on homeward-bound vessels. Their places are supplied by natives of these and other Pacific islands, who are preferred by many captains. They make good whalemen, and are generally content with smaller lays and advances. Comparing this season's average with those of former years, it will be seen that there is a large and steady falling off, amounting this season to nearly 200 barrels, a decrease which is too heavy and too important not to have a serious effect on the future prosecution of the whaling business in the North Pacific. An important question naturally arises here:-is this merely a temporary decrease, or is it likely to be permanent? Those who have the best opportunities for judging correctly think that it will be permanent-that the whales are annually decreasing in number and size, particularly on the Kodiack and Ochotsk grounds. If such be the case, there can be no reasonable hope held out that the large averages of 1851, '2, and '3 will occur very soon again, nor, indeed, that anything better than the averages of the past two years can be depended on in future. This decrease of oil and scarcity of whales is not, however, confined to the North Pacific. All the old resorts of whalemen-the New Zealand, the Off Shore, the Line, and other cruising grounds-are annually becoming less productive. Not half the sperm oil is taken now, per ship, that was taken twenty years ago. On the Kodiack the whales were remarkably scarce this season. Some fifty ships visited that ground in the spring, but not more than three or four thousand barrels of oil were taken there. From thence the ships cruise northward, in June and July, through Bristol Bay, where a few whales were seen and captured. Several vessels cruising off Cape Thaddeus in June fell in with whales bound North, and captured a number. It was here that the "Eliza Adams," "Mary and Susan," "Magnolia," " Hibernia," and several others obtained their good fares. These whales, it is thought, were bound North into the Arctic from the Ochotsk bays, where they are said to breed, and leave their calves when a few months old. The whalemen inform us that the whales captured in the Ochotsk this season were generally small, many of them being mere calves, affording but a few barrels of oil. If this is the case, and the young whales are being thus destroyed, the Ochotsk Sea will very soon be rendered valueless as a cruising ground. Some captains with whom we have conversed have advanced the theory that the numerous whales that abound in and beyond the impenetrable ice barriers of the Arctic, annually come South to the bays along the Asiatic and American shores, where they breed, and stay by their young till four or five months old, or till the ice begins to break up, when they migrate to the Arctic Seas again, leaving their young ones to care for themselves. The ice fields of the Polar Sea are always found to abound with whales, which seem to delight in being in the ice. This instinct does not appear to arise from any fear of man, but is a natural one. From vessels that have cruised in the Arctic, we learn that the weather has generally been better than in former seasons, but the whales very swift, and inclined to keep close to the ice. The great northern ice barrier is stated to have come much farther south this season, and appears to have changed the usual course of the currents of the Arctic. By some of the ships whales were observ ed in countless numbers, but generally in the ice or in very rough weather, when a boat could with difficulty be lowered. One fact appears settled, that whales in the Arctic are as numerous now as they ever were, but that, owing to the generally stormy weather there, and the fact that whales keep in the ice fields, it is the most uncertain whaling ground in the Pacific. LOSS OF OCEAN STEAMERS. Ocean steam navigation affords a pretty severe test of enterprise, when we consider the pecuniary hazards with which it has to contend, arising from the defective management, distribution of patronage, and perils of the sea. From its earliest history, disasters have been frequent, and seem to become more numerous in proportion as the number of steamships is increased. Going back to the memorable loss of the "President," in 1841, the principal disasters to British and American steamers, mostly running on trans-Atlantic routes, may be summed up as follows: Showing that a fleet of twenty fine steamers, many of them first-class, have been totally lost within the period named. The President, Pacific, City of Glasgow, and Tempest, were never heard from; the Arctic, San Francisco, and Central America, foundered; the Independence, Yankee Blade, and Northerner, were wrecked on the Pacific, and the Canadian, Humboldt, Franklin, Argo, and Hungarian, on the Atlantic coast; the Lyonnais was sunk by collision, and the Austria was burnt. Not enumerated in this list are two-thirds as many more, generally of a class much inferior, which were lost in the California trade. The casual reader may derive a more distinct impression in regard to the appalling loss of life here recorded, but there are many homes where no fresh recital is needed to recall the memory of the loved and lost. BRITISH TRADE RETURNS FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 1859. The declared value of the exports of produce of the United Kingdom was £130,440,427, or 13 per cent in excess of that of the preceding year. This is the largest total ever attained, the amount in 1857, the great year of inflation, having been only £122.066,107. In cotton manufactures alone the improvement on 1858 was £5,320,897, or 16 per cent, and in woolen, silk, and linen manufactures, as well as in the metal trade, the augmentation has been very large. "Haberdashery," which includes all kinds of ready-made clothing, exhibits an extraordinary increase, and the same is the case with regard to hardwares, which likewise depend in a great degree upon the activity of our colonies. There is scarcely a single item on the unfavorable side. Wool presents a falling off of £262,374, but this is simply from the fact that the demand for raw material on the part of our manufacturers has been such as to leave little for expor tation. A reduction observable in cotton and linen yarn also is evidence on the present occasion that the activity of foreign manufactures has not kept pace with that of our own. The subjoined table gives the exact increase or decrease Subjoined are the quantities of provision, &c., imported and taken for home The following are the comparative imports and exports of raw material :— 33,833 4,760,677 5,015,737 The annexed summary shows the manner in which the 47 articles that are henceforth to be retained in the British tariff may be classified, only 16 being for revenue, and 13 being terminable at specific dates: 1. Articles on which a duty is to be levied for revenue purposes :-Chicory, cocoa, and chocolate, coffee, corn and flour, currants, figs and fig cake, pepper, plums, prunes, raisins, spirits, sugar, tea, tobacco, wine, wood. 2. Articles on which a duty is to be levied to countervail a duty of inland revenue:- -Beer or ale, of all sorts, hops, cards (playing cards,) dice, malt, plate (gold or silver,) vinegar. 3. Articles on which the duties are to March 31, 1861, corks, hats or bonnets. leather, of all sorts. cease on and after a specified date :February 1, 1861, plating, gloves of 4. Articles containing sugar to be charged with duty until the 1st of July, 1861-Almond paste, cherries (dried,) cocoa paste and chocolate, comfits, (dried,) confectionery, ginger (preserved.) marmalade, plums (preserved,) succades. 5. Articles of farinaceous character, to be rated as flour :-Arrow-root, bar ley, (pearled,) biscuit and bread, cassava powder, potato flour, powder, (hair,) powder, (perfumed,) powder, (other sorts.) rice, sago, semolina, vermicelli and The following table shows the imports and exports of wheat into France and England for many years, with the exports from the United States in a corresponding period. The general result is an increasing trade between the United States and Europe in breadstuffs. The French wheat includes flour :- IMPORT AND EXPORT OF WHEAT INTO AND FROM FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES, AND IMPORT OF WHEAT AND WHEAT FLOUR INTO GREAT BRITAIN. 1844... 1845..... 1846..... 1847..... 1848... 1849... 1850... 1851..... 1852.... 1853....... 980,645 945,864 3,198,876 11,460,728 16,624,422 3,467,833 1,613,795 2,289,476 6,329,058 21,251,232 28,754,658 4,154,427 4,399,951 4,382,496 1,765,475 20,752,104 4,494,199 3,576,546 2,034,704 2,119,083 3,349,830 32,763,024 1,264,217 5,002,152 1,527,534 2,108,013 3,855,059 30,036,745 2,772,081 6,919,398 608,661 1,285,448 5,314,414 40,496,072 2,008,943 6,327,735 1,026,725 2,202,335 3,889,583 25,551,136 4,126,640 4,014,107 2,694,540 2,799,339 4,646,400 35,595,512 10,103,107 2,101,206 3,890,141 2,920,918 4,514,543 6,462,949 ... 841,474 1,436,575 1,195,230 1854..... 1855..... 1856..... 1857..... 1858... 1859... 3,646,505 26,448,816 18,972,988 1,053,132 8,036,665 4,022,386 822,256 798,844 1,204,540 572,168 8,154,877 3,510,626 BEET ROOT SUGAR PRODUCT IN THE ZOLLVEREIN. The following is the quantity of beet roots manufactured into sugar in the Zollverein for the last two years :— The sugar product is about seven per cent, amounting to 1,927,680 cwt. in 1858, and 2,600,000 in 1859. |
