In 1864 there were 26 companies, 3156 miles of railway, the aggregate cost of which was 120,417,000 dollars.

RAILWAYS OF THE UNITED STATES.

The number of companies, miles of railway, and aggregate cost of all the railways in the United States, up to the 1st of January, 1865, were as follows:

CHAPTER III.*

MINNESOTA.

Extent of Territory-St. Paul, the Capital-Physical Districts-Falls of St. Anthony and its Water Power-Mineral Resources-Sandstone, &c.- Salt Springs -The Relations of Minnesota in Reference to Internal Commerce Rapid Progress of Cultivation-Agricultural Productions-Progress of Population-The Future of Minnesota-Testimony of Hon. W. H. Seward -- Conclusion-Railway through Minnesota-Illinois Central Railroad-The Value of the Lands-Value of Illinois Lands.

"Here is the place the central place-where the agriculture of the richest region of North America must pour out its tributes to the whole world."-Speech of Hon. Wm. H. Seward, delivered at St. Paul, Minnesota.

EXTENT OF TERRITORY.

The territory of Minnesota, as organized by the Act of Congress, of March 3, 1849, is an extensive region, being about four times as large as the State of Ohio, and is 675 miles in extent from its south-eastern to its north-eastern border. It extends from the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers, and the western extremity of Lake Superior on the east, to the Missouri, and WhiteEarth Rivers on the west a distance of over 400 miles; and from the Iowa line (latitude 43° 30') on the south to the British line (latitude 49°) on the north, also a distance of over 400 miles-the whole comprising an area of 166,000 square miles, or 106,000,000 acres.

A large portion of its territory has since been ceded west of the Red River to form the territory of Dacotah. The present number of square miles is 83,531, or 53,459,840 acres. Minnesota was admitted into the American Union, and permitted to enjoy the rights of a sovereign State in 1857. Since that time her increase in population and her progress, in every sense, has been without a parallel. Why, she has sent an army of 15,000 stalwart men to bear arms in the present unfortunate war; yet her population has increased between 1859 and 1864 to 350,000, and during the last year she has produced 2,000,000 bushels more wheat than any preceding year. Her tax levy shows property to the amount of 40,000,000 dollars, or £8,000,000 sterling. She has a college and numerous schools, which are supported by grants of land. In the year 1862, 38,147 acres were sold, yielding a sum of 242,532 dollars.

*This chapter is condensed from the admirable reports of the Hon. J. A. Wheelock and the Hon. James W. Taylor, Commissioners of Statistics for the State of Minnesota.

ST. PAUL, THE CAPITAL.

St. Paul-latitude 44° 52′ 46′′, longitude 93° 4′ 54′′-is a port of entry, the county seat of Ramsey County, and the seat of government of the territory of Minnesota. It is pleasantly situated on the east bank of the Mississippi River, eight miles from the Falls of St. Anthony, and five miles from Fort Snelling; about 2070 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River, and near its confluence with the Minnesota River, and is elevated about 800 feet above the Gulf of Mexico. It is near the geographical centre of the continent of North America, in the north temperate zone, and must eventually become a central nucleus for the business of one of the best watered, timbered, and most fertile and healthy countries of the globe. It is surrounded in the rear by a semicircular plateau, elevated about forty feet above the town, of easy grade, and commanding a magnificent view of the river above and below. Nature never planned a spot better adapted to build up a showy and delightful display of architecture and gardening, than that natural terrace of hills. The town has sprung up, like Minerva full armed from the head of Jupiter, and now contains 10,000 inhabitants; its whole history of four years forming an instance of Western enterprise, and determined energy and resolution, hitherto unsurpassed in the history of any frontier settlement.

PHYSICAL DISTRICTS.

The Superior basin of the St. Lawrence is terminated on the west and north by an immense development of the primary rocks, complicated by local disturbances, and stretching from Labrador and James's Bay in broad granitic and trappean ranges, overlaid by huge deposits of clay and drift, and disappearing to the west under the argillaceous drift deposits of the Red River Valley, and on the south, in the Silurian sandstones and limestones of the Mississippi Valley. This range of transverse rocks, with all its diluvial covering, does not rise over 1680 feet above the sea, while its average elevation is not over 1450 feet above the sea, or 450 feet above the general level of the State.

The immense diluvial sand dunes which cover the uplift of this formation, west of Lake Superior, constitute the height of land which skirts the summit level of the Mississippi, and give origin, between latitudes 47° and 49°, to the three great river systems of the continent. This highland district is the watershed of North America-the fountain head of that radiating efflux of inland waters which clothe the vast circle of the continent with their gorgeous intertexture of physical and commercial life, and in return gather back to their sources the centripetal movements of American development. The surface of Minnesota is thus made up of the culminating acclivities of the three great hydrographical divisions of