In this matter Missouri made a grand investment at the very start, and her school fund has been so well husbanded and increased by legislation that she has now a system of public instruction that may challenge comparison with that of any State in the Union. It is not meant by this that the educational machinery of the State is everywhere in perfect working order, but that the foundations of the system are laid deep and secure; and if any child of Missouri grows up in absolute ignorance, it will be because it refused the light that is offered almost "without money and without price."

The following items will serve to indicate the present working of the common school system in Missouri: Number of children in State between five and twenty-one years, 584,026 for the year 1869; number of children in public schools, 249,729. It would be safe to estimate that 150,000 students were in the numerous colleges, seminaries, private and parochial schools, during the same year. Number of teachers in public schools, 7,145; number of public schools in the State, 5,307; number of public school-houses, 5,412; value of public school-houses, $3,087,062.

The richly-endowed Industrial College, incorporated with the State University, at Columbia, offers not only an academic but an agricultural education to all who desire to become scientific as well as practical farmers. Other incorporated and leading institutions of learning in Missouri are: North Missouri Normal School, at Kirksville; William Jewett College, at Liberty; Grand River College, at Edinburgh; Plattsburg College, at Plattsburg; McGee College, at College Mound; Christian University, at Canton; Washington University and St. Louis University, both at St. Louis; St. Paul's College, at Palmyra; and Bethel College, at Palmyra.

MANUFACTURES.

No great community, living in a fertile and productive country, can be long or largely prosperous unless it shows a certain amount of independence, or rather an ability and disposition to supply most of its ordinary wants. A simple monopoly is always an evil, tending to enrich a few and impoverish the multitude. Before the war, the Southern States made cotton and sugar, and looked to the North almost entirely for breadstuffs. Since the war they have learned to produce a large portion of their food supplies, and, as a result, will soon be more prosperous than ever before.

Missouri has a food-producing capacity sufficient to sustain thirty or forty millions of people. But it is by no means her policy to devote all her energies to raising corn, wheat, and pork, trusting entirely to other States and foreign countries for the ten thousand articles and implements demanded by the present civilization and the various industries connected with it.

Missouri has illimitable quantities of the raw material, and wonderful facilities for generating the necessary power to transform that raw material into the thousand forms suited to the wants of civilized men. Until lately we have done but little in the way of manufactures beyond making wheat into flour, corn into whisky, hemp into bagging and rope, tobacco into shapes to suit smokers and chewers, and iron into stoves and heavy castings. But a new era

has dawned upon the State. We have discovered that we can make a thousand articles of primary and pressing need just as well as they can be made in New or Old England. In the single article of iron, the capital invested in its manufacture has quadrupled within the last four or five years. Capitalists from abroad, who have studied our resources and facilities for manufacturing iron, have become satisfied that Missouri must soon become one of the largest ironproducing States in the world; and they are adding millions to the working capital employed in this branch of industry.

The time is approaching when we shall not have to import our railroad iron from Europe, much of our pottery and queensware from other States, our glass and hardware from the good city of Pittsburg, and many of our woolen and cotton goods from New England. When that time comes, Missouri will have achieved her great destiny as the Empire State of the Mississippi Valley.

CREDIT OF MISSOURI.

A country possessing such vast stores of material wealth as Missouri, although much of it is still undeveloped, should have proper credit and consideration in all bureaus of finance throughout the world. A State that could De sold under the hammer to-day for more than a thousand millions of dollars should have her bonds as good as gold. They are nearly so, in spite of the heavy railroad debt incurred before the war. This debt is being rapidly canceled, and very soon Missouri 6's will stand at par or a premium. It may not be improper to add in this connection, that the assessed value of the taxable property in Missouri in 1868, with such addition as the assessors themselves allow to be correct in estimating the real cash value of property, amounted to $1,177,000,000, and this vast amount will be increased to at least $1,250,000,000 the present year.

STOCK-RAISING.

Perhaps there is no one of the great Western States of the American Union better adapted to stock-raising than Missouri. Abundant crops of grain and corn are almost as certain as the return of the seasons. The climate in most parts of the State is mild enough to preclude the necessity of much shelter or long feeding in winter. Small streams, with their meandering branches and bubbling fountains, lie like a net-work all over the State; and some of these streams are so impregnated with salt as to supply stock with all they need of this article.

The following exhibits the number and value of horses, mules, cattle, sheep, and hogs, in 1868:

VALUE OF LAND IN MISSOURI.

It is doubtful whether any other State in the Mississippi Valley can furnish good land at so moderate a price as Missouri. On the south side of the Missouri river there are more than a million of acres (much of it good land) still to be given away as homesteads. In the same portion of the State there are millions of acres, mostly lying south of the Osage river, that can be bought for from fifty cents to five dollars an acre. Much of this land is equal to any in the whole country for vineyards, fruit, and sheep farms. In the extreme southeastern quarter of the State there is an immense body of the richest land in the world, which can be restored to use by drainage, and that, too, at a moderate cost, compared with the value of the land to be redeemed. Not only can a large portion of the land in the south half of Missouri be obtained very cheaply, but even the finely cultivated farms along the vailey of the Missouri and all over the rich prairies of the western, central, and northern portions of the State, can be purchased lower than the same kind of land and improvements in Illinois. No country in the wide West offers stronger inducements to the enterprising and industrious immigrant than Missouri. If he is a farmer, our fruitful soil awaits the hand of the cultivator, to whom it will return “thirty, fifty, or an hundred fold." If he is a miner or mechanic, his hands shall find plenty of work, with liberal pay.

MINERAL RESOURCES OF MISSOURI.

BY PROF. G. C. SWALLOW,

FORMER STATE GEOLOGIST.

L. U. REAVIS, Esq. :

COLUMBIA Mo., September 20, 1870.

My Dear Sir: Your note requesting me to make out a chapter on the Mineral Resources of Missouri for the new edition of your work, was duly received. I have attempted to comply with your request; but numerous previous engagements have rendered it impossible for me to make it as perfect and complete as I would wish.

Permit me to suggest that your article on this subject, in the first edition, is too valuable to be omitted in the future editions. Our minerals and our soils are the foundations of the argument, and upon these you can scarcely say too much.

I heartily wish you entire success in your great work, hoping ere long to congratulate you in the Mound City, when it shall have become the Business Metropolis and the Political Capital of the nation.

Very truly, your obedient servant,

G. C. SWALLOW.

There is no territory of equal extent on the continent which contains so many and such large quantities of the most useful minerals as the State of Missouri. In making this remark there is no desire to underrate the mineral resources of other States or of the adjacent Territories, but to announce the fact that some good fortune has set the boundaries of this State around a portion of country filled with an unusual amount of the mineral substances useful in the arts and manufactures, and that several of those most useful are found in such quantities that the supply is virtually inexhaustible. There are some that no demand for home consumption or for foreign supplies can exhaust within the time allotted for the rise, progress, and decay of nations.

Only small portions of the precious metals have been discovered in Missouri; nor is it desirable there should be. It is true that deposits of silver and gold concentrate populations very rapidly and yield many large fortunes; but history does not show that countries producing silver and gold have been permanently prosperous. Gold built up California very rapidly, and it is now filled with a great and prosperous people; but gold does not keep them there, nor does it induce the present immigration. The beautiful climate and wonderful agricultural rosources are its present attractions.

Mexico and Peru have large and numerous deposits of precious metals; but they have never secured permanent prosperity, though peopled by what were the best races of Europe.

Spain has had vast quantities of gold and silver, both at home and in her foreign possessions, from the earliest antiquity; but the most prosperous nations of ancient and modern times have imported nearly all the gold and silver they have used. Gold mining has yielded many colossal fortunes, as to Croesus in ancient times, and to many familiar names of later date; still the great mass of those engaged in gold mining have lived poor and died poor. These results might be expected from the very nature of the business. Ninetenths of all the labor spent in the search for and in mining gold meets with no reward, while some of it has been rewarded with signal success. All who engage in this business, therefore, have high expectations, and many spend their gains lavishly, live fast, and, if not successful, often become dissipated and worthless. Almost all other pursuits yield a reward which may be calculated with some degree of certainty, which gives stability and permanence and leads to regular habits and progress. Those results become very marked in national character when examined in the light of history. Great Britain and Spain give a striking illustration. Scarcely three centuries have elapsed since the united crowns of Castile and Aragon ruled a more prosperous people than the thrones of Albion and Scotia. Spain extended her rule over the fairest portions of the New World and held the commerce of both hemispheres. Galleon after galleon, deeply laden with the precious metals from the mines of Mexico and Peru, filled the treasury of the government and the pockets of her people. England, on the other hand, was opening her mines of iron and coal and pushing her manufactories by all the appliances of science and art.

Spain has squandered her gold and become a mere pensioner on Cuba. But England now holds the commerce of both Indies, and the world pays a golden tribute to her iron and coal.

If Missouri will work up her iron and coal she may become as powerful and rich as England. She has more territory and better soil, more and better fron and quite as much coal.

People who work iron partake of its strong and hardy nature. They move the world and shape its destinies. The region tributary to St. Louis has far more of the very best varieties of iron ore than can be found available for any other locality in the known world; and the facilities for working these vast deposits are unsurpassed. The country is well watered; timber is abundant; and all is surrounded by inexhaustible coal beds. These facts alone will make St. Louis the great iron mart of the country.

SPECULAR OXIDE OF IRON.

This is one of the most abundant and valuable ores in the State. Iron Mountain is the largest mass observed. It is two hundred feet high and covers an area of five hundred acres, and is made up almost entirely of this ore in its purest form. The quantity above the surface of the valley is estimated at