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THE

AMERICAN ALMANAC

AND

REPOSITORY

OF

USEFUL KNOWLEDGE,

FOR THE YEAR

1854.

BOSTON:

PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, AND COMPANY.

LONDON:

SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND COMPANY.

PARIS:

HECTOR BOSSANGE.

1854.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by

GEORGE P. SANGER,

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

CAMBRIDGE:
METCALF AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.

PREFACE.

THE twenty-fifth volume of the American Almanac, being the fifth volume of the third series, is now offered to the public. Unwearied pains has been taken to collect full, authentic, and varied information concerning the complex affairs of the general and State governments; and a mass of official documents and private correspondence has been digested relating to the government, finances, legislation, public institutions, internal improvements, and resources of the United States, and of the several States. It is hoped that the present volume will be found equal to its predecessors in fulness and accuracy, and that it will sustain the high character of the American Almanac as a trustworthy manual for reference and a full repository of useful knowledge.

The Astronomical Department has been prepared by Lieut. Charles Henry Davis, U. S. N., Superintendent of the American Nautical Almanac. The article upon "Atmospherical Electricity," with its full details, will be found to be instructive and useful.

In the Second Part of the volume will be found full lists of the Executive and Judiciary of the General Government, including the chief officers and clerks of the several Departments; of Collectors of Customs, of Postmasters in the principal cities, of Army and Navy Pension Agents, and of the Indian Superintendents and Agents; of the Inspectors of Steamboats and their Districts; of the Army, and the various Military Departments and Posts under the new organization; of the Navy, the public vessels, and the Marine Corps; of our Ministers and Consuls in Foreign Countries, and of Foreign Consuls in the United States. These have all been corrected from official sources to the latest dates possible for publication. Later changes are noted in the "Additions and Corrections," at the end of the volume. The titles Commerce and Navigation, and Revenue and Expenditure, published each year in the Almanac, are full and complete abstracts of the public documents of the same name, and the tables connected therewith, and with the Post-Office, Mint, and Public Lands, show the receipts and expenditures of the Government under their several heads, the public debt, the imports, exports, tonnage, coinage, sales of land, and the operations of the Post-Office Department, for each year since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. The exports for the last four years are given in detail. The rates of postage are under the new laws, and these, with the inland and foreign mail service, are believed to be complete and correct. The Seventh Census of the United States not yet having been printed, it has been found impossible to obtain full or authentic returns of the matters embraced therein. For obvious reasons the most authentic source of information is the official publication, and it is better to give in one of our volumes a complete abstract of the census from the official copy, than to publish portions of it from year to year in separate volumes from unofficial

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