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OF

USEFUL KNOW

FOR THE YE

1847.

BOSTON:

PUBLISHED BY JAMES M

1846.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846,

BY FRANCIS BOWEN,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

BOSTON:

PRINTED BY S. N. DICKINSON & co.

WASHINGTON STREET.

PREFACE.

THE American Almanac has now been published for eighteen years, and great pains have been taken to cause the work to deserve its reputation as a trustworthy manual for reference, and a full repository of information respecting the finances, statistics, legislation, public institutions, and internal improvements of the United States. The editors have endeavored to make it a full contemporaneous record of the government and the progress of the country, condensing into the smallest space the information afforded by official documents and by numerous correspondents in all the States of the Union.

The astronomical calculations have been made, as usual, by Professor Peirce, who has also added to the work a chronological and systematic catalogue of all the comets of which the orbits have ever been computed, referring the longitudes to the mean equinox of January 1, 1850. This catalogue is unique, and will be found to be of great use to astronomical observers and computers. An interesting account of the Observatory of Paris, recently published by M. Arago, has been translated for this work, as it affords valuable hints for the conduct of the new American observatories, and gives an eloquent and striking sketch of the results that may be expected from the use of improved instruments in these establishments.

In another part of the volume will be found the new tariffs of duties established in 1846, both in England and the United States, digested and alphabetically arranged, followed by an abstract of the law establishing a warehousing system in this country. The general abstract of all the public laws passed by Congress is continued, as in former years; the outlines of the sub-treasury system and of the law creating the Smithsonian Institution are contained in this article. A tabular view is given of all the railroads in this country and in England, which contains more information on this subject than has ever been brought together before. A comparative view of the debts, property, and general financial condition of all the States has been made out with great care from the latest returns. As a census has been taken, and manufacturing and agricultural statistics have been collected, during the past year in several of the States, a good deal of novel and interesting information of this character has been gathered and inserted in this

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