and supported by our young men, must be highly gratifying to the patriot and philanthropist, affording evidence, as it does, that the vain and frivolous pleasures of youth are giving place to higher and more rational enjoyments.

The following are the names of the officers of the Institute: Henry Barnard, President; George G. Spencer and Wm. M. Durand, Vice Presidents; Wm. N. Matson and G. F. Davis, Secretaries; Erastus Collins, Treasurer; J. S. Morgan, J. D. Willard, E. W. Coleman, A. Storrs, and Alfred Gill, Directors.

BOOK-KEEPING.

The Science of Double Entry Book-keeping simplified, arranged, and methodized, explained by definite rules, and illustrated by entries classed in a manner entirely different from any work ever before offered to the public; also, containing a Key, explaining the manner of journalizing, and the nature of the business transaction of each of the Daybook entries, together with Practical Forms for keeping books, as circumstances may direct, in different commercial houses; Public Lectures, &c., &c. By J. C. COLT, Accountant. Fourth Edition. New York: William Jackson, and Robinson & Franklin.

In a commercial community like ours, the scientific mode of keeping accounts is a study of surpassing interest. For many years it has attracted attention commensurate with its importance. At the present moment, when our mercantile concernments are so widely extended, and when consequently the qualifications for success must so far exceed those formerly demanded, the mysteries of Book-keeping have excited such increased notice, that the press swarms with commentators. Nearly all these profess to have discovered some royal road to the science, which makes the last adventurer always represent himself as a little better than any who has gone before him.

The work now upon our table puts forth no pretensions of this nature. It parades no new and talismanic plan, which is to cast all others into oblivion, and create accountants by a charm. The author supposes that the primary principles of the science have been long thoroughly established. He confines himself, therefore, to making these understood. But he has observed that in practice these principles assume very different forms, sometimes varying to a degree which would lead a superficial observer to deny them a common parentage. Mr. Colt shows that the genus is the same, although the species differ. Here is his originality; and the scheme he has hit upon is not only intelligent, but philosophical.

Far different is the course usually pursued. All previous authors on the subject at least all those with whose works we are familiar—suppose the book-keeper at his counting-house desk, noting each entry as it might occur by chance in business, when at one moment a chest of tea is sold, at another a ship to be freighted for the Indies; when, next, goods are received on commission, afterwards a consignment is made to Europe, and then a speculation is adventured on in the stocks. Now, all these are good business-like entries, no doubt; but each belong to different, very different classes. To fling them together in this heterogene manner, only confuses the uninstructed, who requires in the outset to be impressed with that well weighed order, that spirit of classification, which has earned for Book-keeping its title of a science.

How does Mr. Colt get over this? We will try to show.

He considers, as we have before stated, that the fundamental principles of Book-keeping are immutable, but that in practice they express themselves in five different forms. He first explains the unalterable basis of the science; he then carries the learner through each of the five varieties it assumes in practice. In his illustrations he exhibits every possible shape of entry, and with such clearness and simplicity as to render all of them perfectly comprehensible even to a child.

The five different forms of which we have spoken, are classed as follows:

The first class illustrates a regular running merchandise account, or such entries as arise in a store where goods are regularly bought and sold.

The second confines itself to those entries and accounts proceeding from the purchase and sale of stocks, real estate, and general agencies for such purposes.

The third illustrates such entries and accounts as are common to a house receiving goods to sell on commission, or doing a commission business.

The fourth exhibits those entries and accounts which arise from consigning goods to be sold on commission, singly and in partnership.

The fifth is limited to single and joint speculations.

When we stated that the illustrations of these five classes include every description of entry which can arise in business, we should have added, that in addition to such as are appropriate to each respective class, some may occasionally occur which cannot dis

tinctly be assigned to either. For this case Mr. Colt has provided. He very adroitly scatters these anomalous entries among the main divisions, in such a manner as to make them explain themselves without disturbing the order of the rest.

There needs no argument to prove that by this novel mode of classification, a more thorough knowledge of the science can be communicated, than by the old and jumbled system which has so long prevailed amongst us, and which is still supported in the more recent works of various authors. The plan of Mr. Colt displays a sound good sense, in addition to its novelty, which must recommend it, not only to such as are studying the science for their own use, but to those who are engaged in teaching it to others. The predecessors of Mr. Colt have gone no farther than the development of the fundamental principles of Book-keeping. Mr. Colt, alone, does not stop here. Besides giving the various forms in practice, and rivetting in the learner's mind those principles of the science which are found so invaluable in later life, Mr. Colt imagines his pupil in actual business on his own account, and supplies him with so great a variety of models for keeping his books on the principles of double entry, that the young merchant cannot be unprepared for any situation which may chance thereafter to arise.

These practical models for keeping books indicate in Mr. Colt a much more comprehensive view of the subject than has ever been taken before. They supply a desideratum, the lack of which has disenabled students from satisfying their employers, and given them very harsh thoughts of those instructors who have sent them into the counting-house, with the assurance that they were fully qualified to perform all its duties. Whoever will examine Mr. Colt's production, may discern at once why he has succeeded in overcoming this disadvantage. It is, simply, because he has not, like others, failed to discriminate between the method of expounding the principles of the science, and the form or forms for keeping books in practice. We should suppose that these practical models for keeping books, which have never been given by any writer, before Mr. Colt, would to young accountants be invaluable.

Of the day-book entries and miscellaneous forms, accounts current, for example, and the like, we forbear to give any description, because all such works contain something of the sort. Nevertheless, even in these Mr. Colt has evinced no common skill and judgment, by exhibiting them in shapes as nearly original as possible, and always so as to impress them, and make them instructive. And there are other recommendations, not usually found in works of this nature, to which attention ought to be pointed: among these, we would particularize certain directions to the learner, a vocabulary of mercantile terms and phrases, and a key explaining the nature of the most difficult transactions, and the manner of journalizing each of the day-book entries.

In the close of Mr. Colt's work, it appears, that the importance of acquiring a knowledge of the science which it unfolds, has been urged by the author in several public addresses, which are to be found in the appendix. As nothing of the kind has been before published, their novelty will at least excite curiosity. They will gratify, without doubt, those for whom they were intended, and stimulate young men to a laudable ambition for a general knowledge of commerce. This article has already extended too far to allow of our offering any extracts, as was at first our purpose; hence, we must be satisfied with remarking, that they are expressed with great earnestness, and show a high sense of the dignity of the study for which their author has given such an able manual. P.

A PICTORIAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE WORLD,

Edited by S. G. Goodrich.

The editor of this extensive publication, has a name particularly associated with juvenile literature, but it is well known that he is able to cope successfully with subjects which demand the exercise of masculine intellect. The present work, of which one or two numbers have been issued, is demonstrative of this. We have seldom seen a publication which seemed more fully to accomplish its design, than this- so far as we have examined it. Its particular object is to popularise geography; to give a present view of the world, physical, political, commercial, and moral-setting forth the various topics in the most entertaining, useful, and practical manner.

The whole work will contain 1100 large royal 8vo. pages, and will be enriched by 1000 illustrative engravings. Its utility as a family book as a magazine of geographical knowledge for school, and other libraries, is too obvious to need our notice; but it is particularly entitled to our attention as a storehouse of valuable and accurate commercial intelligence. Geography is one of the first studies that should engage the attention of merchants; and we have seen no work comparable to this, in convenience and utility, to our own citizens. The United States are fully treated in the work; and

we perceive much valuable information in respect to the western states and territories, Texas, etc., which we have not noticed elsewhere. Some interesting statistical tables we shall take the liberty to transfer to future numbers of our magazine.

We cannot do a better service to our commercial friends, than to commend this work to their attention. It will prove a most useful counting-house companion, and especially claims the notice of young men who are fitting themselves for mercantile pursuits. No man understands the art of making the acquisition of knowledge agreeable and effectual better than Mr. Goodrich, and he seems to have employed his skill to good advantage in the present instance. He has, of course, had large assistance in the preparation of this work, and we are not assured that he is the writer of the sketches of manners and customs dispersed through the volume. It will strike the reader, however, that they are written with great raciness and just discrimination, quite unlike the prosy delineations of the Morses and Pinkertons of other days.

IMPORTATION OF WHEAT.

It is stated in the Baltimore Chronicle, that the quantity of wheat which was imported into the United States, in 1837, exceeded by far all the importation of that grain since the settlement of the country. The following tabular statement shows the great disproportion between the receipts of wheat in several years.

Quantity of Wheat imported into the United States, during the several years ending on the 30th September.

Year.

1831

1832

1833

Year.

1831

1832

1833

Year.

1831.

1832.

1833.

The exportation of Wheat for the same years was as follows:

Bushels. .3,921,259

844,536

The exportation of Wheat Flour in the same year was as follows:

Bushels.

. 17,303 6,291

Bushels.

318,719 448,161

It is stated in the Miners' Journal, that the product of gold in forty years (from 1790 to 1830) from the mines of Mexico, Chili, Buenos Ayres, and Russia, was 17,003,579 pounds sterling, and the product of silver from the same mines, in the same period, amounted to 170,326,620 pounds sterling. The annual coinage of gold and silver in the mints of Mexico, including Guanaxuato, Zacatecas, Guadalaxara, Durango, San Luis, and Ilapan, is about eleven million of dollars, and the annual coinage of the mints of Lima and Cuzco, about two million of dollars. The entire exportation of dollars from Chili in three years was only three million, and the different smelting works of Peru do not annually turn out more than two million and a half of dollars in bars of silver. The product of the mines is diminishing every year, and will continue to diminish, not only on account of the exhaustion of the metal, and the increased difficulty of working the mines, but from the disturbed state of the countries in which they are situated.

COMMERCE OF NEW ORLEANS.

The commercial year of New Orleans terminates on the 30th of September, and the operations during the year just closed, are thus stated in Levy's Commercial Intelligencer: It appears that 1825 vessels from sea, and 1573 steamboats, have arrived in the port of New Orleans, besides flat-boats, barges, and pirogues, so numerous, that no one has ventured to keep an account of them. In the river craft, have been brought thi ther, 593,000 bales of cotton, 70,000 hogsheads of sugar, 25,000 hogsheads of molasses, 39,630 hogsheads of tobacco, 436,237 barrels of flour, 218,673 kegs of lard, 205,007 pigs lead, 166,113 barrels of pork, and 7,192,156 pounds of pork in bulk, 1,700,000 staves, 20,000 hogsheads bacon, besides 1,501,900 pounds bacon in bulk, 30,000 barrels whiskey, 49,539 pieces Kentucky bagging, 63,107 coils bale rope, and a great variety of articles of minor importance.

HUNT'S

MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE.

No. VI.

DECEMBER, 1839.

ART. I. THE PROGRESS AND INFLUENCE OF COMMERCE IN EUROPE.

ence upon

THE mighty aid which commerce has afforded in civilizing, enlightening, and refining mankind, affords a lesson fraught with the deepest interest, and the most profound and highly elevated instruction. It has been a powerful engine, in sweeping away the rude and barbarous usages which prevailed in Europe during the middle ages, and has exercised a tremendous influthe civil, political, and moral condition of the whole world. View it on every side-in every age-and in whatever aspect, religious, political, or moral; trace its path in dark and heathenish nations, and in the bright and glorious sovereignties of the enlightened world, and we see the character of man softened by its presence, and his social condition improved by its influences. It is the aid of religion clad in a different garb, but contributing powerfully to its assistance-springing from the wants of mankindmoving in a worldly sphere, but scattering the gifts of heaven in its path; and so intimately are religion, commerce, literature, and the science of rational government, connected, that in order to appreciate the one, we must become acquainted with all; and when we have candidly and deliberately surveyed the progress of each, and its influence and bearing in ameliorating the moral, political, and social condition of our race, we must acknowledge, that commerce has opened the way and smoothed the path for all. There is, perhaps, no nation on the globe, which is so much indebted to commerce for its strength, the permanence of its institutions, the durability and beauty of its political fabric, the power almost infinite of its naval force, and the brilliancy of its intellectual character, as England. Every thing which constitutes England mistress of the seas, nearly every attribute which composes her constitutional strength, and gives her influence and power among the nations of the earth, spring from and were created out of the commerce which in the infancy of her power she fostered.

The ancient inhabitants of England, were a rude, uncultivated race of men. They were without ships of any kind, destitute of nautical skill, and almost entirely ignorant of the nations inhabiting the continent of Europe. They held no intercourse with foreign powers, and possessed none of the

refinements belonging to civilized life; and while Rome glittered in the riches of foreign climes, and was clothed in a grandeur emanating from her adventurous power; while Venice sparkled in the gems with which commerce had encircled her, and shone forth in intellectual beauty-England slumbered in superstition and dark ignorance, destitute of every thing which constitutes her present greatness. But a new sun dawned upon herthe sun of conquest. The Saxons, a fierce, warlike race of men, who inhabited the northern coast of Germany, being called upon by the Ancient Britons to assist them in repelling the Picts and Scots, who had poured themselves down in warlike fierceness from their northern hills, took advantage of the defenceless state of the Britons, and seized England in their powerful grasp, and after one hundred and fifty years of fierce and cruel contention, the Saxons succeeded in exterminating the ancient possessors of Britain, and establishing themselves undisputed masters of the soil. For some time after this event, the Saxons discontinued all connexion and intercourse with the continent. They were governed by a number of petty princes, who were independent of each other, and who would not act in concert in carrying forward any great national scheme for their mutual advancement. But when the Christian religion began to pervade the states of Europe, and by its influence to soften the fierce and warlike spirit of the inhabitants, a communication was opened by one or two of the Saxon princes with the continent, and the vast advantages to be derived from commercial intercourse became apparent; and one of the princes of the Saxon Heptarchy carried this new policy of foreign commerce into execution, by concluding a treaty with Charlemagne, who by encouraging commerce, and creating a navy, had raised France to a pitch of power and naval greatness, which was unrivalled by any nation of Western Europe; and when the Heptarchy, under King Egbert, was consolidated into the Kingdom of England, that prince at once perceived, that owing to the close proximity of his country to the powerful sovereignties of Europe, the future greatness of his people must depend upon a rich commerce and a mighty naval force. The spirit of trade with the countries of Europe was encouraged, and with it nautical skill was increased and fostered; as the intercourse of England with the Continent increased, the advancement of religion and learning became perceptible; and the elegant, profound, and varied literature of the ancients, was rescued from the dust of the cloister, to enlighten nations shrouded in dark ignorance and fearful error. The arts and sciences began slowly to emerge from under the weight of monastic influence, and moved slowly onward through the intellectual darkness which prevailed: nations became less strange to each other, treaties were formed, commercial privileges were claimed and granted, international rights were recognised, lines of territory were drawn and settled, and even the mighty ocean was parcelled out.

When the illustrious Alfred ascended the throne of England, he took a more intelligent, comprehensive, and statesmanlike view of the relative situation of his country, than any of his predecessors; and his vast mind fully appreciated the immense advantages of power, and wealth, and national greatness, which must result from the maritime riches and naval strength of England; and looking to the intellectual, as well as physical grandeur of his nation, he was deeply impressed with the conviction that the acquisition of literature and learning, by commerce with foreign countries, would, in a national point of view, almost equal every other advantage to be derived from it. Guided by these great and philanthropic principles, Alfred brought