The above statement is correct-it is official. The empire is divided into fifty departments, with an area of 712,850 square miles, and a population of 8,218,080 souls. It is more than three times as large as France, four times as large as Spain, and about thirty times the size of Holland and Belgium. It is in extent and internal resources a first class empire.

No country on earth has as many natural advantages. Mexico is self sustaining in every way. She raises her own breadstuffs of every kind; her beef and pork; her coffee, sugar and chocolate; her indigo, cochineal and vanilla, her wool, thread and cordage, and is now producing a large quantity of her cotton. She produces wines, aguardienta, mezcal and pulque in the greatest abundance. In the northern departments, bordering on the Rio Grande, there is a fine graziug region. Here are immense herds of horses, mules, cattle and sheep. The middle portion of the empire is more devoted to agriculture-to corn, wheat rye, barley, and oats. Here the Irish potato grows well. The Pacific and Atlantic coasts are well adapted to sugar, coffee, tobacco and rice, and all the tropical plants and fraits. In the extreme South, in Yucatan, Campeche, Tehuantepee, Tabasco and La Laguna, is the country for dye woods, mahogany and the very best cacao. Here also grows in very great perfection the cocoanut and the chirimoya and every other inter-tropical fruit. The lovers of naturalhistory will find here in their native forests the noblest specimens of animated

nature.

Oajaca produces cochineal and indigo in large quantities, while the high lands of Jalapa have monopolized for years the production of the celebrated “purgative drug."

The most valuable silver mines are situated in Tulancingo, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Guerrero, Sonora, Sinaloa and Chihuahua. The copper mines of Chihuahua are said to be the richest in the world, and the pearls of Lower California have ever been in great demand. The silver mines of Real del Monte and Pachuda, in Tulancingo, are but a short distance from this city. They are the most valuable in the country, and are now yielding their owners large dividends. The mines of Guerrero are not only rich in silver and gold, but the streams abound in precious stones.

The mint of Mexico has coined from 1800 to 1360, in silver, $405 924,496; in gold, $26.175,544. How much of these precious metals was coined belore 1800, and how much was taken out of the country by Spanish viceroys, by refu gee presidents and genera's, and by that system of smuggling carried on so successfully for so many years, will never be made known.

This is a vast empire of mountains and valleys. The valleys are exceedingly rich and productive, while the mountains are filled with hidden treasures. Twothirds of all the silver in circulation in the wide world has been taken from Mexico. If she is but true to herself-if her citizens will rise above the small bickerings of party, and rally around our republican Emperor and support him in his onward march of progress and improvement, this empire will soon, be one of the richest and happiest portions of "God's green earth." Mexico is richer to-day than she ever was. New mines are daily discovered and worked with improved machinery. There are in her mountains ten thousand times more silver and gold than have been taken out. All she wants is energy-energy—energy.

CENSUS OF IOWA.

The census recently taken shows the total white population, as far as returns have been made, to be 749,904, divided and classified as follows: Males 379,027; females, 370.877; entitled to vote, 146,279; militia, 97,624; foreigners not natnralized, 10,594; between the ages of five and twenty-one years, 293.204; blind, 259; deaf and dumb, 271; insane, 612; colored males, 1,801; colored females, 1,798; total colored, 3,599. There are five counties in the north western part of the State from which no report is yet received, which, at the last census, contained 170 inhabitants. Adding these to the total given above, we have 750,074. This is an increase in the last two years, in the white population, of 47,912; entitled to vote, 11,229; militia, 6,586; between the ages of five and twentyone years, 26,787; colored, 2,279.

MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES.

THE NATIONAL TREASURY,

THE following abstract of a letter from Washington describes the modus operandi at the National Treasury:

Everybody is familiar with the peculiar signature of General Spinner, the United States Treasurer, on the notes constituting the National currency. I propose in this article to give your readers a little insight into the business of that department of the Treasury, over which he presides. The business of the Treasurer of the United States is transacted in six divisions or bureaus, as follows: The cash division, the bank division, the issue division, the loan division, the redemption division, and the division of accounts.

The cash division is a gigantic bank. It has its cashier, its paying teller, its receiving teller, its interest clerks, and its vault clerks. Into its yawning vault is poured the entire revenue of the United States Government. The receiving tellers receive all the revenue derived from the customs and import duties, from internal revenue, and from the post-office. The paying teller pays out money on drafts and checks on the Treasury, including all warrants drawn by the Postmaster General, all checks drawn by disbursing officers, the salaries of all persons in the diplomatic service, and all officers of the army and navy, and all pensions.

The vault clerks receive all the money which comes into the hands of the receiving tellers. They keep the money in solid square packages, about ten inches square. I took two of these packages, one in each hand. They were both of the same size and weight, and presented the same outward appearance. Yet one contained only $4,000. The other contained the nice little sum of 4,000,000-enough to support a man comfortably during one's lifetime, with the

exercise of economy.

The vast extent of the cash division may be realized from the fact that its receipts during the last fiscal year amounted to over two thousand millions of dollars, and its payments to even a larger sum.

The entire receipts of the cash division for the last six years have been five

thousand millions of dollars; and the entire payments during the same time have also amounted to five thousand millions of dollars. The receipts for 1860 were only twenty millions of dollars, and the payments only nineteen millions seven hundred thousand dollars.

The business transacted in the redemption division is very curious and interesting. It requires a corps of eighty-two clerks, sixty-three of whom are ladies, and is transacted in fourteen distinct apartments. All the currency that has served its purpose, and all mutilated United States notes, whether bearing interest or not, and all mutilated, torn or soiled fractional currency, is sent to this division from all parts of the country, and is here redeemed, and the amount returned to the sender in good and new currency. Here we see why Mr. Clark's money mills must be kept constantly running, and why it is necessary for such a vast volume of currency to be constantly made. Paper money lacks the durability of specie; and as it wears out, it must be replaced with fresh issues, or "redeemed." Hence the redemption division of the Treasury. The defaced, mutilated and worn-out notes reach the redemption division in large packages. They are sent in by banks, by railroad companies, by the cashiers of street cars, and by private individuals. If a note has been into one hundred pieces, and all the pieces be present, it will be redeemed at it its full value. The counting of the contents of the packages is done by the lady clerks, who sit at tables with the packages before them. These ladies are obliged to detect counterfeit notes, as well as to count, and they do this while counting. They have acquired remarkable skill and dexterity in this respect, and some of them can detect a coun terfeit note sooner than many men who consider themselves expert. From $80 to $100 in counterfeit notes are received here daily, and each note is at once branded"counterfeit" with a hot iron. Certificates of indebtedness from National Banks are received here, and are redeemed one year after date of issue, by checks on the Assistant Treasurers in New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

After the packages of notes have been counted and found correct, they are cut in two by an instrument like a straw-cutter, worked by hand. One-half is sent to the Secretary, the other half to the Register of the Treasury, by whom they are again examined, counted and compared, as a final check on the redemption division. They are finally burned.

The division of accounts is one of the most important in the Treasury. The work is transacted by H. Lighton, chief of division, F. M. Meline, chief bookkeeper, and twenty clerks. The accounts passed upon in this division, and sent here for adjudication, embrace every item of the receipts, revenues and expenditures of the Government. All depositories and collectors of revenue, and all assistant treasurers make stated and regular reports of their financial transactions to this division. The accounts of all moneys transferred from one place to another; from one United States depository to another; from one assistant treas urer to another-are all sent to this division, and are properly entered, charged and credited. All drafts upon the Treasury are issued here; and thus every dol lar that passes into or out of the Treasury is accounted for in this room.

The bank division has charge of all the bonds and securities deposited with the treasurer by the national banks and by United States depositories. There

are 1,554 of these national banks now in existence. Before any national bank can go into operation, it is required to deposit in this bank division a certain amount of bonds and other securities for its circulation. These securities are kept in a large vault, which contains 1,600 compartments, in 1,554 of which are deposited the bonds and securities sent in by the 1,554 national banks. No one has access to this vault except the chief of the bank division, unless on special written order from the Secretary of the Treasury. Receipts of these bonds and securities are sent by the bank division in duplicate, one to the Comptroller of the Currency, and one to the bank depositing the bonds. The banks are then furnished by the Controller of the Currency with what currency they need, the amount being regulated by the amount of security deposited. A register of all the bonds and securities deposited is of course kept. All the national banks make reports twice a year, in January and July, to the division of the amount of their capital stock, &c., and the substance of these reports is recorded in tabular form, in books kept in the bank division.

The loan division issues certificates of indebtedness on checks presented by disbursing agents. These are only in two denominations-$1.000 and $5,000. Each certificate is numbered, and as each one is issued, a record of the fact, with the number and the name of the person to whom it is issued, is entered. These certificates are payable one year after date of issue. For the week ending July 26, the certificates issued amount to $2,450,000.

The compound interest notes, the fractional currency, and all the United States notes engraved and printed in the Treasury building are sent to the issue division of the Treasury, where they are counted, and then sent to the cash division. The general supervision of all these six divisions rests upon Gen. Spinner, the Treasurer of the United States, who nas held his present position sicce the beginning of President Lincoln's administration.

THE CATTLE PLAGUE.

THE Cattle plague still occasions the deepest alarm in England although it did not seem at last accounts, to be spreading very rapidly beyond the districts where it began its ravages. To sum up the annals of this terrible and mysteri ous scourge from various sources it would seem to have made its first appearance in the British islands in the year 1745, the infection having been communicated by a bundle of hides taken from the bodies of diseased cattle and shipped from New Zealand where the sale and use had been prohibited. They were clandes tinely sold on their arrival and at once propagated a pestilence which spread with amazing rapidity through every country on the known Globe. For twelve years it ravaged the flocks and herds of England, the Government having paid scarcely any attention to its progress until the third year, when it was already too late to arrest it without ordering all the infected cattle to be exterminated, 80,000 head were slaughtered but in reality 160,000 perished from the disease. In the space of six months 40,000 perished in Nottinghamshire and 30,000 in Cheshire, and the sum total of loss in Europe was estimated at 3,000,000 head. In far earlier times, the malady had appeared on the Continent. In the reign of Theodoric, it raged at the South and about the time of Charlemagne's

return from his expedition against the Danes, whole herds died off in France. It again broke out in 812, 1223, 1625, 1710 and 1717 at the two periods last named visiting Poland and the Russian steppes with peculiar severity. In 1770, Holland lost 375.441 head of horned cattle, and the same scourge re-appeared in 1806 during Napoleon's campaign, in Italy killing in Piedmont alone 3,500,000 head. From 1713 to 1796 says the French Feuille du Cultivateur, or agriculturist's paper, France and Belgium lost ten millions of cattle. In 1806, after the forays of the Cossacks of the Don along the banks of Vistula; iu 1813, subsequently to the invasion by Schwarzenburg and in 1855 during the Crimean war, the pestilence broke out with great virulence.

It would seem according to these statistics, that the disease has always revealed itself just after some great displacement or agglomeration of masses of men, and this fact is one of the strongest phenomena connected with the origin of a disease which seems to attack animals only and to spare the human race. Thus, it takes its source among barbarian hordes or armies of ill fed and ill clad soldiers and limits its contagious qualities to the brutes. In 1747, indeed, the New Zealand importation of diseased hides gave in another origin but this year there have been no great unusual collections of human beings anywhere but at Mecca The collection of dead animals carcasses was in the Nile, yet, it was from Hungary alone that the malady took its origin to fall afterwards on England after having skipped the other countries of Europe. The disease appears to be limited to London and a few adjacent counties and many savants believe that it is not the old malady of preceding centuries but a comparatively simple pleuropneumonia which in France, at last, is successfully treated by the cattle doctor. Their alleged reason for this belief is that infants of from two to eight months fed upon the milk afterwards shown to have been infected have died of well defined typhoid fever--a reasonable result of pleuropneumonia in the milch cattle which alone are the victims of the present scourge whereas in former cases the sickness attacked other kinds of cattle and spared the human race. If this be true, abstaining from the use of suspicious milk would secure from the direct effects of the pestilence those who have hitherto made it a portion of their diet; and treatment for the ordinary sickness named would restore the cattle.

COFFEE.

A recent author gives a very learned account of the discovery of the coffee shrub during the latter part of the seventeenth century," the whole of which is a myth. and was probably designed as a bit of humor, although it has been extensively copied as veritable history. It is true that Western Europe first became acquainted with this beverage at the date indicated. The earliest mention of its use in England which we can find is an account in 1652 of its preparation by Pasqua, a servant of one Daniel Edwards, formerly a Turkish merchant, who brought the berry and the art of cooking it from the land of his sojourn. It is said that Solomon Aga, the Turkish Ambassador, made its use known in Paris in 1669, but it was not until 1672 that the first coffee house was opened in that city. The shrub was first planted in Jamaca in 1732, but its early culture was much neglected.