APPEXDIX. 369 



are dug up, but depends upon the seaboard market, and embraces 

 all countries. The silver of Mexico and Peru circulates throuo-h- 

 out Europe, and is carried to China. It is no objection to those 

 mines that they are situated in the Cordilleras, or upon the high 

 table-lands of the American continent, and must be carried a 

 thousand miles upon the backs of mules to the seaside. The 

 very discovery of those mines has rendered many poor silver 

 mines of Europe of no value, although possibly situated in the 

 environs of the best silver markets in the world. It is the fer- 

 tility, and not the situation of such mines, that constitutes their 

 chief value; and it is so with many of the coarser metals. 



The tin of the Island of Banka, and the Peninsula of Siam in 

 Asia, and the copper of Japan, find their way to Europe, and are 

 articles of commerce in the United States. The cobalt of Saxony 

 is sent to Pekin, and the platina of Choco, to all parts of the 

 world. In all these instances, the fertility of the mines compen- 

 sates for every disadvantage of situation. But this principle is 

 not alone confined to mines of tin, copper, &c.; it even holds true 

 of the heavy and bulky articles of iron, lead, and salt. The lead 

 of Missouri finds a market at New York, Philadelphia, and Bos- y 

 ton, and will be carried to Europe. It is no objection that it 

 must be conveyed in wagons forty miles from the interior, and 

 sent a voyage of 3,000 miles in steamboats and merchant ships. 

 The great fertility of the mines counterbalances the disadvantages 

 of its remote position from the market, and it is the price of the 

 metal in the market which always regulates its price at the mines. 

 The malleable iron of Sweden is consumed on the summits of the 

 Alleghany, although its strata are replete with iron ore, which is 

 worked at numerous forges along the rivers which proceed from 

 each side of it. It is believed that the salt springs of Onondaga, 

 from their copiousness alone, would supply a vast portion of the 

 interior and seaboard of the United States with salt, even if the 

 facilities of water carriage had not been presented by the Erie 

 Canal. The value of such mines and minerals ever depends as 

 much upon the abundance as upon the favorable position of them. 

 It is far otherwise with quarries of stone, gypsum, marl, fossil 

 coal, &c., whose contiguity to a good market establishes their 

 value. No abundance of these articles would justify a land car- 

 riage of one hundred miles. They constitute a species of mining, 

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