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Rh Minerals. —The chief minerals found in the State are coal, iron, copper, zinc, lead, and manganese. Of coal the output was 494,491 tons in 1880 and 1,100,000 tons in 1885; in the latter year there were also 268,400 tons of coke. In 1880 there were produced 89,933 tons of iron ore (326,040 tons in 1885), 153,880 Ib of copper ingots, and 792,621 cubic feet of marble and limestone. Of zinc 17,415 tons were produced in 1884. Besides the minerals already mentioned, Tennessee yields millstone grit, hydraulic rock, barytes, fire-clay, gold, and petroleum.

Manufactures. —Since 1875 the manufacturing industries of the State have grown immensely. From 1880 to 1885 the number of establishments increased from 4326 to 4425, the capital invested from $20,092,845 to $40,763,650, and the value of the manufactured products from $37,074,886 to $75,216,211. In 1880 cotton was manufactured in the State to the value of $934,014 (in 1885 to $2,719,768), carriages and waggons $1,253,721, flour and grist mill products $10,784,804, foundry and machine-shop products $1,191,531, iron and steel $2,274,203, leather $2,051,087, lumber $4,015,310, and cotton-seed oil, cotton seed, and cake to the value of $1,235,000.}}

Population. —The population of the State, which in 1860 was 1,109,801 and in 1870 1,258,520, was in 1880 1,542,359 (males 769,277, females 773,082). Of this last total 403,151 were Negroes. In 1887 the total population was estimated to number about 1,800,000, giving a density of 43 inhabitants to the square mile, as against 36.9 in 1880. The growth of the principal cities is shown by the following table: —

The considerable decline in the population of Memphis is accounted for by two epidemics of yellow fever in 1878 and 1879 (see ). Chattanooga is still increasing at a very rapid rate in consequence of the vast development of the mineral resources of east Tennessee. Knoxville is also growing from the same cause, but not so rapidly as Chattanooga.

Education. —Provision for common school education was made before the Civil War, but was limited to white children. A State bank was established for the purpose of regulating the currency, and a portion of its capital was reserved as a school fund; its profits were also to be used for school purposes. The fund on which interest is now paid is $2,512,500. A bill is now (1887) before the State legislature to increase the permanent State fund to $5,000,000. Besides this, the proceeds of a tax of 15 per cent. on property and a poll tax of $1 per annum are applied to the same purpose. Moreover, each county has the power of imposing a school tax on its people, and many incorporate cities and towns add still further to it by special taxes within their limits. All children between six and twenty-one (eighteen until 1885) are entitled to free education in the public schools. In 1875 the school population numbered 426,612, of whom there were 199,058 pupils enrolled. In 1886 the corresponding figures were 609,028 and 373,877, and in 1887 623,450 and 383,537. Besides the common schools numerous private schools exist. Higher education is provided for in several institutions, such as Vanderbilt university (Methodist) at Nashville, the university of the South (Episcopalian) at Sewanee or Cumberland Mountain, the south-western Presbyterian university at Clarksville, and others; the university of Tennessee at Knoxville is supported by State grants, and is not under the direction of any one denomination. Many smaller establishments entitled universities exist in various parts of the State.

Administration &c. —The legislative and executive functions of government are carried on by a governor, a State senate, and a house of representatives, whose respective duties and prerogatives correspond almost exactly to those of the president, senate, and representatives of the United States. Both the senators (33) and the representatives (99) are elected for two years. The president of the senate, who is elected by the senators, succeeds as governor in case of the death of the elected governor during his term of office. The governor has the power of veto on the Acts of the legislature. In case of its exercise, the Act is returned to the legislature, when, if it passes by a constitutional majority in both houses, it becomes law in spite of the veto.

The judiciary administration is earned on by courts of four designations,—the county criminal courts, the circuit courts, the chancery courts, and the supreme court of the State. The county courts consist of the magistrates, who assemble at the county seat four times a year to transact county business. They elect a chairman out of their own body, who by virtue of such election becomes the financial agent of the county. In counties large enough to justify it, a county judge is elected, who exercises criminal jurisdiction. There are fourteen circuit courts, each having jurisdiction in several counties; in these all common-law cases are adjudicated, except in those counties where there is a criminal judge. There are eleven chancery divisions, for each of which a chancellor is elected, who tries all cases in equity in his division. All these judges are elected for eight years. The judges of the supreme court, five in number, are elected by the people at large, but not more than two can be taken from any one of three divisions of the State, viz., the eastern, middle, and western. Their jurisdiction is purely appellate: they revise the decisions of the other courts, and their decisions are final, except where a question arises as to the interpretation of the United States constitution.

History. —At the time of its first settlement and occupation by Europeans Tennessee was part of the territory granted to the colony of North Carolina by Charles II. It was then, however, a hypothetical claim, the boundaries of which were chiefly determined by 36° 30' and 35° N. lat. The eastern boundary of North Carolina was the Atlantic Ocean; on the other side the western territory extended according to one theory to the Mississippi, according to another theory to the Pacific Ocean. When the English settlers began to cross the Appalachian chain, they found the French established on the Mississippi and its tributaries,—the Ohio, the Tennessee, and the Cumberland. The Spanish claim of an indefinite extension of their possessions in Florida was also a constant menace to the advances of the earliest English colonists in the direction of South Carolina and Georgia. The most important effort of transmontane colonization by the British prior to 1760 was the establishment of Fort Loudon on the Little Tennessee river in 1756 or 1757. But in 1760 this post was captured by the Cherokees and its garrison massacred; and the same fate befell a number of colonists who had settled between Fort Chissel (on New River, Virginia) and Fort Loudon. Early in 1761 Colonel Grant completely routed the Cherokees and compelled their French and Spanish allies to withdraw to Louisiana and Georgia.

Eight years later the stream of emigration began to set westwards, mainly by two routes, of which one led through Cumberland Gap to the valley of the Cumberland river, whilst the other followed the course of the Tennessee round the southern border of the Cumberland plateau into the western Tennessee valley. A body of emigrants from Virginia settled on the banks of the river Holston, in what is now Hawkins county, and formed the nucleus of a rapidly increasing colony, which was mainly recruited from Virginia and North Carolina. The chief settlements were on the Watauga river, extending thence to the Nolichucky, both tributaries of the Tennessee. The colonists adopted a code of laws for themselves based upon those of Virginia, and entrusted their execution to a bench of five magistrates. Their first trouble related to the title to their lands. They supposed themselves to be settling in Virginia; but they were really in North Carolina, and therefore outside of the territory which had been ceded to the British crown by the six nations of Indians. A further obstacle was a royal proclamation dated nine years before forbidding private persons to purchase titles from the Indians. Though the Cherokees had no longer fixed habitation in the country, they still claimed the whole valley for hunting grounds. The dilemma was solved by a lease negotiated for eight years. The next difficulty arose with the British Government in alliance with the hostile Indians. But out of these troubles the colonies on the Watauga, Holston, and Nolichucky emerged as a populous and powerful community.

When it was proposed to liquidate the debts incurred by both the States and the Federal Government for war expenses by the sale of public lands, an Act of Cession was passed in 1784 by the North Carolina legislature ceding their lands west of the mountains, including those of the Watauga settlers, to the Federal Government. But in the following year the North Carolina legislature repealed the Act of Cession, and the whole matter was thus indefinitely postponed. The Watauga community now declared itself independent of North Carolina; that State had relinquished its sovereignty over them and the Federal Government had not accepted it. At this time the transmontane territory consisted of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene counties. It also embraced all the settlements on the Cumberland, comprising the existing counties of Davidson, Sumner, Montgomery, Robertson, and Williamson. Davidson county had been organized by the influence of James Robertson (one of the earliest arrivals from North Carolina, in 1769), who had moved to the site of the future city of Nashville. But Davidson county took no part in these proceedings. The State organized by the seceding counties in August 1784 was called the State of Franklin; its constituent counties returned to their allegiance to North Carolina on 1st March 1788. A second Act of Cession was passed in 1790, by which the defunct State of Franklin became part of the territory of the United States south of the Ohio, including what now constitutes Kentucky and Tennessee. The northern portion became a State, under the name of Kentucky, in 1792, and the southern portion took rank as the State of Tennessee in 1796, being received into the Union the same year. The settlement of middle Tennessee was much retarded so long as the path of access to it from east Tennessee was through Cumberland Gap and down the Ohio. The broader route round the south of the Cumberland plateau by the Tennessee river was too unsafe for general use on account of the