MANUFACTURES OF SWITZERLAND. The manufactories of Switzerland employ 250,000 people, in 1,600 factories, and very numerous workshops. They are classed as follows: These three trades employ together 160,000 work-people, or about two-thirds of the whole number of operatives. The cotton and silk industries are mostly in the German cantons of Basle, Zurich, and St. Gall; while the watch making is in the French cantons of Geneva and Neufchatel. The other industries are as follows: COTTON FACTORIES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. The following is a comparative statement showing the number of cotton factories in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the number of spindles and power looms, and the persons of each sex employed therein, in 1850 and 1856 : STATEMENT SHOWING THE QUANTITIES AND VALUES OF THE PRINCIPAL MINERALS AND METALS produced in the united kingdom in the YEARS 1854, 1855, AND 1856. ... 3,069,838 3,218,154 8,586,377 64,005 65,529 Coal....tons 64,661,401 61,453,079 66,445,450 $80,826,750 $80,566,335 $83,319,810 61,396,625 73,129 7,488,585 6,177 8,450,000 64,363,080 71,727,540 7,584,980 8,775,480 Silver .ozs. 558,659 561,906 614,180 703,320 767,350 Total value of mineral and metalic products.. 166,302,155 171,331,160 188,615,440 702,880 BAY STATE MILLS. The operations of the Bay State Mills, Massachusetts, for the year to October, 1858, are given as follows by the agent at Lawrence, S. V. Fox, Esq. :— Amount of goods manufactured by his estimate during that time at within the prices at which they have been sold, first deducting from the amount interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum, or 4 per cent for 8 months... Amount of rents received... Total.... $432,944 85 1,596 31 $434,541 16 DEDUCT. Leaving an actual profit for the year of $68,611 87 upon an amount of production (in working up materials on hand,) equal to less than one fifth of our capacity. MANUFACTURES IN DUBLIN. Among the many articles which Dublin manufactures as well as any other city in the world, tabarets hold a foremost place. Tabinets are made to clothe the ladies; tabarets to cover the furniture on which they sit down. There is only the difference of two letters in the words, but the articles themselves exhibit s material difference. Curtains made of tabaret drape the magnificent saloon termed St. Patrick's Hall, in Dublin Castle, and the sofas, lounges, and chairs are covered with tabaret. Tabaret is not merely splendid in appearance; it wears well-nothing wears better. In 1841 the furniture in the drawing-rooms in the vice regal lodge were covered with tabaret. "It was not," says my informant, a bit the worse on last Saturday." Yet, as the Queen received visitors on two occasions in the drawing-rooms, the tabaret coverings must have got some rough usage. The quantity manufactured in 1841, to cover the vice regal furniture, was 800 yards. If Americans would give it a trial, it might be supplied, as I understand, in any quantity, and certainly a few American orders would give great life to Dublin. You must not suppose that the present prosperity of the tabinet manufacture (for it is at present prosperous) is at all owing to vice regal patronage. The lady lieutenant, in the course of twelve months, may spend £150 in tabinets, but this is said to be the only benefit which the lord-lieutenancy confers on the trade. COTTON CONSUMPTION OF EUROPE. The increase of the use of cotton for human clothing is observable in the following table of the average quantity taken by each country of Europe per week for several years : AVERAGE WEEKLY CONSUMPTION OF COTTON IN EUROPE. On the continent 18,152 18,939 25,437 23,093 22,440 23,535 29,055 24,465 27,368 Great Britain.. 29,125 31,988 35,790 36,613 87,829 40,403 41,985 39,065 41,333 Total ....... 47,277 50,927 61,227 59,706 60,269 63,938 71,042 63,530 69,188 The rise was rapid on the continent, as well as in England, in 1850, 1851, and 1852, under the stimulus of gold and fine crops. The rise was 30 per cent in those years, nearly equal to 730,000 bales per annum. This figure underwent a slight reaction on the continent, under the rise in food in the following year, and in France during the Russian war, accompanied as it was by dear food, but the quantity taken again increased, and reached a high figure in 1856, when the aggregate quantity taken was 71,042 bales per week, or, in round numbers, 3,700,000 bales per annum, being 10.000 bales, or 17 per cent, per week more than the maximum of 1852. At that rate the demand for cotton doubles every six years, but that was an exceptional year. The panic of 1857 carried the figures back to those of 1855. From 1852 to 1857 the circumstances of dear food and war expenditure seemed to interfere with the use of cotton. Those circumstances are now removed, and the quantity of cotton taken by England in 1858 was nearly as large as that taken by her in 1856. Should peace now be preserved on the continent, the use of cotton will be carried more rapidly to high figures than ever before, particularly in Germany and Holland. Of the quantity taken by Great Britain a large portion returns to the countries whence it came. India, in her best days, never sells so much cotton as she buys, and will never be able to make her production of the raw material keep pace with her demand for goods, and the same fact is true of all producing countries except the United States, whence alone the countries of Europe can draw a supply to meet their growing wants. THE BLEACHING OF WAX. There are two kinds of wax found in commerce, yellow or unbleached, and white, or purified and bleached. The bleaching of wax is effected by exposing it in thin lamina to the action of the light and air, by which it becomes perfectly white, scentless, harder, and less greasy to the touch. To accomplish this, it is first broken into small pieces, and melted in a copper cauldron, with water just sufficient to prevent the wax from burning. The cauldron has a pipe at the bottom, through which the wax, when melted, is run off into a large tub filled with water, and covered with a thick cloth, to preserve the heat till the impurities are settled. From this tub the clear, melted wax flows into a vessel having the bottom full of small holes, through which it runs in streams upon a cylinder, kept constantly revolving over water, into which it occasionally dips; by this the wax is cooled, and at the same time drawn out into thin sheets, shreds, or ribands by the continual rotation of the cylinder, which distributes . them through the tub. The wax, thus granulated or flatted, is exposed to the air on linen cloths, stretched on large frames, about a foot or two above the ground, in which situation it remains for several days and nights, exposed to the air and sun, being occasionally watered and turned; by this process the yellow color nearly disappears. In this half-bleached state, it is heaped up in a solid mass and remains for a month or six weeks; after which it is re-melted, ribanded, and bleached as before—in some cases several times-till it wholly loses its color and smell. It is then again melted for the last time, and cast with a ladle upon a table covered over with little round cavities, into the form of discs or cakes of about five inches diameter. The moulds are first wetted with cold water, that the wax may be the more easily got out, and the cakes are laid out in the air for two days and two nights to render them more transparent and dry. MANUFACTURE OF COMBS. It is said that the greatest comb manufactory in the world is in Aberdeen, Scotland. There are thirty-six furnaces for preparing horns and tortoise shell for the combs, and no less than one hundred and twenty iron screw presses are continually going in stamping them. Steam power is employed to cut the combs. The coarse combs are stamped or cut out-two being cut in one piece at a time. The fine dressing combs are cut by fine circular saws, some so fine as to cut forty teeth in the space of one inch, and they revolve five thousand times in the space of one minute. There are some 2,000 varieties of combs made, and the aggregate number produced, of all these different kinds, is about 9,000,000 annually-a quantity that, if laid together lengthwise, would extend about seven hundred miles. The annual consumption of ox horns is about 730,000, and the annual consumption of hoofs amounts to 4,000,000; the consumption of tortoise shell and buffalo horn, although not so large, is correspondingly valuable. A hoof undergoes eleven distinct operations before it becomes a finished comb. MINES OF MEXICO. The total amount of the gold and silver coinage in 1855, is stated thus: If we add to this sum six or six-and-a-half millions of dollars, which, accordto the best authority, is annually assayed, and which is exported in bars by the coast of the Pacific-either with the knowledge of the government, or fraudulently -it will appear that the produce of the gold and silver mines in Mexico amount to $24,000,000 annually. STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE, &c. BUTTER? According to common acceptation, butter is the oily part of cream, and the best is that obtained from sweet cream. Among the ancient Romans, butter was only used as a medicine, never as food, while the ancient Egyptians prepared it for burning in their lamps; and in the first ages of Christianity, butter was the "lamp oil" of common use. Etymologically, "butter" is derived from two Greek words, signifying ox and anything coagulated. The ancient chemists gave the name butter to many metallic substances, particularly the chlorides; and the same term is also applied to several vegetable substances. The butter of Bansbeck is obtained from a species of almond, which grows in the vicinity of Senegal, and is deemed useful in neuralgia and rheumatism. The butter of Cacao is an agreeable fatty substance obtained from the Theobroma, or chocolate nut. The butter of Cocoa is a concrete substance which separates from the milk of the cocoa nut; it is sweet and agreeable. In some parts of Africa a vegetable butter is made from the fruit of the Shea tree, which is said to be of very rich taste, much resembling the finest quality made from sweet cream. The butter of milk, or to speak more correctly, of cream, consists of oleine, stearine, and lutyrine, these principles have such an affinity for each other as to be separated and coagulated into a new compound by the process of churning. Fresh butter, if well and quickly washed on congealing, contains about ten per cent of water, and may be preserved and flavored by from one-half to one-anda-half per cent of salt; and when butter is found to contain more water or more salt than these rates, it is badly made or adulterated. The sooner butter is salted, after churning and washing, the better it will keep, and for this purpose rock-salt should always be used, as sea or spring salt contains sulphate of magnesia, (or epsom salts,) which imparts a bitter taste, and chloride of lime, which has too strong an affinity for moisture. Dishonest butter-makers are in the habit of working butter for a long time in an excess of water, and many are the "artists" in this trade who profess to improve their country receipts by additional working, washing, and salting. When butter is worked for a considerable length of time in an excess of water, it may be made to incorporate nearly one-third additional weight, and when salt is added during this process it may be dissolved to the amount of ten per cent, so that the "well-worked" butter of the city factor is more than one-third water and salt! But although so rich in salt, such butter will not "keep" long. Yet buyers who are "not up to the trade" are often surprised at the high price at which it is held, even during hot weather, when it rapidly grows worse. When thus situated, however, large quantities are often mysteriously disposed of at this season of the year to give room to the bright new kegs of "Orange County," even weeks before this prolific region has made its first shipment to well accredited buyers; and many are the large butter houses in New York which daily ship tons of " Orange County" butter to distant regions, whilst never a keg of the genuine article has passed their portals. |