COUNTIES.-The following is a list of the counties in Texas, with their several county-towns, and also the population of each county, according to the census of 1860:

STATISTICS OF COUNTIES.-The following interesting summary of statistics of the counties in Texas is gathered from the Texas Almanac for 1867:

The whole number of counties in Texas is 158. The average size of the counties is 1,242 square miles. The largest county is Presidio, having 26,600 square miles, and the smallest is Marion, having 320 square miles. Omitting these exceptional counties, and the average area of the counties is 1,085 square miles. The county of Harris is the largest county east of the Guadalupe. It embraces an area of 1,832 square miles, or 1,173,680 acres, the larger portion of which is arable land. Harris is also the wealthiest county in the State, having a total taxable wealth of $9,571,440, and paying a poll tax of $1,262. The next is Galveston, which is assessed for $7,054,964, and pays a poll tax of $556. Next comes Bexar, with $5,352,528 worth of property, and a poll tax of $2,751. Washington comes next, with $4,913,328 of property, and Brazoria, with $3,134,568. Burdena returns the smallest roll, having but $91,430 of taxable property. McCulloch has the smallest population, having a poll tax of but $64. The richest county in good land is Wharton, the average value of lands, good and poor, improved and wild, in which being $9.20 per acre. Next is Fort Bend, with an average of $9.07 per acre. Then comes Washington, whose lands are taxed at $7.88; Brazoria, $5.40; Grimes, $5.04; Colorado, $5, down to Webb, which county has 244,804 acres of land, valued at ten cents an acre, and dear at that.

The whole number of neat cattle in the State is 2,741,358, valued at $13,283,025, or an average of about $5 per head. The whole number of sheep is 941,415, of which Starr County has 108,510, or nearly oneninth of all the sheep in the State, though they are valued at only one dollar each, while Hopkins has 32,830, valued at $90,534, or nearly $3

each, and Madison and Navarro have between them 30,000 at over $3 each.

POPULATION.-The number of inhabitants in Texas, according to the census taken by the United States in 1850, was 212,592. It had increased in 1860 to 604,215, showing a gain in ten years of 391,623. The number of white males in Texas in 1860 was 228,797, and of white females 192,497. Total number of whites, including 403 taxed Indians, 421,294. The number of free colored males was 181, and of free colored females, 174. Total number of free colored, 355. The number of male slaves was 91,189, and of female slaves, 91,377. Total number of slaves, 182,566. The total vote cast by Texas in 1860 for President was 62,657; and in 1866, for Governor, it was 60,682.

STATE DEBT.-The committee appointed by Governor Hamilton to inquire into the condition of the State Treasury of Texas, reported the total amount of the State debt in November, 1865, to be $8,714,065.07. At the breaking out of the late civil war, Texas was entirely out of debt.

EDUCATION.-The State School Fund of Texas on the 1st of September, 1860, amounted to $2,531,520.64. There was distributed to the counties for school purposes the sum of $112,595.31; besides this, each county had 17,712 acres of land set apart for educational purposes. The State School Fund consisted of the sum of $2,000,000 of the five per cent. United States bonds, set apart for that purpose, to which was added annually one-tenth of the State tax. The number of children in the State of school age-or from six to eighteen years—was 104,447. The amount of school money distributed for each was one dollar. There was also a university fund of $111,000, the interest of which was steadily accumulating. There were numerous academies and female seminaries in the State, and three colleges, namely: Aranama College, under the control of the Presbyterians, located at Goliad, in Goliad County, and founded in 1852, having three professors, seventy-five students, and a library of 1,800 volumes; Austin College, also under Presbyterian control, located at Huntsville, in Walker County, having in 1858 five professors and over one hundred students, exclusive of those in the law department; and Bayler University, located at Independence, Washington County, founded in 1845, having in 1858 five professors and about one hundred and fifty students. There was also in 1860, at Butterville, in Fayette County, a military institute of considerable reputation. It was founded in 1856.

AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.-According to the United States census of 1860, there were in Texas at that time 2,649,207 acres of improved land in farms, and 20,486,990 acres of unimproved land in farms. The cash value of the farms was $104,007,689, and of implements and machinery used in agriculture, $6,114,362. The number of horses in the State was 320,621; asses and mules, 63,000; milch cows, 598,086; working oxen, 172,243; other cattle, 2,733,267; sheep, 783,618, and swine, 1,368,378. The value of the live stock was $52,892,934, and the value of the animals slaughtered during the year was $5,218,987. The annual product of wheat was 1,464,273 bushels; rye, 95,012; In

dian corn, 16,521,593; oats, 988,812; rice, 25,670; tobacco, 98,016 pounds; ginned cotton, 415,281 bales of 400 pounds each; wool, 1,497,748 pounds; peas and beans, 359,560 bushels; Irish potatoes, 168,937; sweet potatoes, 1,853,306; barley, 38,905, and buckwheat, 1,612 bushels. The orchard products of the year were valued at $46,802. There were made 13,946 gallons of wine. The market garden produce was valued at $55,943. There were made in the year 5,948,611 pounds of butter, 277,512 of cheese, 11,349 tons of hay, 449 bushels of clover-seed, 2,976 bushels of other grass seeds, and 122 pounds of hops. Texas produced in the year ending June 30, 1866, 590 hogsheads of cane sugar, of 1,000 pounds each; 392,557 gallons of cane and maple molasses; 115,051 gallons of sorghum; 26,585 pounds of beeswax, and 550,708 pounds of honey. The value of the home-made manufactures for the same period was $596,169. Agricultural labors were exceedingly prosperous in 1864. The crop of cotton was esti mated at 500,000 bales, thus exceeding the crop of all the other cottongrowing States, which was estimated at 400,000 bales. The crop of corn in 1864 was estimated as sufficient to furnish a supply for two years. The cotton crop of Texas for 1866 was estimated at the United States Agricultural Department at 300,000 bales.

MANUFACTURES.-Texas, as a new State, has but few manufactures. Till her fertile bottoms and rich and beautiful prairies are occupied, capitalists will not be likely to devote much attention to manufacturing enterprises. Still, she has made considerable progress in this branch of industry. According to the last national census there were in Texas, in 1860, 910 manufacturing establishments, with a capital of $3,850,000, consuming annually $2,770,000 worth of raw material, including fuel; employing, on an average, 3,360 male hands and 110 female hands, and turning out annually manufactured products valued at $6,250,000.

RAILROADS.-There is probably no State in the Union where railroads can be constructed with so little labor and expense as in Texas, the grading being comparatively easy; or where they are more needed to convey to market the vast product of hogs, sheep, cattle, flour, and grain, of which the home consumption is not adequate to take up a thousandth part. The railroads constructed and in running order in July, 1865, were the Houston and Texas Central, from Hempstead to Brenham's, thirty miles; the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Road, from Harrisburg to Alleyton, eighty miles; the Houston Tap and Brazoria Road, from Houston to Columbus, forty-five miles; the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Road, from Galveston to Houston, fifty miles; the Texas and New Orleans Road, from Houston to Beaurant, sixty-five miles, and that from Shreveport, La., to Marshall. Railroads were also in the course of construction from Brazos Santiago to Brownsville, about thirty miles, and from Indianola to Victoria, about forty miles.

IOWA.

THE State of Iowa is bounded north by Minnesota, east by the Mississippi, which separates it from the States of Wisconsin and Illinois, south by Missouri, and west by Nebraska and Dakota, from the former of which it is separated by the Missouri, and from the latter by the great Sioux River. It lies, (with the exception of a small projection in the south-east, between the Des Moines and the Mississippi Rivers,) between 40° 30′ and 43° 30′ north latitude, and between 90° and 97° west longitude, being about 300 miles in extreme length from east to west, and about 208 miles in breadth, including an area of 50,914 square miles, or 32,584,960 acres.

FACE OF THE COUNTRY.-The surface of Iowa is generally composed of rolling prairies, having nothing within its limits which approaches a mountain in elevation. The highest ground in the State is a plateau in the north-west, called "Conteau des Prairies," which enters the State from Minnesota. A small portion in the north-east, on the Mississippi, is rugged and rocky, and Table Mound, a conical elevation with a flat summit, three or four miles from Dubuque, is, perhaps, 500 feet high. The State, however, may be generally described as a rolling prairie, crossed by rivers whose banks are skirted with wood. There are said. to be some swamps in the north-west portion of the State. prairies, though sometimes twenty miles across, are rarely more than five or ten.

The

GEOLOGY.-The great coal-field of Missouri and Iowa, occupying the center and southern parts of the latter State, and extending out in the form of a semicircle, is surrounded on every side but the southern by a belt of upper carboniferous limestone. The Mississippi, on the southeast of the State, has its channel in a bed of the lower carboniferous limestone. The great drift deposits from Minnesota enter the north of Iowa. A narrow strip of the lead-bearing magnesian limestone lies on the Mississippi to the north-east, and is succeeded on the south-west first by a broad belt of upper magnesian, and then by a second of limestone of the Devonian period. The coal veins of Iowa are not nearly so thick as those of Illinois, being seldom more than four or five feet. The prairies of this State are sprinkled over with bowlders, some of them of immense size. One measured by Professor Owen was 500 feet in circumference, 12 feet high, and probably as many beneath the soil.

MINERALS.-Iowa is rich in mineral resources, and one-tenth of the great lead region of the upper Mississippi lies in this State. The ore is abundant, but lies deeper than on the east side of the river. Lead mines have been opened in Dubuque and Clayton Counties. Zinc and copper are also found in the same localities, and in connection with the lead. The great bituminous coal-field of Iowa and Missouri has an ex