LOSS OF LIFE AT SEA. RECORD OF LIVES LOST AT SEA AND AT WRECKS, REPORTED DURING MARCH, 1861. **The First Column refers to the Date of the New York Paper containing the Report FOREIGN COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. FROM OCTOBER 1, 1820, TO JULY, 1, 1860. * 9 months to June 30, and the fiscal year from this time begins July 1. RECAPITULATION OF FOREIGN COMMERCE OF NEW YORK AND THE U. S. FOR FIVE YEARS. Five years $1,102,800,901 Average five years $220,560,180 YEAR. EXPORTS STATE OF N. Y. OTHER STATES. TOTAL, UNITED STATES. 556,276,696 1,659,077,597 111,255,839 331,815,519 66.40 PER CENT. 1955-1856 $119,111,500 $207,858,408 $326,964,908 86.48 228,157,384 862,960,682 87.14 88.87 1858-1859 117,539,825 239,249,637 856,789,462 82.94 1859-1860 400,122,296 36.88 Statement showing the comparative losses on Ships and Freights and on Cargoes, during the year 1860. I. LOSSES ON SHIPS AND FREIGHTS. MONTHS. Ships. Steamers. Barks. Brigs. Schooners. Total. $677,000.. $26,500.. $319,200.. $95,000.. $60,600 ..$1,178,300 571,500.. 306,000 272,000 47,000. 98,500 1,295,000 Total,.. $5,878,000 $3,713,500 $2,029,950 $741,750 $961,800 $13,325,000 71,600 72,400 1,759,000 190,500 110,250 $545,800.. $38,000.. $867,500 ..$126,000.. $73,600.. $1,650,900 11,600 186,100 376,600.. 66,400 June, 542,000 19,000.. 71,000 56,200 158,500.. 43,500. 292,000.. 105,000 160,000.. 147,000.. 55,000. 66,000 35,000 96,000.. 859,000 Nov.,.. 525,000.. 613,000 187,500.. 27,900.. 63,500 1,416,900 72,800.. 1,300,500 Cargoes, $6,978,000 $3,379,300 $3,007,900 $895,600 $796,200 $15,057,000 Vessels, 1861. 5,878,000 3,713,500 2,029,950 741,750 961,800 13,325,000 $12,856,000 $7,092,800 $5,037,850 $1,637,350 $1,758,000 $28,382,000 Jan.,... $1,906,000..$ 309,000.. $419,500..$146,600..$150,000.. $2,931,100 1,137,500 427,200. 472,500.. 148,800.. 217,700. 2,403,700 1,152,800. 169,500. 528,200.. 350,300.. 505,800. 2,706,600 $4,196,300 $905,700 $1,420,200 $645,700 $873,500 $8,041,400 3,258,300 1,932,800 2,362,700 570,950 545,400 8,670,150 Cargoes, $ 9,904,160 $5,939,500 $2,438,100 $1,312,800 $958,860 $20,553,420 Vessels, 7,252,252 5,322,000 2,097,800 950,400 1,080,300 16,702,752 Year 1859. Total,.. $17,156,412 $ 11,261,500 $4,535,900 $2,263,200 $2,039,160 $37,256,172 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA AND ITS METEOROLOGY. COMMANDER MAURY has long been known by the practical, useful and comprehensive character of his nautical compilations and original writings. Assiduously laboring for many years, aided by scientific professors as well as by experienced practical men, he has done ample justice to the confidence and liberality of the United States. Successive editions of his Sailing Directions and Charts, in number many thousands, have been widely and well distributed, gratuitously, among those who are responsible for life at sea-whose business is on the ocean. We were informed, at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, that more than seven hundred quarto volumes and four thousand large charts have been thus dispersed among sea captains and instructors in maritime affairs, besides others in Great Britain and Ireland; while a proportionate number has been distributed in Holland, France, Portugal, Spain and Italy, above and beyond the much larger supply similarly granted to every United States ship of war, and to every merchantman willing to coöperate in observing. Not only has a great amount of available knowledge been thus circulated directly, but a spirit of observation, a habit of noting and comparing, has increased most advantageously during late years among officers at sea-indirectly consequent on the acquisition of such knowledge as it has been the object of Commander MAURY, as it was likewise of our own Admiral BEAUFORT, to collect, digest and diffuse. We refer especially to our late Admiralty Hydrographer, by whose sagacity, talent and perseverance all maritime nations have benefited very generally. After thus rendering special service to the maritime world, the various publications that have issued from the National Observatory at Washington have been submitted, by its indefatigable superintendent, to a process of elaborate selection and condensation, out of which, with much new matter, has resulted the present well-printed, clearly-arranged and most interesting, as well as useful, octavo volume. A careful perusal has shown us the necessity of noticing a few weak points-for some such, of course, there are-lest inexperienced persons should be led into occasional difficulties, even by so admirable a general guide. That a work essentially maritime should be heralded with the word "Geography" has occasioned doubt-a feeling which has soon yielded, however, to the reflections that the term includes all the world's surface, the greater part of which is covered by sea-and that it has the sanction of HUMBOLDT and HERSCHEL. In the almost overwhelming aggregation of ideas suggested by even a superficial glance through the table of contents, it is hard to eliminate the most striking, and to comment on those alone, briefly, without digressing into a string of essays. In truth, it is a text-book for many a long discourse. In the first chapter are explanations and illustrations of oceanic and atmospheric phenomena, as pleasant to read as worthy of their writers— one being the lamented Dr. BUIST. But in treating of the tides, some reference to the later researches and views of WHEWELL and HERSCHEL is desirable. A perusal of the article, "Physical Geography," in the |