ect.
Their powers of dispassionate deliberation are lost, and everything is
forgotten but the momentary excitement."

_25th. Commercial View of Copper Mine Question_.--M.M. Dox, Esq.,
Collector at Buffalo, writes:--

I have long had it in contemplation to write to you, not only on the
score of old friendship, but also to learn the feasibility of a scheme
relating to the copper mines of Lake Superior. This subject has so often
annoyed my meditations, or rather taken up so considerable a proportion
of them, that I have been disposed, with the poet, to exclaim--

'Visions of (copper [42]) spare my aching sight.'

[Footnote 42: "Glory."--_Gray_.]

"I have just met Mr. Griswold, from whom I learn that you made some
inquiries in reference to the price of transportation, &c. I will answer
them for him. Copper in pig, or unmanufactured, is free of duty, on
entry into the United States; its price in the New York market is, at
this time (very low), sixteen cents per pound. Copper in sheets for
sheeting of vessels (also free), about twenty-five cents per pound, and
brazier's copper (paying a duty of fifteen per cent, on its cost in
England), equal to about two and a half cents per pound. Until this
year, and a few previous, the article has uniformly been from thirty to
forty per cent, higher than the prices now quoted, that is, in time of
peace. In time of war (in Europe) the price is enhanced ten or twenty
per cent. above peace prices: and in this country, during the Late War,
the price was, at one time, as high as $1.50 to $2.00 per pound.

"The history of England and this country does not furnish a period when
copper was as low as at the present time, according to its relative
value with the medium of exchange. Time and invention have developed
richer mines and produced greater facilities for obtaining it; but the
world does not probably know a region from whence the article can be
furnished so cheaply as from the shores of Lake Superior. All accounts
concur in representing the metal in that quarter of a superior quality,
and furnish strong indications that it may be obtained, in quantities,
with more than ordinary facility. When obtained, if on the navigable
waters of the lake, the transportation to the strait will be easy and
cheap, and the smelting not cost to exceed $20 per ton (for copper), and
the transportation thence to New York one or one and a half cent per
pound; one cent per pound, in addition, will carry