Glancing for a moment at other countries, we find that Belgium, in 1845, had two hundred and twelve mines, employing thirty-eight thousand miners and five hundred steam-engines, and producing five million tuns; France, four hundred and forty-nine mines, employing thirty thousand miners, and producing five million tuns; Prussia, in 1840, seven hundred and fifty-two mines, employing twenty-four thousand miners, and raising three million, five hundred thousand tuns; and that Great Britain, in 1846, produced thirty-five million tuns, valued at forty-five million dollars at the mines. Austria and Spain, also, have excellent mines, though less productive. And as a late and interesting discovery, it may be added, that the recent Arctic expedition sent out from England, found coal in those northern regions, on the island of Disco, outcropping near the shore. They also, in another locality not far off, discovered some curious specimens of petrified trees, and near them extensive quarries of anthracite coal, of good quality. There appeared to be no limit to the quantity that might be thrown into a boat with ease, and in the space of three hours they conveyed not less than twelve tuns to the steamer, three-quarters of a mile distant. It proved, on trial, to be of good quality, the combustion was perfect, and the coal as economical as the Welsh. We will conclude the subject of coal mines, with the statement of a recent tourist, as to some of the wonders of the Cornish mines in England, as he saw them in 1854. He says: “Some of the mines are truly grand undertakings. The ‘consolidated mines,’ the largest of the Cornish group, employ upward of three thousand persons. One of the engines pumps water from a direct depth of sixteen hundred feet, the weight of the pumping apparatus alone being upward of five hundred tuns; the pumping-rod is one thousand, seven hundred and forty feet long, and it raises about two million gallons of water in a week, from a depth equal to five times the hight of St. Paul’s. These are, indeed, wonders to marvel at! The consolidated and united mines, both belonging to one company, are stated to have used the following vast quantities of materials in a year: coals, fifteen thousand, two hundred and seventy tuns; candles, one hundred and thirty-two thousand, one hundred and forty-four pounds; gunpowder, eighty-two thousand pounds; leather, for straps, &c., thirteen thousand, four hundred and ninety-three pounds; pick and shovel handles, sixteen thousand, six hundred and ninety-eight dozens. Sir Charles Lemon has estimated, that in the whole of the Cornish mines, thirteen thousand pounds’ worth of gunpowder is used annually; that the timber employed in the underground works, equals the growth of one hundred and forty square miles of Norwegian forest; and that thirty-seven million tuns of water are raised annually from the mines.” SALT MINES.