Iowa seven per cent bonds payable in New York, Jan. 1, 1868, issued under Chap, 7, Acts 1858,..... Making. To which add amount of bonds sold under Chap. 16, Acts Making total bonded debt, The taxable property of the State is as follows: Value of land,. Town property Personal 66 200,000 00 $322,295 75 300,000 00 $622,295 75 28,336,345 $111,653,109 22,992,759 Total.... 2 mill tax. WISCONSIN. 32,463,106 $167,108,974 334,218 The finances of the State of Wisconsin embraces a great number of funds, fifteen in all, under which as many branches of the national service are conducted. The aggregate receipts of the funds was $2,636.888 90, and the expenses $2,581,180 07. Of these the general fund and the war fund possess the most interest. The former was as follows for the year: Payments. Receipts. Loan... Total..... On hand.. By the law of 1863, the Governor was authorized to contract a loan for war purposes of not more than $350,000. Of this amount $220,000 was invested in the School Fund, which had received the money from lands. There remains $130,000 available for war purposes. The war fund showed receipts from all sources including State war tax, $272,156, $807,929 of which $604,999 was applied to Volunteer aid. The debt of the State is now $1,720,000, after deducting $50,000 redeemed in the past year. This debt is payable a portion every year up to 1894. Of the stock $1,340,900 is deposited for security of the Wisconsin bank circulation. CONNECTICUT. The taxable property of the State of Connecticut is as follows: The revenues of the State for a number of years have been as follows: For the last year the receipts embrace all the State Funds, School, "Avails of Courts and Bonds... "Tax from Agents of Foreign Insurance Companies. "Tax on Non-resident Stocks... $298,489 42 34,387 00 33,119 60 9,700 40 2,845 70 17,397 45 49,669 72 15,694 31 110,576 63 524,152 08 104,291 67 1,000,000 00 392,300 00 $2,592,623 98 $106,170 04 $184,791 06 2,151,580 88 31,573 00 118,509 00 106,170 04 $2,592,623 98 Under the act of December 24, 1862, a loan of $2,000,000 was authorized. Of this $1,000,000 was sold and included in the above account. The sale reduced premiums ranging from nine to twelve per cent, the average being ten 25 per cent, thereby netting to the State the sum of 102,535,5% dollars. The entire loan was issued in bonds of one thousand dollars each, having twenty years to run, from the first of January, 1863, all of which have been duly executed, and delivered to the proper recipients. The State's quota of the United States direct tax of 1861, 261,981, dollars in amount, has been paid by a surrender of the certificate of indebtedness of the United States for $606,000 held by the Treasurer of the State at the date of the last annual Report, and a new certificate for the balance was given, and is in the State Treasury. (To be continued.) THE MONTANA OF THE ANDES. BY DR. J. HUNTINGTON LYMAN, NORTHAMPTON, MASS., LATE SECRETARY OF THE U. S. COMMISSION TO PERU. On the eastern slope of the Andes there is a region of which little has yet been written. Few travelers have visited it for the purpose of discovery and making known its wealth and commercial advantages. The Government of Peru, since it has assumed a paternal and national character, as compared with its former selfish individualism, has within a short period instituted various exploring expeditions for ascertaining the nature of the climate, resources and best mode of development of the region referred to. It has sent out scientific and practical men in different directions, who are still engaged in the work. It also has in its employ intelligent engineers from the United States and Europe surveying routes for a railway across the Andes. The men now at the head of public affairs have the wisdom to understand that the guano deposits from which the revenue of Peru is chiefly derived cannot last twenty-five years longer at the current rate of exportation, and are consequently aware of the necessity of providing for some more permanent source of income for the support of the national government. They are intelligent, patriotic men, and are sincerely desirous of benefitting their country. The reports they have received from the vari ous exploring expeditions sent out by them, and from the prefects and other officers of the Government in the departments and villages of the interior, have conclusively shown that the future wealth and revenue of Peru will be found mostly there. They are at work in a practical way, developing that country by offering inducements to emigrants, granting to them special privileges, by opening wagon roads, as well as in the survey of routes preparatory to the building of railways, and also by persevering efforts to procure the opening of the Amazon by Brazil to the commerce of the world. In this paper we propose briefly to notice the present resources of Peru, as developed on the coast, and also the character of that extensive region on the eastern slope of the Andes known as the Montana ;* in order to direct public attention, not only to the great excess of its territory on that side of the mountains, but also to the unexampled profusion of the mineral and vegetable wealth of that section, its excellent climate, its perennial summer, and its navigable rivers opening the country in every direction, and affording easy transportation to the United States by the Amazon and the Atlantic. The Republic of Peru is divided by the Cordilleras of the Andes into two portions. The western section is a narrow strip of land about twelve hundred miles long, and from ten to forty miles wide, from the sea to the base of the Andes, which rise abruptly into the region of perpetual snow. On this portion there is but little sign of vegetation, except where the land is irrigated by the few small streams formed from the melting snows in the high valleys of the mountains. In some few localities the soil re* Pronounced Montanyah. quires only moisture to yield large returns. By means of canals the Incas secured abundant harvests; but without irrigation there is scarcely any evidence of vegetable life. There are, however, extensive and valuable saline deposits, principally nitrate and borate of soda, and also the muriate. In fact the surface soil on many portions of the coast is so impregnated with nitrous and other salts, as to forbid all attempts at cultivation. Some of the saline deposits are so peculiar in their character as to offer an interesting subject for scientific investigation. Common table salt is very abundant. It is somewhat impure, but is freely used by the natives for culinary purposes. In one place this formation is very curious. It is on a shallow lake, of about one foot in depth, of intensely salt water, the surface of which is covered with an incrustation some ten inches thick, appearing like a pond frozen over. The salt is sawed out in blocks nearly a foot square, and removed, leaving the open water upon which another similar incrustation soon forms. These blocks are found for sale in the grocery shops of Lima and other towns. But of all the saline formations of Peru, none equal in extent or probable value those of the province of Tarapaca, consisting of the nitrate and borate of soda. Not even the guano deposits can compare in value with these last; for the guano will soon be exhausted, but these promise a perpetual revenue to the government, limited only because the demand will not probably equal the supply. These deposits of soda, principally nitrate, extend over an area of one hundred and fifty square miles, in the desert of Tarapaca, and are found several feet in thickness-so thick and solid that they are sometimes broken up by blasting. Both the nitrate and borate of soda are becoming valuable articles of commerce, but in view of their abundance, it is fortunate for the best interests of Peru that they are not so immediately valuable in agriculture as the guano. If they were as available as the last, they might prove to be anything but a blessing to the nation, for such immense wealth ready for use, with scarcely any labor necessary for its production, as is the case with the guano, would, as all experience shows, tend to a speedy enervation of both government and people. The guano, however, is fast disappearing, and does not enter into any calculation of future permanent rev enue. The principal source of durable wealth of a nation must be found in ag riculture. In Peru this cannot be carried on profitably, in its western division for reasons above given. As the mineral resources of Peru are found in the Andes and Eastern divisions, we will not speak of them here. We have referred to the speedy removal of the guano deposits. There are only about ten or twelve millions of tons of pure guano remaining on the Peruvian islands; which is being exported now at the rate of nearly four hundred thousand tons per annum, with a rapidly increasing demand; and as, thus far, none equally good has been found elsewhere to any amount, it is evident that it will probably soon disappear. The birds which are mainly the producers of this article, are no longer left undisturbed by man, and there can be no hope of any additional ac cumulations, in quantity sufficiently abundant to stimulate the enterprise of men in search of it. The principal deposits are on the Chinchas and Lobos islands. There is one small island called "Macabi" in latitude 7° 50′ south, which presents the appearance of a haycock. It is a table of granite, about one thousand feet in diameter, and elevated fifty feet above the sea. Upon this table rests a conical mound of pure, hard, almost crystalline guano, with its apex one hundred and fifty feet above the rock. An American Engineer, in the service of the Peruvian Government, lately sunk a shaft into the top of this mound to measure the deposit. At the depth of one hundred feet the auger was very much clogged by the hair of seals. After boring one hundred and thirty feet the instrument broke. Marine animals, like the seals, instinctively climb upon the rocks to die, and all these guano islands show that the remains of such animals enter largely into the composition of the deposit. On this island of Macabi it is esti mated that there are at least seven hundred and fifty thousand tons of pure guano. The preservation of the saline and guano deposits of the coast land and islands of Peru through many ages to the present time is owing to the fact that it never rains there. No drenching, wearing rain ever falls, nothing at the most beyond occasional and very slight showers; nor are the dews sufficiently penetrating to encourage vegetable growth. The oldest buildings in Lima-the Cathedral, for instance, which is nearly three hundred years old-constructed as they are of sun-burnt brickscommon dry mud-show conclusively that there is not sufficient moisture in the atmosphere to wash or wear away the material of which the buildings are made. It is very singular that it never rains on the coast of Peru, when the coast of Chili having in part the same lineal direction, and sea winds from nearly the same quarter, is comparatively fertile, as is also the coast of Ecuador on the north. In each of these three countries the Andes are about equally distant from the sea. Why should the coast of Peru, having the same physical features with the other two Republics, and a shore line generally more favorable for receiving the moist southerly winds of the Pacific, be a barren, rainless land, while they are well watered and fertile? The prevailing winds from the Pacific blow along the coast of South America in a northerly direction, with sufficient easterly trend to bring over the land the moisture evaporated from the sea, which is precipitated in heavy fertilizing showers upon the coast land of Chili and Ecuador, but refuses any of its blessings to the intermediate coast land of Peru. An intelligent Peruvian officer, Senor RAIMONDY, now engaged in exploring the Montana, alluding to the above singular fact in one of his reports to the Government, says: "No one has referred to the influence which the nature of the soil on the coast of Peru may have in causing the absence of rain in that region. The coast of Peru appears to have been recently lifted from the ocean, covered with a thick coat of sand in its whole length and breadth, extending even far up on the sides of the hills, which skirt the western base of the Andes, where are found shells like those now gathered on the neighboring shore. This sandy coast, being under the direct solar rays, attracts a large amount of caloric-so much so as to cause an upward current of hot air, which, coming in contact with the moist winds blowing over the land from the sea, prevents their condensation, and disperses them into the more elevated regions of the atmosphere, where the |