Last year about 15,000 tons of superior foundry iron were turned out of these works; 12,000 tons of which were worked into stoves and small castings. The ore used is, in part, hematite, brought from Berkshire County, Massachusetts, by rail; and in part magnetic, from Fort Montgomery, on the Hudson, eight miles southwest of West Point. This latter was worked previous to the war, (and the ore taken to England,) and re-opened three years ago. The ore is very rich— from 60 to 78 per cent-or nearly equal to the ore of the "Iron Mountain," at Lake Superior, and highly magnetic. The vein is easily traced for miles by the reflection of the needle. At the depth of one hundred feet, now reached, it is 50 feet in width, and increases as it goes down. The ore is gotten out, and the water pumped out by ingenious water-works, erected at a cost of $50,000, a stream having been turned from its channel for the purpose. Both the establishment at Hudson and the works at Fort Montgomery will richly repay a visit to one interested in American manufactures and invention.

SHIP-BUILDING IN BOSTON AND VICINITY IN 1855.

The Boston Journal published, near the close of December, its usual annual list of vessels, with their tonnage, which have been launched from the various shipyards in the vicinity of Boston during the year 1855; and also a table comparing the business of that with the previous year. The places included in the Journal's statement are East Boston, South Boston, Chelsea, and Charlestown. From the elaborate account in the Journal, we condense the following tables for the Merchants' Magazine. The first table, here subjoined, shows the number of vessels, and the aggregate tonnage, built at each place in 1854 and 1855:

Estimating this amount at $60 a ton, which we are told is a fair average price paid for ships during the year, the amount of the ship-building business in Boston and vicinity during the year 1855, is as follows:

Near the close of the year, in addition to the above, there were on the stocks, in the various stages of construction, 18 vessels, all but one, ships. Their aggregate tonnage, 20,390.

We were gratified to notice that DONALD MCKAY, the prince of ship-builders, gave the name of ABBOTT LAWRENCE to one of his ships, and that of AMOS LAWRENCE to another-names that will be had in remembrance when the ships that bear them shall experience the decay of time or the wreck of the tempest.

AMES'S SHOVEL MANUFACTORY.

The attention of people passing through State-street this forenoon, says a late number of the Boston Journal, was attracted by a splendid specimen of leather belting, from the establishment of Messrs. N. Hunt & Co., No. 26 Devonshirestreet. This belt was 125 feet long, 28 inches wide, double, and weighed between 600 and 700 pounds. Its cost is about $675. It is one of the largest belts ever made in this country, and was pronounced by those who are judges of the article to be one of the best manufactured belts they had ever seen. This is the second belt of the same size made for Messrs. O. Ames & Son, the celebrated manufacturers at North Easton, and is intended to run their eleven new trip-hammers which they are about to put into operation.

Speaking of Ames's shovel factory, reminds us of some authentic details we recently received respecting that establishment at North Easton which may prove interesting to our readers. Although the shovels of these celebrated manufacturers enjoy an almost world-wide fame, few probably are aware of the extent of the demand which exists for them, or of the number which they manufacture. The headquarters of the Messrs. Ames's establishment are at North Easton, but they have branches of their works at West Bridgewater, Canton, and Braintree, at which places they occupy 11 waterfalls, which turn 37 water-wheels, and operate 15 trip-hammers. At the establishments at West Bridgewater, Canton, and Braintree, the shovels are hammered and are thence taken to North Easton, where they are finished under the personal superintendence of the proprietors. They employ in all some 300 operatives, and use up 3 tons of the best Swedish and Russian iron, and 2 tons of the best of cast-steel, each day. At North Easton they have in all 11 workshops, 2 of which are built of rough stone, and are among the finest buildings of the kind in the country. The finishing-shop is 525 feet long, with an L 90 feet long. The other, which has just been erected, is 154 feet long by 70 feet wide, besides an L, which contains a splendid engine of 190 horse-power. The fly-wheel attached to this engine is 20 feet in diameter, and weighs over 9 tons. It is for this monster wheel that the belt exhibited in State-street to-day is intended, and with which the 11 ponderous trip-hammers are to be operated. In this building there are also 2 boilers, each 40 feet in length and 5 feet in diameter.

Probably very few of those who use one of Ames's shovels or spades have any idea of the various processes which they have to go through before they are ready for the market. It may seem a large story to say that 50 different sets of workmen are employed upon one shovel or spade. Still, it is literally true. Each one has a separate and distinct process to perform, and is taught that and no other. The operation is commenced with a piece of iron 10 or 12 inches long, 3 inches wide, and five-cighths of an inch thick, which is heated, placed beneath the trip-hammer, drawn out in the center, the ends lapped over, and the steel welded between them. Then follows the hammering, plating, smoothing, punching, shaping, opening the socket, filing the edges, hardening, setting, handling, rolling and setting the straps, wedging, polishing, shouldering, varnishing, inspecting, packing, and many others which we cannot recall.

Every shovel, after being drawn out by the trip-hammers, and shaped in the die, is hammered by hand, and submitted to the most severe test, to see that it is perfectly true. Nearly all of the above-named processes are performed by ma

chinery invented by the Messrs. Ames themselves. The handles of the shovels are of the best white ash, and come from Maine.

The business of shovel making was commenced in North Easton some fifty years ago, by Mr. Oliver Ames, who still lives in the enjoyment of a ripe old age, to see the work prosecuted by his children of the third generation, to an extent which, in the wildest flights of his imagination, he probably never dreamed of. He little thought that the day would come when, as the fruits of his labors and experiments to perfect this indispensable implement of agriculture, there would arise an establishment which would turn out over 200 dozen shovels and spades a day, and which, when the present contemplated enlargements are completed, will turn out over 300 dozen a day! Yet he has lived to see it, and to see it done by his own sons and grandsons.

Notwithstanding this large manufacture, we are assured that the Messrs. Ames are always far behind their orders. As illustrating the perfection to which their machinery is carried, we ought to have mentioned above, that there is a line of shafting running through the finishing-shop for about 500 feet, and yet so noiselessly does it work, that in a room through which it runs, and which is perfectly still, a person would not know that it was in motion.

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INCOMBUSTIBLE WOOD.

The process of rendering wood incombustible may be effectually performed by soaking it in a strong solution of alum and the sulphate of copper-about one pound of alum and one of the sulphate of copper being sufficient for one hundred gallons of water. These substances are dissolved in a quantity of hot water, then mixed with the water in the vessel in which the wood is to be steeped. The timber to be rendered fire-proof can be kept under the liquor by stones, or any other mode of sinking it. All that is required is a water-tight vessel of sufficient dimensions to hold enough of liquor to cover the timber, which should be allowed to steep four or five days. After this, it is taken out and suffered to dry thoroughly before being used.

GLASS-FACED AND GROOVED BRICKS.

Amongst the more recent inventions patented by manufacturers is that of Mr. Summerfield, at the glass works, Birmingham Heath, for what are termed chromatic glass, or glass-faced grooved bricks. By Mr. Summerfield's process, red or other clay can be combined with glass, and this will insure durability, entire resistance to moisture, and give an ornamental appearance to the building. The form of the brick is also, by means of a groove at the side and end, made so as to add greatly to the strength of the erection, the joints by this means being brought close together, and the mortar acts as a dowell from the shape of the groove.

ZINC PAINT.

It is estimated that one hundred pounds of white zinc paint will cover, when applied in three coats, on new work, as much surface as 166 lbs. of pure white lead. The white zincs, even when exposed to coal gas, bilge-water, and sulphurous vapors, retain their original brilliancy and whiteness. Apartments just painted with zinc paint may be slept in with impunity, whereas, according to the best authority, rooms should not be used for sleeping apartments for two or three months after being painted with lead.

SHOE TRADE OF LYNN.

The Lynn News, in publishing an article on Lynn, which forms one of our series of papers relating to the "Commercial and Industrial Towns of the United States," further states that shoes are sent from Lynn to Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, to be made; and a large number of expresses, running in all directions, find a great amount of business in carrying the stock and shoes out and back between the manufacturers and the workmen. Much of the prosperity and growth of other places is owing directly to the enterprise of Lynn The News thinks it would be safe to say that three-fifths of the boots and shoes sold by Lynn manufacturers, are bound and made out of the city.

BLEACHING POWDER-CHLORIDE OF LIME.

Bleaching powder is chloride of lime, and chloride of lime is bleaching powder, a preparation wholly unfit, in any state, to be put in the hold of any vessel with an assorted cargo. I called the attention of the public to this subject in a communication, under this head, published in the Courier and Enquirer of the 10th inst., in which I stated the substance of a letter which I had received from David Keazer, Esq., one of the owners of the ship China, dated October 6, 1853, in which he stated the damage to goods in that ship from seventy casks of bleaching powder (chloride of lime) taken in at Liverpool, April 5th. The vessel sailed on the 13th of that month, and arrived at Boston on the 1st of June. The casks appeared in good order when the vessel arrived, but on being moved fell to pieces, so affecting the men at work in the hold that some bled at the mouth, some at the nose; others vomited, and others were so faint that they were obliged to be helped out of the hold. A wind-sail of new Russia-duck, in a few hours, was completely spoiled in ventilating the hold of the vessel. In two days after this statement was published, a telegraphic dispatch from New Orleans announced that the ships Hudson and Espindola had arrived there from New York, with fourteen casks of bleaching powder, (chloride of lime,) and that eighty thousand dollars' worth of the cargoes of the two vessels had been destroyed by the chlorine gas from this bleaching powder, (chloride of lime.) The cause of the damage was imputed to the bad quality of the powder-the quality must have been very good to have had such powerful action on the cargoes, and was probably like that which came from Liverpool in the ship China. When the telegraphic account arrived here it was by some thought to be incorrect; but the New Orleans papers, since received, confirm fully the telegraphic report. We have been told by the president of one of the insurance companies that these are not the first cases; it is, therefore, high time that shipowners, underwriters, and merchants shipping valuable goods, liable to be injured by being stowed as cargo with chlorides, should be put on their guard against the great hazzard of such goods being stowed with bleaching powder. There are many kinds of hardware goods that receive injury from being put up in white paper, the rags for the making of which has been bleached by chloride of lime, (bleaching powder.) A large shipowner, to whom we mentioned the subject two weeks ago, expressed surprise when we informed him that bleaching powder was nothing less or more than chloride of lime and he then stated to us that he would give notice to his correspondents abroad not to receive any more bleaching powder on board of their vessels.

E. MERIAM.

MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES.

TRADE-ITS TRICKERIES AND ITS USAGES.

The Merchants' Magazine, as every attentive reader will have learned ere this, has advocated a high tone of mercantile morality and honor, and while under the control of its original projector, present editor and proprietor, ever will. It is with such views that we collect and arrange under our "Mercantile Miscellanies," such excerpts as the following, which we find in the Evening Bulletin of Philadelphia. It is an admirable piece of mercantile criticism, treating with no undue severity certain methods of obtaining customers, which should be discountenanced by all honorable men.

There is probably no branch of human affairs that has been more completely revolutionized within the last half century than trade. The increase of wealth and luxury, and the consequent augmentation of the wants of mankind-the great mechanical and scientific discoveries of the age, and the wonderful facilities for rapid and easy communication between remote parts, which have grown out of these discoveries--have all contributed materially towards bringing about this result. The supplying of necessities that were not dreamed of fifty years ago, now affords lucrative pursuits to thousands, while the sphere of operations of our local business men has been extended to an almost incredible degree. If the demands of society have increased, the supply to meet these requirements has also increased in a corresponding ratio, and competition has assumed an activity which would astonish some of the past generation of business men, could they re-enter the bustling arena of trade.

Men who would prosper must be industrious and stirring; the old-fashioned, slow-and-sure merchants are behind the age; they who were wont, in days gone by, to stay in their stores and counting-houses, and without any effort to make themselves and their wares known outside their immediate circle, wait patiently for their customers to come to them and purchase what they needed—would now find themselves laggards in the race for fortune. These slow-coaches suited the primitive times in which they plodded, but in these locomotive-days a different system is practiced, and men who would keep pace with their fellows, and with the age, must, we repeat, be active, energetic, and enterprising. Advertising is, of course, the great and effective medium of communication between the buyer and seller, but in several branches of business the employment of special agents to operate directly upon those whose custom it is desired to obtain, has become general. To point out certain abuses which have grown out of this system is the principal object of the present article.

We refer particularly to the class of individuals know familiarly as "borers " and "drummers." These persons, as is generally understood, make it their business to seek out customers for the houses with which they are connected, and by means of tactics peculiar with themselves strive to secure for their employers the patronage of the buyers thus sought. The system, when first introduced, was not a little reviled by houses that were opposed to what they conceived to be an illegitimate mode of doing business, but the habit has now become so general that