On the Inaccuracy of the Eighth Census, so far as it Relates to the Metallic and Mineral Statistics of the United States. BY J. D. WHITNEY. It has, for a long time, been a subject of regret, that our United States Census returns are so imperfect; and that, in all that relates to mining and metallurgy, they are especially and extraordinarily unreliable. Mr. Kennedy’s “Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census,” (1860), recently issued, is at hand, and some remarks may here be made in reference to what appears in it, which is connected with our mineral interests. It will soon appear, from an examination of this public document, that the same unfortunate ignorance in regard to one of the most important of the sources of our national wealth, which has characterized previous Census Reports, still prevails among our officials at Washington; and that all which Mr. Kennedy’s Report contains must be taken with many grains of allowance. It is certainly the duty of those who are better posted to give notice of these deficiencies, and to call public attention to them again and again, in the hope that something may be done, hereafter, to make this department of the Government less ridiculous in the eyes of those who are acquainted with such matters, and less liable to mislead those who look on a Census Report as something to be blindly quoted, and relied on as a document which must necessarily be correct. The only metals in regard to which anything is stated in Mr. Kennedy’s report are iron, nickel, lead, zinc, and copper; thus omitting gold, silver, and quicksilver, of each of which we are large producers. Of the mineral productions, coal is the only one noticed. The first metal mentioned in the text accompanying the tables compiled from the Census returns is iron, and the quantity of pig iron produced in 1860 is given at 884,474 tuns, valued at $19,487,790, and this is stated to be an increase in the value returned by the Census of 1850, of 44·4 per cent.