Iron and stock imported for the railroads; specie of emigrants, and valuable goods and property brought in as baggage, and by express, Exports, Imports, Aggregate commerce, 1,000,000 00 $7,276,829 06 $7,119,832 84 7,276,829 06 $14,396,661 90 Value and Quantities of Exports of the Products of Michigan, exported from the State for the year 1847. Starch, glass, lard, linseed oil, grass seed, plas ter, and all other artices, Total, 81,881 24 $7,119,832 84 CHAPTER XV. Western cities-manufactures. Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are the most important manfacturing towns. At these places, chiefly, steamboats are built, and engines made for a variety of purposes. Some idea of the vast amount of machinery manufactured at those points may be formed from the facts, that steam mills for grinding wheat are now becoming scattered over the whole West-that steam machinery is used very generally in the preparation of cotton and sugar-and that it is rapidly taking the place of water and horse power, in various branches of manufacture. At these places are also made almost all the heavy articles which are fabricated from iron. From their work shops the vast regions, which include a dozen states, are supplied with wagons, carts, ploughs, harness, and all farming implements— with chairs and cabinet work of every description-with tin ware with printing presses and types-with saddlery, shoes, and hats-with a large amount of books—and with a variety of other articles. In the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, but little is manufactured, because the slaves, who are the only laborers, do not possess the kind of ingenuity necessary to make them valuable mechanics. In Kentucky there are manufactories of hempen bagging, tobacco, and whisky, and in Tennessee are valuable iron works. Fur ther south the industry of the several states is almost entirely devoted to the production of cotton and sugar; and the vast supplies of manufactured articles needed for a wealthy, energetic and highly refined community are drawn from more northern latitudes. They import all their machinery, their tools, their furniture, and a large portion of all they wear or eat. Of these immense supplies Pittsburgh and Cincinnati furnish the greater portion—but not the whole. The country lying around the head of the Ohio, of which Pittsburgh may be considered as the centre, and the commercial metropolis, possesses an incalculable amount of the facilities for manufacturing, such as timber, coal, water power, and raw materials, while it occupies a commanding position at the head of navigation. Brownsville, Williamsport, Elizabethtown, Economy, Beaver, Steubenville, and a number of other towns, are actively engaged in manufactures, and contribute to the wealth of Pittsburgh. As we descend the Ohio, the country becomes more fertile, and its agricultural products abundant. Wheeling, like Pittsburgh, derives its business, partly from manufactures, partly from transportation of merchandise from the eastern cities to the west, and partly from commerce. Being the point at which the national turnpike intersects the Ohio river, much of its importance is derived from the daily arrival of passengers by stages and steamboats. The average number of stage coaches arriving and departing daily, at Wheeling, are as follows: The average number of passengers, carried by those stages throughout the year, is six and a half per stage. The total number of stages arriving and departing daily, is twenty-four. The total number of passengers is one hundred and thirty-six per day, or forty-nine thousand six hundred and forty per year. The number of steamboats arriving daily, in the year 1847, was seven, and the departures the same. Total arrivals in 1847, 66 departures in 1847, 2,555 2,555 The average tonnage of these boats is estimated at one hundred and eighty-two tons, and the aggregate tonnage, for the year, four hundred and sixty-five thousand tons each way. The amount of coal shipped from Wheeling, in 1847, was two million nine hundred thousand bushels. The coal is not of the best quality, but is sufficiently good for ordinary purposes, and furnishes important facilities for manufacturing at this place. Wheeling is consequently a manufacturing town of some note, employing fortyseven steam engines, and nearly three thousand operatives. Between Wheeling and Cincinnati the towns, such as Maysville, Portsmouth and Marietta, are more engaged in the shipment of produce than in mechanical employments, although at all those places, and many others on the rivers, there are manufactories which contribute to swell the great aggregate of our creative industry. At Pomeroy, a village in Ohio, are the mines from which Cincinnati and other places on the river are supplied with their best coal. For family use this is the finest article for fuel that comes to our market, where it is |