On the whole, although the quality of the climate would lead some to expect a lowering of the quality of the English race in these southern colonies, it is not possible to trace any such effect in the people. Although the laboring classes of whites along the seaboard appear to occupy a physical level rather below that of the same class in Virginia and the more northern regions, they have great endurance,—as was sufficiently proven by the fact that they made good soldiers during the recent Civil War. In the upland districts of these States, in western North and South Carolina, and especially in northern Georgia, the physical constitution of the people is, I believe, the best in this country. In the district north of Pennsylvania, the elevation of the mountains, or the table-lands which lie about them, is not profitable to the dwellers in these districts; each added height scarcely gives any additional healthfulness, and the additional cold is hurtful to most crops. In this southern region, however, the greater height and width of the Appalachian mountain system, including its elevated valleys, is a very great advantage to this region in all that concerns its fitness for the use of man. The climate of one half of the country south of the James and Ohio Rivers and east of the Mississippi is purified and refreshed by the elevations of this noble mountain system. It is the opinion of all who have examined this country, that it is extremely well fitted for all the uses of the race: an admirable climate, much resembling that of the Apennines of Tuscany, a fertile soil admitting a wide diversity of products, and a great abundance of water-power characterize all this upland district of the South. A few words will suffice for all that concerns the mineral resources of the original colonies. At the outset of the colonization of America we hear a good deal about the search for gold; fortunately there was a very uniform failure in the first efforts to find this metal, so that it ceased to play a part in the history of these colonies. Very little effort to develop the mineral resources of this region was made during the colonial period. A little iron was worked in Rhode Island, New York, and Virginia, some search of a rather fruitless sort was made for copper ore in Connecticut, but of mining industry, properly so called, there was nothing until the Revolutionary War stimulated the search for iron and lead ores. The discovery of the gold deposits in the Carolinas did not come about until after the close of the colonial period. These deposits were not sufficiently rich to excite an immigration of any moment to the fields where they occur.