NOTE 1--page 26.
_Use of Iron._
One must go to England to appreciate the value of iron, the scarcity
of wood having obliged the English to apply it to a great number of
purposes to which no one on the continent would dream of its being
applicable. At every step and under all forms, you meet with cast-iron,
bar-iron, sheet-iron, and steel; machines, piles, columns of all
dimensions from two inches to four feet in diameter, water-pipes and
gas-pipes, posts, grates, bridges, roofs, floors, whole quays and
roads, of iron. But for it, those light and airy structures, so slender
in appearance, yet supporting such enormous weights, the huge six
story warehouses of St Catharine's docks for instance, would be heavy
and gloomy dungeons. The gas which comes from a distance of seven or
eight miles, is made and brought in by the aid of iron. Those bridges,
springing as it were across the water, those graceful and elegant
footways across the canals, as well as the fluted columns of Regent's
Street, are of iron, cast or wrought. The quantity of pig-iron annually
produced in Great Britain and Ireland, is about 800,000 tons; in France
it amounted in 1834 to 269,000 tons, beside 177,000 tons of bar iron.
The ordinary price of both kinds with us is about double the price in
England.
Until the present day, stone has been almost the only material
employed in durable works of architecture; but stone having much less
cohesive force than iron, is only suited to the Egyptian, Greek, and
Roman styles of architecture. The light and airy architecture of the
Middle Ages, requires a material possessing great strength in a small
compass, such as the metals; and some attempts have already been made
in France and Germany to apply cast-iron to the construction of
Gothic structures. Stone has already done all that it is capable of
doing, and we can have nothing new in architecture, except by means
of new materials. In my opinion, iron is to be the instrument of this
regeneration of the architectural art. The price of pig-iron is now so
low, that the cost of a building of this material, would not exceed
that of one constructed of hewn stone.
NOTE 2--page 26.
_Quantity of Coal mined in France, England, and Belgium._
Mr McCulloch, in his Dictionary of Commerce estimates the quantity of
coal annually mined in England to amount to 16,000,000 tons.[EG] The
extensive inquiries of M. Le Play, who has carefully examined all the
English coal-fields, have led him to estimate it much higher; it does
not, probably, fall short of 30,000,000 tons, of which 5,000,000 are
consumed in the iron manufacture. Mr McCulloch estimates the amount of
capital employed in the coal-trade at 10,000,000 pounds, and the number
of persons engaged in it at from 160,000 to 180,000. Other estimates
carry this last number to 206,000, of whom 121,000 work in the mines.
In France 2,500,000 tons of coal were raised in 1834, and about 18,000
persons were employed in the mines. France also imports coal from
Belgium and England. Next to England, Belgium furnishes the largest
quantity of coal; the three great coal-fields of Mons, Charleroi, and
Liege with some smaller basins, yielding about 3,200,000 tons annually.
NOTE 3--page 33.
_Value of Exports of Domestic Produce and Manufactures from England,
France, and United States, from 1820 to 1835._
-------+---------------------+-----------------+-------------------
Years. | France. | England. | United States.
-------+---------------------+-----------------+-------------------
1820 | francs. 543,100,000 | fr. 910,600,000 | fr. 275,400,000
1821 | 450,700,000 | 917,500,000 | 232,700,000
1822 | 427,600,000 | 925,000,000 | 265,800,000
1823 | 427,100,000 | 890,000,000 | 251,300,000
1824 | 505,800,000 | 960,000,000 | 269,900,000
1825 | 543,800,000 | 972,500,000 | 356,800,000
1826 | 461,000,000 | 787,500,000 | 282,700,000
1827 | 506,800,000 | 930,000,000 | 314,000,000
1828 | 511,200,000 | 920,000,000 | 270,000,000
1829 | 504,200,000 | 895,000,000 | 296,800,000
1830 | 452,900,000 | 955,000,000 | 316,900,000
1831 | 455,500,000 | 930,000,000 | 326,600,000
1832 | 507,400,000 | 921,000,000 | 336,500,000
1833 | 559,400,000 | 992,500,000 | 374,700,000
1834 | 509,300,000 | 1,041,000,000 | 432,100,000
1835 | 577,400,000 | 1,184,200,000 | 539,700,000
England exports hardly any but manufactured articles. The United
States export chiefly raw produce. Raw Cotton forms half of the value
of their exports, as manufactured cotton forms about half of those
of Great Britain. Agriculture furnishes three fourths or four fifths
of the exports of domestic articles from the United States, and
manufactures, only one tenth. Above two thirds of the exports of France
are manufactures, and nearly one third, agricultural produce.
NOTE 4--page 36.
_Shipping._
Statement of the tonnage belonging to the principal ports of France,
England and the United States in 1835.
_Ports._ _Tonnage._
London 566,152
New York 376,697
Boston 226,041
Newcastle 208,100
Liverpool 207,833
Sunderland 132,070
Philadelphia 86,445
New Orleans 79,467
New Bedford 76,533
Whitehaven 65,878
Hull 63,524
Bordeaux 69,690
Marseilles 68,314
Havre 68,070
Portland (U. S.) 57,666
Baltimore 54,416
Nantes 51,528
Bristol 42,913
To render the comparison exact, it would be necessary to deduct one
fourth from the French tonnage, in order to allow for the different
modes of measurement. The French method is mathematically more correct,
but it lays our vessels under the disadvantage of being obliged to pay
heavier tonnage dues; but a law of 1836 has authorised the government
to make a change in this respect.
Out of 1,824,000 tons of shipping entered and cleared at the French
ports in 1835, only 31 per cent. was French shipping; out of 5,025,000
tons entered and cleared at the British ports, 75 per cent. was of
English vessels. In the United States, from 1817 to 1830, foreign
shipping formed less than 15 per cent. of the vessels in the foreign
trade; in 1831, it was 26 per cent., and in 1832, 30 per cent., leaving
70 per cent. for the American shipping.
French navigation is in a deplorable state of feebleness, and the evil
increases daily. In 1832, the total amount of French shipping was
670,000 tons, of British 2,225,000, of American 1,440,000. In France
and England the amount varies little from year to year, but in the
United States it increases rapidly, and in 1837 it was 1,896,685.