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The Philadelphia & Baltimore Central Railroad is now
under construction and will greatly add to the facilities for
transportation which this county already enjoys. It will
pass nearly through its central portion and connect with the
Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad at Stem-
mer's Run, near Baltimore city. It has the Chesapeake Bay
with numerous arms projecting inland, as its eastern tide-
water boundary.

Notwithstanding the rapid and substantial progress which
this county has made in its agriculture, demonstrating the
goodness of its soil, with all the advantages enumerated
above, yet its lands do not, in the main, sell for more than
fifty per cent as much as those of the same quality in the
northern and western States. This of course can only arise
from the want of a proper understanding of their value,
when a knowledge of this shall be diffused, the lands of
this county will be sought for, and great enhancement in
price must necessarily result; with quiet and just govern-
ment the future of this county is full of promise.

It has fine water power, widely diffused, and some of the most
valuable minerals and ores, amongst which its iron ore of sev-
eral excellent varieties, chrome, asbestos and porcelain clay,
stand preeminent. Its building brick clay is also of fine
quality and may be found almost in every part of the county.
To this may be added for building purposes some good va-
rieties of marble, limestone, granite, &c.

Its waters abound in the finest varities of wild ducks,
geese and swan, with most extensive shad and herring fish-
eries, long famous for the fine quality of their products, to-
gether with the almost innumerable varieties of fish common
to the Chesapeake Bay.

Its population are intelligent, well educated, energetic and
industrous, and possess all the social characteristics which
have been prominent in the character of our State.

BALTIMORE COUNTY.

This is one of the largest and the most important of all the
civil divisions of the State, whether we regard its wealth, its
population, the amount of its water power, the number, va-
riety and extent of its manufacturing establishments or the
great value and variety of the raw mineral material found
within its borders. It is bounded on the north by Pennsyl-
vania, on the south by the Chesapeake Bay and the Patapsco
river which separates it from Anne Arundel county, on the
east by Gunpowder river and Harford county, and on the
west by Carroll county and the Patapsco river, which sepa-
rates it from Howard county. It contains about four hund-
red and four thousand (404,000) acres of land.
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