57 3,541 211,631 37 150,055 58 2,778 1100,043 00 461,364 80 2,116 185,080 60 2,378 Columbus and Xenia... We select the above, because being all new roads they are exactly in point, and afford the best and most correct illustration of the point we wish to make. We think that this table will convince any person who reads this article, that our new roads can earn au amount ample to meet the interest on their bonds, and we also believe that he will be made readily to understand how the people on the line of a railroad can afford to lose one half the cost of a road in securing its construction, and at the same time be vastly benefitted by the operation. We require thirty millions yearly for our roads in progress ; certainly not a large sum for a nation like ourselves to invest annually in works which not only promise to pay well, but which develope the resources of the country to an extraordinary degree. There cannot be a doubt that the cash value of the property of the country has been increased by an amount 500 per cent. greater than the whole investment. Without railroads, we are a country without markets. Vast bodies of the finest lands in the world, and lying in the States east of the Mississippi, still remain a wilderness, for want of an outlet for their appropriate products. A railroad, by furnishing an outlet, is equivalent to a market at all seasons of the year. They therefore exert a direct influence in the creation of wealth, and that, too, to a much greater extent than their cost; and there never were more absurd and groundless fears, than that our railroads, even at the rate we are now building them, are calculated to embarrass us, or to produce a financial crisis. They are our greatest safeguards against the state of things most feared, as they enable us at a comparatively slight cost, to avail ourselves of our vast resources which now lie dormant for the want of means to make them available. The more roads we build, the stronger and steadier we become, the more abundant our cash capital, the cheaper all the necessaries of life. When our present schemes shall be accomplished, and every portion of the country connected by these iron bonds, the effect upon the prosperity of the country will be incalculable. We shall then become fused into one people, enjoying practically one climate and one soil. A person in the interior of the Mississippi basin will then be able to spread daily upon his table the products of every variety of soil and climate, the fruits of the tropics and of high northern latitudes. * For six months only. bove, Vermont, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania are irginia, Georgia and Alabama, southern, and Kentucky, Indiana, western States. It will be seen that in density on Ohio and Pennsylvania are equal, and that Vermont, Oshire and Indiana are nearly so. One reason of this found in the fact that in the eastern States is found a tity of waste land, while in the western States there is vely none. g that the bonds of nearly all our roads offer perfectly ments for capital, and that they will acquire such repung capitalists in Europe as well as in the United States, fears that the large demand created by the great numks in progress, will be attended with any injurious rewithdrawing too much of our capital from our other inrsuits. We admit that we can only make the most rapid ctory progress when the wants of all our great interests y supplied. They should all move forward with equal considering that we draw only some thirty millions from means for our roads, and the vast addition to the prope country that every new road creates, this is certainly e sum for yearly investment in railroads, by a nation of enty-six millions of people. Our annual accumulations population about equal to our own, and which are not half so well and profitably employed, wastes eighty millions upon her army and navy alone! The total annua! appropriations for the support of that government, (to say nothing of church and poor rates, and thousands of other charges upon property not known with us) average two hundred and fifty millions! against thirty-five millions for that of the United States: or, adding fifteen millions for the expenses of our State governments, fifty millions in the aggregate. Capital is abundant and every department of industry is well supplied, and we see no way in which we can so well dispose of our surplus capital as to invest it in our public works. ARTICLE V. St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad.—TOPOGRAPHY OF THE ROUTE, ETC. The following communication from a distinguished citizen of South Missouri removes one objection which has been raised against the practicability of constructing a railway from St. Louis to Helena, Arkansas: namely, the supposed existence, by some, of an impassable swamp extending from the St. Francois to Black river. We find another interesting fact in the statement that Wayne county is not less abundant in iron than St. Francois, which embraces the Iron Mountain and Pilot Knob. The views of our correspondent in respect to the importance of converting the cres of South Missouri into a commercial form, by which they will be the means of enriching the State, and building up the city of St. Louis, are just and statesman-like, and commend themselves to the citizens of every part of the State.-Editors. Dear sir:-I take the earliest leisure to answer your communication of the 31st ult. It was not to be expected that general or correct information could be had of the country situated, for some distance, up the St. Francois and Big Black rivers; the surveys have been precluded by the extensive Lakes and swamps, formed by the overflow of those rivers and their tributaries, and the country has never until very recently been explored (and then but partially), with a view to its improvement. It has only been visited in the winter season by hunters and trappers, in the pursuit of game, or by graziers to winter their stock on the rich growth of cane and rushes that abound on the dry lands of that region. In deed, so wild and unfrequented is the country, that among the large islands in those lakes and swamps the Buffaloe and Elk are yet to be found, and it is often profitable to the trapper in taking beaver. I have from personal observation but a limited knowledge of the country between this point and Helena, extending only from the table lands at the sources of St. Francois and Black rivers, to a short distance below Greenville, in Wayne county. It is on those table lands that the beautiful settlements of Bellevieu and Arcadia are made, and between them the Iron Mountain and Pilot Knob rear their iron heads; and with full confidence I can speak of the entire practicability of constructing a railroad from hence to a point below Greenville, on or near the southern line of the State, on a route more direct, and of lower grade than can be obtained for the same distance in south-eastern Missouri, certainly more so, than from St. Louis to the Iron Mountain. Although the descent from this elevated portion of country is about the same to Greenville as to St. Louis, the descent is easier and more direct to the former. The elevation above St. Louis, taken at the base of the Iron Mountain by Maj. Morell, in his survey made in 1837, was found to be 800 feet. In ascending from St. Louis, the very meandering course of Big river, with its numerous tributaries running from almost every point of the compass, will occasion the crossing of several dividing ridges, which must greatly enhance the cost of construction. But I am happy to learn a corps of engineers are now on the line, making a recognizance for a railroad from St. Louis to the neighbourhood of the Mountain and Knob, which will give you more certain and accurate information. To descend southwardly from the Iron Mountain to Greenville, two routes present themselves by streams which take their rise almost at the base of the Pilot Knob. The more western, by Bruer's creek I think, would be preferred, because more direct, and would save bridging the St. Francois. The eastern route would penetrate more deeply into the heart of Madison county, approaching near Mine la Motte, but is more circuitous, and would occasion the construction of two bridges across the St. Francois. There is a point below Greenville, on the west side of the St. Francois, you are forced to, in constructing a railroad from St. Louis south, with a view to connect with the Holly Spring railroad in Mississippi. A connection with Memphis is impracticable, by reason of the extensive lakes and swamps on the lower St. Francois, which never can be reclaimed. The point I alluded to is a narrow neck of land below Greenville, between the St. Francis and Big Black, it is low but not a swamp, having a slough across it, through which, in times of very high floods, the water of the St. Francois passes into Black river. Immediately beyond this, as I learn from good authority, Crowley's ridge rises and forms the divide between the swamps and lower small tributaries of those two rivers, continuing its course in a di rection to the neighbourhood of Helena, in Arkansas. Having some acquaintances in that region of our State in whom I can place the most implicit confidence, and who are familiar with the profile of the country between the lower St. Francois and Black rivers, I will address them on the subject, and forward their communications when received. There is no portion of our State more interesting, and yet so little known, as the section to which this subject refers, none in my mind more interesting to the prosperity of St. Louis-she feels and is proud of her commanding commercial position, but to maintain it against the numerous rivals that are being created by the magnificent projects of internal improvements which are now going forward east, and south and north of her, she must exert herself, and secure a system of manufactures, one of which it is now in her power to make exclusively her own, by the construction of the railroad you advocate, and thus become the Birmingham of the vast valley of the Mississippi. The line of railroad you have suggested, would traverse more than one hundred miles of the richest iron deposits on the Globe, (from the Merrimac to the swamps); scarce one section of land can be passed without finding on it deposits of iron ore, and in many localities in astonishing quantities. Notwithstanding the vast amount of iron ore found in the Mountain and Knob, I am of opinion, Wayne county contains more iron ore than any county in the State, and perhaps nearly as much water power; yet it is useless, and the lands of that county valueless, even at government price, except in a very few localities, because she is cut off from an easy and direct access to the Mississippi, by the swamps extending from Cape Girardeau to the mouth of the St. Francois. In this elevated region we have no coal formations, it is mostly primitive, yet we have abundance of timber, and only want a cheap and ready transportation to the Mississippi, to enable us to rival all others in the manufacture of iron. That we can make as good iron as any produced on the globe, and under a correct system of management cheaper than can be furnished in any State of this Union, is easily demonstrated. St. Louis, situated as she is, in the heart of extensive coal fields, should contain the finishing shops. of our iron manufacture, and the numerous structures from it, that have become necessary to man, for his convenience, security, and pleasure. Why is it that Pittsburgh, and other cities on the Ohio, can afford to pay us an extra-price for our pig metal and blooms, and after paying all costs of transportation and incidental expenses, return it to us in a finished state, selling it with a profit? Pittsburgh, like St. Louis, has naturally a strong commercial position, and has only been able to maintain it by calling to her aid the great coal fields at her door, in building up her iron and other manufactures, thus making herself a point of convenience and attraction to the merchant and trader. Your city |