By an analysis of this table it will be discovered that in point of health the State of Alabama stands ahead of Virginia and Massachusetts, and on an equal footing with Pennsylvania; that, in production of corn, she stands, considering her population, superior to all three; that, in number of newspapers, she stands ahead of Massachusetts and Virginia, and on a par with Pennsylvania; and that, whereas the productions of Massachusetts in cotton and woolen goods amounted to $55,675,864, of Pennsylvania to $24,503,373, and of Virginia to $1,873,371, the productions of Alabama in raw cotton amounted to $50,000,000. When it is remembered that the figures presented by this table were made at a time when slavery existed, and when the production of cotton was made paramount to all other agricultural, and indeed to commercial and manufacturing pursuits, and when the demand for newspapers was restricted to half the population, it will be seen at a glance that the relative position of Alabama, in comparison with the two Northern States, is still further strengthened.

Alabama embraces a wonderful variety of soil and climate, and is diversified with mountains, plains, hills, and valleys. She abounds in mineral springs. The Blount Springs, furnishing both sulphur and chalybeate waters, gushing from the silurian rocks in a high and healthy region, are destined to become a great watering place of the South. She grows all the grains and esculents and fruits of the Northern States-some in great perfection, and some which the higher lati

The ordinary staples have not been.

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tudes can not produce at all. grown so abundantly, because cotton has paid so much better than corn, wheat, rye, and oats. Yet these articles could be produced for exportation if the interest of the country demanded it. She produces every garden vegetable in the greatest perfection. The peach, the apricot, the cantelope, the water-melon, the strawberry, the field-pea, and the sweet potato attain a sweetness, a perfection, and a size not found in the Northern States. The sweet potato, especially, yields enormously, and keeps from one year's end to another. She grows oranges and figs, rice and the Cuban sugar cane; one acre yielding from thirty to eighty bushels of rice, and one acre of cane yielding about two barrels of sugar and three barrels of molasses. Hogs, cattle, sheep, horses, mules, and poultry, are also successfully raised. As good bacon is cured in Alabama as can be made anywhere in the United States. Here the farmer can supply his table with every comfort, except coffee, and from his own labor. With industry and good management he need patronize the grocer only for coffee. His cotton crop brings him gold, which is all clear gain, and enables him to lay up money for a rainy day. On account of the character of the soil, a man can cultivate twice as many acres of land in Alabama as he can in Ohio, and with one-third of the expense of the blacksmith for shoeing animals and sharpening plantation utensils. Clothing is much cheaper, because the people can wear cotton much longer than in higher latitudes. And a greater difference in favor of Alabama is that, owing to the mildness of her winters, the laborer is not compelled to toil unceasingly through Summer and Fall to get fuel and make hay to keep his family warm and his stock from starving, as he has to do through the dreary months of Northern latitudes.

One of the great requisites of a State is a capacity to furnish its own iron for making agricultural implements. This capacity the State of Alabama possesses in a pre-eminent degree, as will be more fully exhibited in subsequent pages. The geological survey of Professor Toumey, undertaken several years ago by order of the Legislature of Alabama, has disclosed a wealth in iron and coal of this State that is only surpassed, if at all, by Pennsylvania. Sir Charles Lyell (the best authority), who visited Alabama in 1846, says that "the Warrior coalfield is ninety miles long, from northeast to southwest, with a breadth of from ten to thirty miles. The Cahaba is nearly of equal length and breadth."

This, however, does not tell half the story, as the geological reports and subsequent explorations during the war have disclosed. Sir Charles

reports nothing of the coal fields of the Coosa, and yet these are nearly as extensive as the other coal measures mentioned by him. We will not at this time enter more fully into the question of the coal and iron interest of this State, except to show the general proposition that the presence of these indispensable minerals in such immense quantities opens up a great future for Alabama. While there are hundreds of beds of iron ores of different varieties existing all over the State, the most wonderful is the Red Mountain, stratified with red hematite ore,.varying in thickness from fifteen feet to fifty feet, and extending a distance of ninety miles, underlaid with limestone that crops out above the surface, to flux the ore; with the Warrior coal-field on one side and the Cahaba coal-field on the other, both near to and parallel to it, to melt the ore. Colonel Thomas C. Johnson, who was for many years a lawyer of St. Louis, and a State Senator from that city, and thoroughly acquainted with the iron resources of Missouri, declared that before visiting Alabama he had been in the habit of regarding the Iron Mountain of Missouri as the richest mass of iron ore in the world. But upon inspection of the mineral resources of Alabama he was compelled to admit that her advantages in respect to iron are greater than those of Missouri. Colonel Johnson, after the close of the war, was elected President of Randolph-Macon College, in Virginia, which office he held until his lamentable death by accident in 1868. His opinion is entitled to the greatest weight. We give his language:

"I have lived in Missouri, and have been in the habit of regarding the Iron Mountain of that State as the richest mass of iron ore on the face of the earth, and doubtless it is. But the great drawback on that locality is, that there is no coal within profitable reach. Wood charcoal has to be used, which is too expensive now. This, however, may be remedied when the Iron Mountain Railroad is extended to a point within convenient distance of the coal. But nature, as if intending Alabama to be the great Central Southern State, has so arranged the iron ores, coal measures, and limestone strata, as to throw them together.

"And when you add to this, that the red hematite is the easiest of all ores to work, and that Alabama abounds with immense water-power, upon almost every creek and river, that never freezes nor runs dry, you

can form some idea of her immense wealth and resources."

Besides the capacity to produce the cereals and to furnish cheap iron, Alabama possesses all the other attributes which we ascribe to a great State. She abounds in forests of the finest timber of all kinds, and particularly in pine, which enters so much into the commerce of both city

and country. Her clays make excellent brick, and building-stone is found in nearly every county. Immense beds of marl are distributed, which will be the means of keeping her lands rich and continuously productive. To this, it may be added that she has valuable gold mines that have already been profitably worked; that quarries of marble have already been opened, which in grain, texture, and whiteness, rival the marbles from the far-famed quarries of Carrara, in Italy. Besides these, she possesses manganese, slates, fire-brick clays, mill-stone rock, furnace-hearth rock, and other valuable minerals and rocks, known to exist in great abundance.

The variety of productions of Alabama, is due to her admirable topography. The Allegheny Mountains exhaust themselves in the northeastern portion of the State, rendering that region uneven and broken, although the elevation is nowhere great. It is in the continuation of this range that we find cropping out the wonderful mineral beds which follow the Alleghenies from Pennsylvania, through Virginia and Tennessee, down to the heart of Alabama. This range extends west, with a slight bend to the south, and forms the dividing line between the waters of the Tennessee, which are turned from their natural course northward, and the other waters of the State, which flow southward into the gulf. From this elevated range, in the valleys of which we find the most delightful climate, and health-giving waters, the country slopes to the south, and is somewhat uneven as far as the center of the State, where the hills disappear in a belt of prairies, which lie smooth and luxuriant with cotton for a distance of from sixty to one hundred miles in width, and stretching across the State from east to west. South of this cotton belt the pine forests and the fertile alluvial river bottoms extend to the Gulf. It will be seen at a glance that such an admirable topography concentrates within the limits of the State the productions of nearly every degree of latitude. Descending from the base of the Alleghenies we reach, successively, fruits and cereals such as enrich the Western States; minerals, such as adorn the Middle States; a splendid cotton region which furnishes nearly eighteen per cent. of the cotton of the United States; and then the magnolias of an almost tropical sky, and the oranges which perfume the delightful breezes of the Gulf. Alabama alone, of the States of the Union, is capable of manufacturing every article needed for husbandry, and at the same time producing every article necessary for the sustenance and comfort of man.

The area of Alabama is 50,722 square miles, divided, in an industrial point of view, into five great divisions, of each of which we will treat in turn, after alluding to the questions of health and climate:

CLIMATE AND HEALTH OF ALABAMA.

Mobile-Its situation and surroundings-Health, compared with other cities-Greater health of other parts of the State-U. S. mortuary report-Comparison with other States-Testimony of Dr. J. C. Nott, etc. MOBILE is situated on the west bank of Mobile River, just where it empties into Mobile Bay. The site is but little elevated above the level of the river, but sufficiently so for all purposes of drainage. The soil is dry and sandy. Immediately above the city, on the north, is a large swamp, extending along the banks of the river. Back of the city, on the northwest, west and south, the dry, sandy pine hills commence, affording delightful and healthy retreats from the heat, sickness, and annoyances of the city during the summer months, and at such infrequent times as yellow-fever may be brought through the quarantine. Yellowfever never originates at Mobile, or at any other point in Alabama. During the war the entire Gulf coast was free from that disease, and not a single case is known to have occurred in Mobile. The blockade was an effective protection, and no reason exists why a quarantine could not be established, and be made as effective hereafter, as was the blockade during the war; yet, if by accident, the yellow-fever should be brought to Mobile, the neighboring pine hills, upon which have sprung up the villages of Spring Hill, Cottage Hill, Summerville, and Fulton, afford a safe retreat.

Mobile once had the reputation of being exceedingly unhealthy, but since the epidemic of 1843, we venture to say that its sanitary reports will compare favorably with those of any city of the Union.

The fact that, since 1843, no serious epidemics have visited Mobile, is no doubt due to the fact, that marshes which occupied the northern part of the city have been filled in, and that a better system of drainage has been established.

As an illustration of the healthiness of Mobile, the following table is