Article titled "Commercial Resources of Africa" published in the Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, January 1851

Commercial Resources of Africa We have been much interested in looking at an article found in Dr. Bow’s Review published in New Orleans, on the productions of Africa and the advantages to be derived from a direct trade between the United States and the coast. The writer refers to the successful experiments made by the English, the Danes, the French, and the Dutch. He thus notices the vegetable and mineral products of that county: -- The mineral kingdom has not been explored, but enough is known to show that the precious metals abound, particularly gold. This is found throughout the known regions of Africa in beds of rivers and in mines. Dupuis and Bowditch speak of the ‘solid lumps of rock gold’ which ornament the persons of the attendants in the court of the King of Ashantee at Coomassie. Mrs. Bowditch says the great men will frequently on state occasions, so load their wrists with these lumps that they are obliged to support them on the head of a boy. The iron ore found near Sierra Leone is particularly rich, yielding seventy-nine per cent, and is said to be well adapted to making steel. Copper is so abundant in Mayomba that they gather from the surface of the ground enough for their purposes. A few words on the productiveness of the soil. It has been proved that two crops of corn, sweet potatoes and several other vegetables can be and are raised in a year. They yield a larger crop than the best soils in America. One acre of rich land, well tilled says Governor Ashmun, will produce three hundred dollars worth of indigo. Half an acre may be made to grow half a ton of arrowroot. Four acres laid out in coffee plants will after the third year produce a clear income of two or three hundred dollars. Half an acre of cotton trees, yielding cotton of an equal, if not superior, length and strength of staple and fineness and color than fair “Orleans” will clothe a whole family, and one acre of canes will make the same number independent of all the world for sugar. The dyes in particular are found to resist both acids and light, properties which no other dyes that we know of possess. The trade already carried on, is referred to in the following paragraph: In the year 1840, 39 British vessels arrived at Cape Coast. Since that time the trade has been gradually improving. The last