The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-03 00:00:00

fled till the great name of the American Minister
at St. James's suggests itself. The question is a
difficult one, and in scanning the whole field of pos-
sibility we at present see but a single satisfactory
reply, and that is conveyed by the name
of Charles Francis Adams. But the one reply
is sufficient. Accidents excepted, we need look
no further. There is no living American who
can be pronounced, all things considered, a more
eligible candidate for the Presidency than our pre-
sent Minister to London ; there is none who in
every particular comes up to the standard of his
qualifications. Universally respected abroad as well
as at home, a man of pure life and of chivalrous
nature, of courtly manners and of masculine intel-
lect, a New Englander and yet no sectionalist, he
unites in a rare and perhaps an unequalled degree
the parts which our exigency and our late experi-
ence so strongly indicate as suitable for the presi-
dential chair. Not without a certain dignified re-
serve, which even assumes at times a slight air of
austerity, there is that about Mr. Adams as he ad-
vances in life which, by reminding the observer of
Washington, confirms in his mind the propriety of
such a choice. To dwell upon the singular merits
which are patent and fully appreciated not by our-
selves alone but in the mother country—where no
American Minister has ever been more respected,
while certainly none has been placed in such trying
situations—is perhaps superfluous ; but it will be,
we are persuaded, an auspicious day for America
when that honoured name can be inscribed for a
third time upon the list of her rulers ; when the
memory of that pure patriot, who stood second to
Washington and succeeded him, may be revived in
the same lofty station by the exaltation of his illus-
trious representative and descendant.

From the same journal we extract the following
on the coal fields of America :—" Among a series of
reports which have been made to the British Go-
vernment by our secretaries of embassy and lega-
tion abroad, respecting the supply of coal, is one
which has been read with interest by those of our
public men who are concerned in this vital question
—sent by Mr. J. Hume Burnley, from Washington,
on the product of the coal mines in the United
States. Much of this is derived from authorities
with whom American readers are familiar, and it
would be idle for me to repeat the information, yet
some notion of the view put before English poli-
ticians may not be without value. Professor Rogers,
in a work on the coal fields of the United States, as
compared with those of Europe, calculates that the
United States has one square mile of coal field to
every fifteen square miles of territory; Great
Britain one to every thirty of surface; Belgium one
to every twenty-two and a half ; and France one to
every two hundred miles of surface. 'I he relative
superficial magnitudes, he observes, of the coal fields
of the countries possessing coal will be recognised,
if we compare them by some simple unit of mea-
sure. Let this be 100 square miles. In this case,
says Mr. Burnley :
Russia will be represented by
- Spain • • 2
Anthracite fields of Pennsylvania 4
Westphalia and Bohemia

Belgium 5
France .. • • lO
Rhenish Prussia • ••• 10
British Provinces of North America ......... 17
British Islands 4O
Europe
Pennsylvania
Appalachian coal fields

The entire coal fields of the United 5tate5...2,200
Whichever way the above figures are taken they
clearly represent the enormous coal-producing power
of the United States, and the vast wealth of mine-
rals it possesses. ➢lr. Burnley assures our Govern-
ment that nearly all American coal is of excellent
quality."

Several appalling murders and some wholesale
massacres have been perpetrated by the Indians,
who seem now to have been aroused to unusual
activity. More than 300 white emigrants have been
murdered on the Powder river route to Montana,
and the Smoky Valley route to Colerado and
Nevada, since the Ist of September. From
Texas and New Mexico, indeed from the frontier
of Mexico to the Hudson's Bay Territory, come
stories whose horrors are beginning to rouse na-
tional attention, and are likely to bring on the
Indians a fearful retaliation. The very rifles pre-
sented by the Peace Commissioners are used by the
Indians to shoot down white emigrants. The treat-
ment inflicted on some women will be remembered
against the Indians when the day of reckoning
comes.

A new " White House" is to be built on Four-
teenth-street, in Washington. The President has
selected the site.

The New York Board of Education estimate the
cost of public instruction in the schools of that city,
for the ensuing year, at $2,522,000. This includes
all expenses. There are 260 public schools in New
York city, giving employment to 2,629 teachers,
and instruction to 223,210 scholars. The salaries
of teachers range from $3,000 to $450 a year.
THE PENNSYLVANIA Exc URSION. —The party of
Congressmen and others accompanying Mr. Wells,
the Revenue Commissioner, in a special excursion
through the more interesting coal and iron and
manufacturing regions of Pennsylvania, left Phila-
delphia early on Monday morning, and intends.' to
be absent all the week, and to go as far west as
Pittsburg before returning. Among the members
of Congress in the party are Messrs. Hooper and
Dawes of Pa., Senator Foster of Connecticut,
Lynch of Maine, Hurlburd and Hale of New York,
beside several Pennsylvania and western members.
Of the other gentlemen are Mr. Ashmun, Mr.
George Walker, and Mr. Bowles of Boston, ex-
Governor Hawley of Connecticut,Mr. W. Hepworth
Dixon of the London Athenaeum, Mr. Edward
Atkinson, Mr. Stockwell of the Journal, and Mr.
W. IV. Greenough of Boston, Mr. Carey and Mr.
M'Michael of Philadelphia making in all a com-
pany of about 50. They travel by special trains,
the guests of the several railroads, and are going
through the. Schuylkill, Lehigh, Lebanon, and
Juniata valleys, and to Reading, Harrisburg,
Altoona, and Pittsburg, stopping at all the inte-
resting points by the way. With good weather, it
was likely to prove a very delightful, as it surely
must be, under such circumstances, a very instruc-
tive, week of travel.

The Republican majority in Pennsylvania is about
16,000 ; in Indiana, 14,000, being less than at first
supposed. In the Pennsylvania Legislature the Re
'publicans have a majority of 35 on joint ballot, which
secures a United States Senator in place of Cowan.
The Republicans carried Nebraska by from 600 to
700 in a total vote of 10,000. Territorial and State
officers, and delegates, and representatives to Con-
gress are Radicals, so when the territory is admitted
as a State the majority in Congress will be increased.
The territorial officers chosen were John Gillespie,
auditor ; Augustus Kountze, treasurer; and R. S.
Knox, librarian. T. M. Marquette was chosen de-
legate, and Major John Taffe representative to the
40th Congress. The only remaining election to be
held in October was in West Virginia, on the 25th,
when a governor and Congressmen were to be
chosen ; but on the first Tuesday of November
comes the elections in Massachusetts, New York,
Illinois, and many other of the principal Northern
States. The greatest interest is felt in New York,
as being the largest State, and also the one where there
is the most doubt. But the Republicans there seem
to be waking up to the magnitude of the issue, and
the chances are strongly in favour of their car-
rying the State, re-electing Governor Fenton, and
returning a majority of the Congressmen. There
was a large Republican mass meeting at New
York, addressed by Senator Wilson, Ex-Vice-
President Hamlin, and others. Mr. Raymond, of
the Times, dropping " my policy" party, has con-
s?nted to speak for the Republicans.
A column of grasshoppers 150 miles wide and 100
deep is sweeping across Kansas. Where they go
they leave the vegetation only in skeletons. A
detachment that went to Salt Lake was completely
devoured by myriads of white birds, which the Mor-
mons declare to have been due to Brigham Young's
miraculous power.
The London correspondent of the Chicago Tribune
writes as follows, about Mr. Walter's visit to
America :—" The chief proprietor of the Times
newspaper is, by the time this letter arrives at its
destination, a traveller in the United States. Mr.