_Manufactures._--Georgia is the foremost Southern State in her railway and manufacturing enterprises. Both have been chiefly developed since the war, from which everything in the south of the Union dates. Her rivers and railways afford abundant facilities for the movement of merchandise as well as crops. Her streams also provide excellent and unfailing water-power. In the development of her industries a great future is predicted for Georgia. Indeed some of the more sanguine claim that she is already becoming a formidable rival of New England in the manufacture of cotton and woollen fabrics. There are in the State 38 cotton factories, with 123,233 spindles and 2,125 looms. There are 14 woollen factories, with 4,200 spindles and 135 looms. Augusta and Columbus take the lead in the number and capacity of these works, for which certain important advantages are claimed. The water-power is so ample that the mills are run by it alone. The streams do not freeze in winter. The cotton and wool are grown at the factory door, saving to the mill-owner the cost of transporting his raw material from a great distance. Labor is cheaper. Finally, the State, in order to encourage the investment of foreign capital in manufactures, has by law exempted such capital from taxation for ten years. The product of the Georgia mills finds a ready market in the Southern and Western States. It is asserted on good authority that during the years 1875, 1876, and 1877--years of unparalleled depression to the manufacturing interests of the United States--the mills of Georgia, especially those of Augusta and Columbus, were never idle, and paid a handsome return on their invested capital. Besides the 52 factories which convert so large a share of her raw product into cloths, there are 1,375 grain mills, having 1,453 run of stones for corn and 556 for wheat. There are 734 saw-mills, 77 wagon and carriage factories, 6 iron furnaces, 7 iron foundries, 11 lime-kilns, 4 potteries, 68 tanneries, 6 turpentine distilleries, 2 rolling mills, 5 paper-mills, 12 furniture manufactories, 3 rice-mills, &c. The manufacture of rope, bagging, twine, tobacco, ice, sashes and blinds, agricultural implements, boilers and machinery, fertilizers, &c., is carried on more or less extensively. Besides Augusta and Columbus, the largest manufacturing city of the State, there are cotton factories at Athens, Macon, West Point, Decatur, and Atlanta. The latter city also has large iron works. Thomasville, Dalton, Albany, Marietta, and Rome are also manufacturing points.