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 and that the supplies of minerals appear to be nearly unlimited.

The material welfare of the country, however, is largely dependent upon the means adopted for turning its resources to the best account, at the same time that the calls made upon human labour are reduced as far as practicable.

The attention paid to the working of wood, some details connected with which I have included in the report, is a striking illustration of this. The early settlers found in the forests which they had to clear, an unlimited supply of material, which necessity compelled them to employ in every possible way, in the construction of their houses, their furniture, and domestic utensils, in their implements of labour, and in their log-paved roads.

Wood thus became with them a universal material, and work-people being scarce, machinery was introduced as far as possible to supply the want of hands. The character thus given to one branch of manufactures has gradually extended to others. Applied to stone-dressing, for example; one man in enabled, as I have shown, to perform as much work as twenty masons by hand. So great again are the improvements effected in spinning machinery, that one man can attend to a mule containing 1,088 spindles, each spinning three hanks, or 3,264