2.--_Report of the Select Committee (of the Senate of the United States,) to whom was referred "the petition of upwards of three hundred mechanics, Citizens of the City and County of Philadelphia, employed in the various branches of the manufacture of iron," and also, the petition of the "Journeymen blacksmiths of the City and County of Philadelphia, employed in manufacturing anchors and chain cables."_ 3.--_Report of the minority of the Select Committee on certain memorials to reduce the duty on imported iron._ 4.--_Remarks of the majority of the Select Committee on the blacksmiths' petition in reply to the arguments of the minority._ 5.--_Manuel de la Metallurgie de fer par_ C. I. B. KARSTEN, _traduit de l'Allemand, par_ F. I. CULMAN, _seconde edition, entierement refondue, &c._ 3 vols. 8vo. pp. 504, 496, & 488. Mme. Thirl: 1830: Metz. 6.--_Voyage Metallurgique en Angleterre, par_ MM. DUFRENOY _et_ ELIE DE BEAUMONT. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 572. Bachelier: Paris: 1827. The discussion contained in the petitions and legislative reports which we have prefixed to this article, is one of the most powerful interest, not merely to those concerned in the manufacture of iron, and the articles of commerce of which it is the material, but to the whole community. Iron, if the cheapest and most abundant, is intrinsically the most valuable of the metals. It may supersede, and gradually has, in its applications, superseded the greater part of the rest, and has taken the place of wood and stone in a great variety of mechanical structures; it is indispensable in the modern arts of the attack and defence of nations; and its possession is the distinctive difference between civilized man and the savage. Well was it said to Croesus exhibiting his golden treasures, that he who possessed more iron, would speedily make himself master of them, and the truth of the maxim was even more powerfully verified, when the accumulated riches of the Aztecs and Incas were acquired at the cost of a few pounds of Toledo steel. When we compare the state of manners and arts of the Mexicans and Peruvians with that of their Spanish conquerors, we are almost compelled to admit, that the possession of iron was perhaps the only real superiority in civilization which the latter possessed. Gunpowder played but a small part in the contests where handfuls of men routed myriads; the courage of the Indian warrior is not less firm than that of the descendant of the Goths.