a rail. All of the heats to be made soft and uniform throughout the piles, so as to insure a good working of the iron, without crushing the fiber, and no cold hammering shall be permitted.

2. The rails to be made to conform exactly to the forms of templates furnished by second parties hereto, and not to vary more than two pounds per yard, either way, from the weights marked on such templates. Lengths to be, in each lot 35 per cent 21 feet long, and 15 per cent 18 feet long; and no variation exceeding 3-16th of an inch to be allowed. To be notched and punched as may be ordered for each lot.

For the purpose of insuring sound ends, the piles shall contain sufficient iron to allow at least one foot in length to be cut from each end of the finished rail; and any rail from which such extra length has not been cut, shall be rejected.

The whole of each lot of rails must be of uniform section throughout, perfectly true and straight, and any that are bent or warped in the manufacture, must be straightened by pressure, and not by hammering. They shall also be perfectly sound, free from splits, cracks, flaws, scoria, imperfect welds, or defects of any kind, and shall have their ends cut accurately true and square.

Each rail to be marked on the side in raised letters, at least half an inch in length, with the name of the railway company for whom made, the initials of the works where manufactured, and the year of manufacture.

3. The manufacturer shall allow an inspector in the employ of and selected by the second parties hereto, to inspect and supervise the entire process of manufacture; which shall be conducted to his satisfaction, and be subject to his approval and acceptance, both as to mode of working and materials used, under the limitations of these specifications. And if, in the judgment of said inspector, any portion of the process of manufacture, or any of the materials used, is not in conformity with these specifications, he shall have the right to reject any such imperfect work.

COTTON ON RAILROADS.

The following, showing the receipts of cotton at Mobile, per Mobile and Ohio Railroad, with earnings of the road for the year ending 31st July, 1860, compared with previous years, indicates the progressive influence of railroads upon the crop movement :-

Total....... 107,450 137,430 223,890 $617,501 87 $773,179 18 1,200,108 61

Amount of cotton received for the commercial year, 227,706 bales; during August, 1860, 4,396.

RAILWAYS IN TEXAS.

The Houston Telegraph for September 4th devotes considerable space to the above subject. Besides other information, it gives the following:

The increase of taxable property in Brazoria County, since the railroad reached there, has been astonishing. In 1858, before the grading had more than commenced in the county, the total value on the tax rolls was $4,705,340. The taxable property this year is $6,240,296, the increase in two years being over two-and-a-half millions of dollars.

A year or two ago the county of Brazoria voted to take $100,000 stock in railroads, issuing county bonds for that amount in payment therefor. In order to pay the interest on these bonds, and the principal as fast as it should become due, a tax of 25 cents on the $100 was levied on all the taxable property in the county. The interest has been paid promptly, and the County Treasurer is now authorized to redeem all bonds maturing on the 1st day of March next. Add to this, the county tax has been reduced to 64 cents on the $100, and the special tax for the redemption of the bonds to 12 cents on the $100, making the whole reduction nearly $11,000.

Ten years ago, say September 1st, 1850, except with a few visionary persons in Galveston and Houston, the idea that any person then living in Texas would ever live to see a railroad in the State was simply regarded as absurd; for fifteen or twenty years old Texans had got along without them. They had taken their long and tiresome horseback journeys through the country, painfully traversing from twenty to thirty miles a day when roads were good, and less than that dis tance at other times. They had sent their produce to market and received their supplies by the slow and laggard ox team, scarcely calculating on more than ten miles a day. Planters living in the far interior thought they were doing remarkably well if they got the returns of their September pickings by Christmas. Merchants bought goods in the spring for the fall trade, and only received them after six weeks' or two months' exposure to the vicissitudes of the voyage of a so-called prairie ship. In the height of the season, our market towns, especially Houston, were one large cattle pen, and the streets exhibited, from morning till night, only a sea of horns, intermixed with the white covers of the wagons. Long trains of cattle-fourteen, sixteen, and sometimes twenty oxen to each wagon-were constantly arriving and departing with a snail-like pace, wearily dragging their loads through the mud. And this continued until within the past four years.

In 1854, we believe, the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos, and Colorado road was first opened for business to the Brazos timber, but did not reach Richmond till the latter part of 1855. In 1853 work was begun on the Central road, and in June of that year there were fifty hands at work on it. Both these were, however, generally regarded as schemes for which the State was not ready. Still the projectors struggled on, and in September, 1857, the Central, having been completed to Cypress City, was opened for business. Its influence, small as it was in comparison to the position it has since attained, was at once felt. Business took a new start in Houston. Other railroad enterprises felt that the success of this was an assurance of success to them, and the spirit of railroad building became, from that day, a dominant spirit in all this section of country.

Four years ago there were in all Texas but two actual railroads, viz., the Central, open twenty-five miles, and the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos, and Colorado, open thirty miles, in all fifty-five miles. On the Central there were two locomotives, and two on the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos, and Colorado. Besides these, one had just been received for the Tap road, then in progress of construction. Today we have over three hundred and twenty miles of finished railroad centering in Houston, and some thirty-five finished in other parts of the State. On these roads there are now thirty locomotives, daily awakening the echoes with their whistles, and rumbling over the earth with their heavy trains. Every morning the traveler sets out from Houston, and by eleven o'clock he is three good days of horseback traveling in the interior, reaching, in fact, a fair fourth day's journey before night. Persons daily leave town, and having transacted business fifty

or seventy miles away, arrive at home to a three o'clock dinner. Freights for all parts of the interior are in one day put as far forward as formerly in a week. In a word, people now live as much and do as much in one year as they used to do in two.

SOUTHWESTERN RAILROAD COMPANY OF GEORGIA.

The reports of the chief engineer and superintendent of this road show very clearly the operations of the road for the year ending 31st of July last, its condition, and the condition of the motive power :—

:

The net sum earned for the year, after paying all ordinary and extraordinary expenses, is..

To which may be added the amount of premium and discount shown on treasurer's statement

Total........

The following amounts have been paid, viz. :—

February dividend, 4 per cent....

Interest on bonds

$385,012 29

3,841 53

$388,853 82

$93,424 00

27.632 50

NEW ORLEANS, JACKSON, AND GREAT NORTHERN RAILROAD.

TOTAL EARNINGS PER MONTH FOR TWELVE MONTHS ENDING the 31st of AUGUST, 1860.

Increase for 1860 over 1859 a fraction over 40 per cent.

The earnings for the year ending the 31st of August, 1858, were $382,689. The number of bales of cotton brought over the road for the last twelve months was 191,572 against 145,373 bales the year previous.

PROPHECY IN REGARD TO RAILROADS.

The following is a curious instance of the effect of time and experience upon the well-considered judgment of men :

"We are not advocates for visionary projects that interfere with useful establishments. We scout the idea of a railroad as impracticable! What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the prospects held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stage coaches! We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as to put themselves at the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate."-English Quarterly Review, 1825.

AMERICAN RAILROAD ENTERPRISE IN BRAZIL-HISTORY OF BRAZIL ROADS. The Don Pedro II. Railway is one of the main lines of railway connection now being developed in the finest empire of South America. It extends far into the interior from Rio, as a grand trunk, with many branches ramifying on either side, and is being pushed forward rapidly by the Philadelphia company to whom the contract was awarded in the latter part of 1857. The first section, forty miles, was completed earlier in the year. The Emperor himself, on the 2d of June, started over the American portion of the road, to inspect it. The railroad is to extend 300 miles, into a coffee district. The second section traverses a mountain range, some 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. Some of the fillings required are enormous, while the shafts for tunneling have to be sunk in some places upwards of 450 feet, through the most solid kind of trap rock. Under the skillful labor of the gentlemen who are now at work at it, it will be done properly, and as speedily as the character of the work will allow.

Hitherto American enterprise in Brazil has been far below that of the leading nations of Europe. Remunerative contracts, requiring skill and energy, were constantly obtained by Englishmen, Germans, Frenchmen, and even Portuguese; but Americans had no fair play, until the railway system of Brazil was matured. Their experience with single lines, in a new country, was just what Brazil required. It was then that Col. CHARLES F. M. GARNETT, of Virginia, was employed as engineer-in-chief; and more of our countrymen have thus been led to Brazil than ever before. Col. GARNETT, we understand, has returned to the United States, but American skill and enterprise are now better known and appreciated in Brazil than formerly, and, if our countrymen are wide awake to their own interests, they will not neglect the opening there.

The Don Pedro Road is the sixth railway begun in Brazil. The names of these enterprises are as follows:-Maua Railway, begun in 1852, finished in 1853; Pedro II. Railway, first section, begun in 1855, finished in 1857; Pernambuco and San Francisco Railway, begun in 1855, finished in 1858; Bahia Railway, begun 1857, finished in 1860; Canto Gallo Railway, begun 1860; San Paulo Railway, begun 1860.

The Brazilian government guaranties a certain per cent to the stockholders of all, or nearly all, of these railroads. The enlightened policy of the intelligent head of the Empire, and the peace, which is the normal condition of Brazil, speak much for the advance of that country, and make it stand out in bold contrast with the ever heaving, revolutionizing, Spanish-American Republics.

The Journal of Commerce presents several interesting particulars of railway development in Brazil, based upon the volume entitled Brazil and the Brazilians," from which we quote:

As to the importance of Don Pedro, we can only say, that thousands and tens of thousands of muleteers and mules are annually employed to bring down to the point of embarkation the rich products of Nova Friburgo, Canto Gallo, and vicinity. The coffee plantations in the elevated uplands surrounding these twonamed towns rank among the best in the province of Rio Janeiro. Many of these plantations are owned by Brazilians, but there are some very prosperous establishments whose proprietors are Swiss and Frenchmen. The baron of New Friburgo has immense coffee plantations in the mountains and near the village which bears his name. Between New Friburgo and Canto Gallo there is a fine

region of country more thickly settled than the traveler is accustomed to find in Brazil. Such is the amount of cultivation that one is reminded by the scenery of the beautiful and richly-tilled valleys of Switzerland. Beyond Canto Gallo. to the River Parahiba do Sul, is a large tract of land under cultivation, and susceptible of still higher tillage, mostly suitable for coffee, sugar, cotton, Indian corn, and the mandioca plant, from which a coarse meal and tapioca are produced. The city of Campos is situated upon the River Parahiba, twenty miles from its mouth. It is surrounded by vast fertile plains, which give the name to the city. The commerce of this place is extensive, and a large number of coasting smacks are employed to transport thence to Rio Janeiro the sugar, coffee, rum, and rice, which are brought there from the neighboring plantations. When the new railway is completed to Campos, a distance of nearly two hundred miles, an immense traffic must flow over the line indicated. If an American colony should be formed in Brazil, these salubrious uplands, where the fruit of the tropics and the cereals of the temperate zone may flourish together, would be the proper and profitable spot for such an undertaking.

The Mana Railroad runs over the plains which extend from the bay to the base of the Oregon Mountains, and is on the highway between Rio and the mountain city of Petropolis, which is a great summer retreat, and where the Emperor has a country-palace.

The tunnel of Mendez is a stupendous undertaking. Those who, from the city of Rio de Janeiro, have gazed upon the Alpine peaks which surround that city, will have some idea of the difficulties in the way. But, once over this mountain range, we find a country resembling the more level plains of Pennsylvania. The transportation from these uplands has hitherto been by the slow, expensive, and painful means of mules, down steep narrow paths which cannot be found out of South America, and Spain and Thibet. The tunnel of Mendez pierces this mountain range, and will be, when finished, 7.200 Portuguese feet, which are equivalent to one mile and a half English. Up to the 1st of April, this year, 180 feet had been excavated at the southern entrance, and 170 feet at the northern, (in all 370 feet,) and besides this, three immense shafts have been sunk at different places from the summit of the mountain, so that a steam-engine is enabled to pump off thousands of gallons of water, which, otherwise, would greatly impede the laborers in the horizontal works. The tunnel is wholly made through a rock which the Italians call granitilho, which differs from primitive granite in being more friable, and more easily affected by powder. The contractor says that he will soon be in condition to have his force disembowel the mountain at the rate of 45 or 50 feet per month, which would insure the completion of the tunnel in less than two years.

Turning to the north we find, 800 and 1,200 miles away from Rio de Janerio, the Pernambuco and San Francisco, and the Bahin and San Francisco Railroads. They have the same end in view, i. e., to tap the present and future commerce of the rich valley of the San Francisco and the intermediate region. If any one will examine a map of Brazil, he will see the very great importance of these two railroads. The river San Francisco, which is as large as the Volga. falls into the ocean near ten degrees of south latitude, but for nearly three hundred miles from its mouth is interrupted by a series of rapids, ending with the falls of Paulo Alfonso, an immense cataract over which the river madly plunges. This interruption to navigation ceases near a point called Joazeiras, which will be found clearly indicated in the map already referred to. Now, above Joazeiras to the mouth of Rio das Valhas, in the Province of Minas Geraes, there are, on the San Francisco alone, seven hundred miles of direct steamboat navigation, and when we consider the various affluents, there must be more than as many more miles. In fact, the San Francisco is the largest river emptying into the Atlantic between the La Plata and the Amazon. It rises in the rich province of Minas Geraes, and waters the fertile soil of the important provincial divisions of Bahai, Pernambuco, Sergipe, and Alagoas-the very garden of the Brazilan Empire. The cities of Bahia, San Salvador, (130,000 inhabitants,) and Pernambuco, (80,000,) are contending for the trade of this basin. Both have planned railways