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$6,654,418

$9,166,679 $2,900,700

*Branches of the State Bank of Ohio, 38 in number. The Capital Stock of the Ohio Life and Trust Company is $2,000,000, which is loaned on real estate. The capital of $611,226, on which it is doing business as a Bank, consists of loans made to the Co. on which it pays interest.

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Total,

PATENT OFFICE REPORT FOR 1848-9.

The following interesting tables form a part of the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents for 1848-9; and published in advance of the printed document itself. The figures are mere estimates, but they must approximate more closely to the facts than any other tables in the possession of the public, upon these subjects. The results are no doubt obtained after careful enquiries in proper channels; and, for all statistical purposes, and as a basis of calculation for political economists, they are sufficiently correct.

It would add much to the value of the Patent Office Reports, hereafter, if they entered more fully into a consideration of the progress of improvements in the Arts and Sciences, as indicated by the new patents themselves; and also as indicated through the Journals of Science published in Great Britain and the Continent of Europe, as well as in our own country.

It seems to us that the Commissioner of Patents should be a person of acknowledged acquirements in science; practically familiar with general science, with the principles of mechanics and the arts: and capable of himself producing an accurate Survey of the Progress of Science throughout the World.

Estimates of Crops in the United States in the year 1848.

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291,948

310,000

Population Estimated, Wheat, Barley, Oats,
Rye, Buckwheat,
in 1840. 1848.
Bushels. Bushels. Bushels. Bushels. Bushel
501,793 615,000 900,000 290,000 2,000,000
284,574 308,000 620,000 132,000 2,500,000
737,699 875,000 260,000 175,000 2,300,000
108,830 135,000 4,600 55,000 220,000 55,000 5,000
309,978 340,000 130,000 30,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 500,000
680,000 60,000 3,500,000 370,000 350,000

200,000 80,000

500,000 175,000

750,000 145,000

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12,000 5,500,000 3,300,000 1,000,000 155,000 20,000,000 13,500,000 3,800,000

2,428,921 2,880,000 15,500,000 4,300,000 28,000,000 4,000,000 3,860,000

373,306 425,000 1,200,000 1,724,033 2,220,000 15,200,000 78,085 85,000 450,000 470,019 510,000 5,150,000 1,239,797 1,295,000 12,250,000 753,419 780,000 2,450,000

4,500 700,000 65,000 16,000 3,000 2,200,000 1,200,000 120,000 94,000 11,000,000 1,800,000 270,000

4,200 4,000,000 300,000 20,000 4,800 1,250,000

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594,393 620,000 1,400,000
691,392 825,000 2,100,000
590,756 716,000 1,300,000
375,651 670,000 550,000
352,411 490,000

60,000

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Ohio,

Indiana,

Illinois,

829,210 980,000 9,000,000

6,800 10,500,000 400,000 34,000

1,519,467 1,980,000 20,000,000 300,000 30,000,000 1,250,000 1,500,000

685,866 1,000,000 8,500,000 42,000 17,000,000

476,183 800,000 5,400,000 120,000

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1,000,000

2,000

9,000

220,000

25,000,000

350,000

18,000,000 1,000,000

12,000,000

114,475,000 588,150,000 15,735,000 20,330 218,909,000 1,066,000,000 119,199,500 The Sugar crop of this year is deficient and is estimated only at two hundred millions of pounds. No estimates of the quantity of Maple Sugar has been made on account of the difficulty of procuring reliable information in regard to it.

Comparative Estimates for 1847 and 1848.

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THE FUTURE SUPPLY OF GOLD.

BY DAVID T. ANSTED, PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY, KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON.

On the probable influence of the Gold of California on the commercial value of Gold-On the nature of money-The capital stock of Gold—The annual supplies of Gold-Loss of Gold by use.

Gold being a metal highly indestructible, and, owing to its comparative rarity and the many uses to which it can be applied, exceedingly valuable, has been made use of in most parts of the world as a medium of exchange; and in order, as it was supposed, to facilitate commercial operations and simplify many calculations of national importance, has been taken with silver as the standard of money value. In our own country (as has been just explained) the relative value of gold and silver is fixed by law, gold being a legal tender, and silver coins bearing a fixed ratio to gold.

Gold and silver, however, although their value is thus fixed, so far as they have reference to coins in our own country, are, like all objects of value that exist in nature, and are obtained from the earth by an expenditure of labor, subject to great fluctuations in real value, as a larger or smaller quantity of them happens to be in the market. Up to the present time, nothing that has occurred since the year 1816, (when the standard values were fixed by Act of Parliament, and gold made a legal tender for all sums above 40s.) has so far deranged the relative values of the precious metals as to produce inconvenience; but it is manifest that any permanent increase in the supply of either would alter their relative values, and render the present standard inapplicable.

The meaning of this may be made more clear by a simple example. The annual income of Great Britain amounts to a certain number of millions of pounds sterling, say fifty-six millions, and this under present circumstances would be represented by somewhat more than nine hundred thousand pounds weight avoirdupois of fine gold. But this income might also be paid by about thirteen millions of pounds weight of pure silver, if silver were a legal standard, or if the silver were employed to purchase in the market its value in gold. Now if we suppose the quantity of available gold doubled without that of the silver being perceptibly increased, the proportionate value of gold and silver in the world must be altered to a great extent, and the required weight of gold purchasable for a smaller quantity of silver than thirteen millions of pounds, since the relative value of the metals in other countries than our own depends to some extent (although as we shall presently see not entirely) on the quantities of the two substances in the market, and the value of both compared with that of food and labor.

As however the whole subject of the value of the precious metals is frequently very ill-understood by those whom notwithstanding it greatly concerns, it will be worth while here to place it distinctly before the reader; and as I am not aware that any writer on the subject has done so with a more distinct perception of the state of the case than Dr. Adam Smith, I make no apology for offering the following extracts from his work on the Wealth of Nations::

The value of any commodity, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labor which it enables him to purchase or command. Labor, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.

But though labor be the measure of this value, it is not that by which their value is commonly estimated. It is often difficult to ascertain the proportion between two different quantities of labor, and the time spent in two different sorts of work will not always alone determine this proportion. It is more natural therefore to estimate its exchangeable value by the quantity of some other commodity than by that of the labor which it can produce; and hence also it comes to pass that the exchangeable value of every commodity is more frequently estimated by the quantity of money, than by the quantity, either of labor or of any other commodity, which can be had in exchange for it.

Gold and silver, however, like every other commodity, vary in their value, being sometimes cheaper and sometimes dearer, sometimes of easier and sometimes of more difficult purchase. The quantity of labor which any particular quantity of them can purchase or command, or the quantity of other goods which it will exchange for, depends always upon the fertility or barrenness of the mines which happen to be known about the time which such exchanges are made. The discovery of the abundant mines of America reduced in the sixteenth century the value of gold and silver in Europe, to about a third of what it had been before. As it cost less labor to bring those metals from the mines to the market, so, when they were brought thither, they could purchase or command less labor; and this revolution in their value, though perhaps the greatest, is by no means the only one of which history gives some account.

Now, although it is true that at distant places there is no regular proportion between the real and the money price of commodities, yet the merchant who carries goods from the one to the other has nothing to consider but the money price, or the difference between the quantity of silver or gold for which he buys them, and that for which he is likely to sell them. Half an ounce of silver at Canton in China, may command a greater quantity both of labor and of the necessaries and conveniencies of life, than an ounce at London. If a London merchant, however, can buy at Canton for half an ounce of silver, a commodity which he can afterwards sell at London for an ounce, he gains a hundred per cent. by the bargain, just as much as if an ounce of silver was at London exactly of the same value as at Canton. An ounce at London will always give him the command of double the quantity of all these, which half an ounce could have done there, and this is precisely what he wants.

In reality, during the continuance of any one regulated proportion between the respective values of the different metals in coin, the value of the most precious metals regulates the value of the whole coin. Twelve copper pence contain half a pound avoirdupois of copper, of not the best quality, which before it is coined is seldom worth seven pence in silver. But as, by the regulation, twelve such pence are ordered to exchange for a shilling, they are in the market considered as worth a shilling, and a shilling can at any time be had for them.

The occasional fluctuations in the market price of gold and silver bullion arise from the same causes as the like fluctuations in that of all other commodities. The frequent loss of those metals from various accidents by sea and by land, the continual waste of them in gilding and plating, in lace and embroidery, in the wear and tear of coin, and in that of plate, require, in all countries which possess no mines of their own, a continual importation in order to repair this loss and this waste. The merchant-importers, like all other merchants, we may believe, endeavor as well as they can to suit their occasional importations to what they judge is likely to be the immediate demand. With all their attention, however, they sometimes overdo the business, and sometimes underdo it. When they import more bullion than is wanted, rather than incur the risk and trouble of exporting it again, they are sometimes willing to sell a part of it for something less than the ordinary or average price. But when, under all those occasional fluctuations, the market price either of gold or silver bullion continues for several years together, steadily and constantly, either more or less above or more or less below the Mint price, we may be assured that this

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