At a meeting of the stockholders, held on the 6th of July, 1864, Gen. A. S. Sanford, of Cleveland, was chosen president, in place of H. B. Payne, resigned, but who still remains as one of the directors. The French River Company sent up men, tools, and supplies sufficient to prosecute the work, day and night, during the winter. The work is in charge of Frank Salisbury, who is sinking a shaft one hundred and fifty feet from the old one, with the intention of drifting from one to the other. I have, perhaps, gone too much into detail; but if the anticipations of those who have given this subject much attention shall be realized, the silent operations and large expenditures that have been made, will, hereafter, render any facts, connected with the first developments of the mineral wealth of Minnesota, interesting in the future. But a few years ago, those engaged in developing the copper mines on Lake Superior, within the state of Michigan, were looked upon as visionary speculators. The completion of the Sault St. Mary canal gave such facilities as enabled them to draw capital from all parts of the United States and to convince the most skeptical that the basin of that vast inland sea contained untold wealth. Of the many mines in successful operation, a single one—the Quincy, yielded, the past season, 3,102,532 pounds, or 1,551 tons, 532 pounds of copper, worth one million five hundred thousand dollars. When we have communication by railroad to the head of lake navigation, the most skeptical cannot over rate the mineral wealth that will be developed, nor the commercial advantages that will inure to the state—enriching and infusing new life into every city, town and hamlet. CONSTANTINE BELTRAMI. [By A. J. Hill, of St. Paul; at the request of the Minnesota Historical Society.] § 1. INTRODUCTORY. Though narratives of the fortunes of early explorers of a country cannot, in general, throw any light upon its history, apart from their travels in the region itself, yet such recitals or biographies may still be useful in enabling us to form juster opinions of the accounts given by the travelers of their discoveries, from the knowledge afforded as to character, attainments and position. Of the subject of this article, till within a few years, nothing was known to us, Minnesotians, beyond the little to be gleaned from his own books of travel and from the narrative of the expedition of Major Long; and even these works are so out of date that the name of Beltrami is unfamiliar to our ears. His life is like the bridge in the vision of Mirza—we see but the middle of it—the beginning and end are hid in obscurity. The recent publication, in Italy, of biographical notices of this traveler, has furnished the means of supplying the deficiency of information concerning him; and at the request of the Historical Society of Minnesota, the present memoir has been compiled, as a fitting contribution to its “Collections.”