quintupled during the last ten years of the war for independence (1816-26). The estimate in 1826, under Pres. Freire, was $1,736,823. In 1836, under Pres. Prieto, the revenues had augmented to $2,321,936; ten years later, in 1846, under Pres. Bulnes, to $3,741,672; and in the next decade, under Pres. Montt (1856), to $5,708,058. Since that epoch, on account of the introduction of railroads, the institution of banks (1855), the introduction of paper money (1878), the development of coal-mining on a large scale, and the cheapening of blasting materials for mines, the incomes have increased rapidly. In 1866 they amounted to $9,079,936; in 1877 to $16,830,000; and in 1882 to $39,008,219.

Public Debt.-The home and foreign debt of Chili (June 1, 1882) was as follows: Foreign debt (gold 48 pence to the dollar)

Home debt (gold 35 pence to the dollar, the present rate of exchange)..................................

Total....

Luriu strategically to the end of this month. They then undertook the assault of the formidable works, which were defended by 30,000 men and 200 cannon and protected Lima. On Jan. 17, 1881, they victoriously entered that capital, after having annihilated both the army and the fleet on the 13th and 15th in the bloody battles of San Juan, Chorillos, and Miraflores.

These three campaigns of Antofogasta, Tacna, and Lima brought about ten battles, besides several minor encounters, and cost the army and navy of Chili 10,000 men in killed and wounded. The total extinction of the military power of Peru should have produced immediate peace after the decisive battles which took place at Lima. But a generous policy on the part of Chili, and the unreasonable and unwarranted interference of outside parties, caused the war to be prolonged, $34,870,000.00 Chili, without bettering in the least the condition of the thus imposing heavy expense of money and life on 36,546,384.85 allies. In 1883, Bolivia conceded the Chilian claims to $91,416,384.85 the full. In July of that year Chili gained important The circulating capital of Chili, as represented in of Peruvians, and in the same month a final cessation military successes over certain irregular armed bodies 1882 by the principal banks, was as follows: of hostilities was announced. The treaty of peace with Peru was ratified and exchanged in March, 1884. In April of the same year a truce was concluded with Bolivia. Thus the Pacific war has come to a close. (B. V. M.) CHILLICOTHE, the county-seat of Livingston co., Mo., is finely situated on a high prairie near the Grand River, and at the junction of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad with the Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railroad, 136 miles W. of Quincy, Ill., and 76 miles E. of St. Joseph. It has a fine city-hall, four hotels, two banks, two daily and three weekly newspapers, nine churches, a public school whose building cost $35,000, and a Catholic convent and school. The industries comprise three flour-mills, a foundry, a broomfactory, tobacco-factory, etc. It was settled in 1837, and is incorporated as a city. Coal is found in the vicinity. The population numbers 4078.

Banks.

Valparaiso
National.
Alianza..

Agricola...
Concepcion..

Consolidado..

Mobilario.

Union

Matte & Co

Year of

organization.

Nominal capital subscribed

Available capital.

Capital Reserve
paid in. fund.

Total.

1856 20,500,000 5,125,000 600,000 5,725,000
1865 16,000,000 4,000,000 500,000 4,500,000

1868 1,593,600 1,593,600 22,500 1,616,100|
1871 1,000,000 400,000 50,600 450,600
1,195,000
231,500

1870

1,125,000 70,000

1873

500,000

216,500 15,000

1,500,000 250,000

1,750,000

1,000,000

A. Edwards & Co... 1867

Melipilla..

Total.

1875

1878

1,000,000 60,000 60,000 3,200 63,200 39,653,600 15,020,100 1,511,300 16,531,400

There are also numerous credit, industrial, and mining companies, etc. One of these, the Lota Coal-mining Company, has an annual net profit of $900,000. There are also a loan association and a hypothecating bank, which have made loans of many millions to the landowners and renters.

History since 1876.-The administration of Pres. Anibal Pinto is chiefly notable for the war into which the country was drawn in 1879 in consequence of a secret treaty made between Peru and Bolivia in 1873. In this long war Chili received no defeats, and gained a prestige which has placed the country, along with the Argentine Republic, at the head of all the SpanishAmerican countries. The Bolivian port of Antofogasta was occupied Feb. 14, 1879, and some skirmishers were dispersed in a slight engagement at Calama, on the banks of the Loa, on the 23d of the following March. A maritime war was begun, but was without decisive results until the capture of the famous Peruvian ironclad Huascar, Oct. 8th of the same year. The ocean thus freed from the enemy's vessels, 10,000 Chilian soldiers were landed at Pisagua, a port of Tarapacá, Nov. 2, 1879, and in the battle of San Francisco one; half of this force overthrew the allied Peruvian and Bolivian army of 11,000 men. From that day Chili has remained in undisturbed possession of the rich and desirable territory as far north as the Camarones River. After these victories the operations of the army were retarded by hopes of peace, but it became necessary to undertake a second campaign against the provinces of Moquegua and Tacna, which resulted in the bloody battle of Tacna, in which the allies were again defeated, May 26, 1880. The port of Arica was taken by assault on the 7th of the following June; and, although it would have been easy to carry the victory into unarmed and panic-stricken Lima, new negotiations of peace were entered upon, which protracted the campaign through eight months more. At the end of December, 1880, 25,000 Chilians set sail in three divisions from Arica. They occupied the valley of the

CHILLICOTHE, a city, the county-seat of Ross See Vol. V. Co., O., finely situated between the Scioto p. 543 Am. River and Paint Creek, 45 miles south of ed. (p. 624 Columbus. It is on the Ohio and Erie Edin. ed.). Canal, and on three railways-the Cincinnati, Washington, and Baltimore, the Scioto Valley, and the Toledo, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Railroad. It is handsomely and regularly laid out, with macadamized and well-shaded streets. It has a fine stone court-house, a handsome city-hall, an admirable system of public schools, public gas and water-works, three national banks (aggregate capital $750,000), five weekly papers (one German), fifteen churches, and a very active trade. There are five roller-process flourmills, three large tanneries, extensive planing-mills, paper-mills, railway-shops, a foundry and machineworks, three carriage-factories, two breweries, a shoefactory, and also manufactories of sewing-machines, household utensils, etc. The valuation (one-third of market value) of real property is $2,975.260. There is no city debt. Near the city is a large and beautiful cemetery. Chillicothe was founded in 1796 by Gen. Nathaniel Massie. It was the capital of the Northwest Territory 1800-03, and capital of the State of Ohio, 1803-10, and again 1812-17. Population, 10,938.

CHILLON, a castle and former state prison of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, built on a rock in the Lake of Geneva, near its eastern end, and six miles south-east of Vevay. A wooden drawbridge connects it with the shore. Amadeus IV. of Savoy is said to have built it in 1238, but some authors say, with probable truth, that it was built as early as 1120. Bonnivard, "the prisoner of Chillon," was here confined six years (1530-36) by Charles III., duke of Savoy, surnamed the Good." Chillon was strengthened and made a fortress by Peter of Savoy ("the Little Charlemagne ") in 1248. After its capture and plunder by the Bernese, in 1536, and the liberation of Bonnivard,

it became the residence of the grand-bailiff of the | supersede entirely the open hearth-fire among the canton. It was a state prison 1733-98, and during the present century it has been used as a cantonal magazine for army stores and as a military prison. The story, made famous by Byron, that Bonnivard was here chained to a pillar is entirely without evidence, though pillar, chain, and the track of the prisoner worn in the stone floor are still shown to tourists.

peasantry and small farmers until a very recent time. At the close of last century the earlier arrangement was still to be found in parts of England, and still later in the Orkneys and Shetlands. Even in England chimneys were not common before the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century.

The invention of the chimney brought about a social revolution in the direction of deepening the distinction between master and man, between rich and poor. It made the intercourse between them less constant and more formal than when all sat by one fire, ate at one table, and slept, if not in one room, at least in recesses from that one room. It deprived the lower classes of much that had been refining in the intercourse of the common hall, and left them to their own mental and social resources. But it made the privacy and refinement of the life of the true family, as distinguished from the larger and more artificial group of the old hall, possible to a degree not before thought of. It led to breaking up the hall into a large number of smaller rooms on different stories, each of which had its separate use. It led to the substitution of windows in the walls for lighting apertures in the roof. In fine, it transformed the old hall, where a large group lived almost or altogether in one large room, into the modern home of the modern family.

CHIMNEY (Old French cheminée, from Latin caminus, "a fireplace") is a passage or funnel for the creation of a draught to carry off smoke and other offensive products of combustion from a fireplace. The ancients had no chimneys in their houses. Their living-rooms were heated by either a charcoal brazier, like that still used in the South of Europe, or by an expensive arrangement of hot-air tubes which conveyed the heat from the fire into an adjoining room, or by an open hearth-fire, whose smoke was diffused through the room. We find Vitruvius warning his readers against placing carvings in wood in a room that contains a fire, for the reason that the smoke will ruin them. The last method of heating, therefore, was the most usual, and it is said to have given its name to the Roman atrium, or hall ("black room"). The houses of the earlier Middle Ages-the English hall, the Old Scandinavian skali, the Old German sal, the Old French salle-all seem to have been heated by the open hearth-fire placed at the middle of the room, The principle of the chimney is simple. A column. from which the smoke rose freely to the lofty and open of heated air is lighter than a similar column of cooler space under the roof, whence it escaped in part through air. Other conditions being the same, a high chimney openings made for that purpose, and also for the pur-will have a better draught than a low one. A straight pose of illumination. These openings were closed by a flue will draw better than a tortuous one. By pinchshutter in bad weather. ing or contracting any part of a flue we can obviously intensify the speed of the ascending draught of air at the point of contraction. In this way Count Rumford cured hundreds of smoky chimneys-by making the throat of the flue small, and thus making the draught at that point so strong that downward blasts of wind failed to overcome it. Chimneys frequently smoke because they are overtopped by neighboring buildings, which at times deflect the wind and drive it down their flues. The most obvious cure for such chimneys is to build them higher. Defective ventilation in a room will sometimes compel chimneys to smoke, since a draught is thereby rendered impossible. It is found in practice that it is better to have the air enter a room from a point opposite the fireplace; for if it came in beside the fireplace there may be generated such a strong circulation of air-currents about the room as at times greatly to enfeeble the chimney-draught. great variety of cowls and chimney-tops have been devised for curing smoky flues, but most of them are worthless. Espy's is the best, and works admirably.

A

The first approach to a chimney was forced upon the residents of some parts of Northern Europe by the scarcity of fuel. The open hearth-fire was exceedingly wasteful in this respect, while it promoted sociability by its cheerful glow and kept up a certain democratic equality among all the dwellers in the house by their use of a common fireplace. Around it the old sagas and romantic tales were told, and the traditional songs of the Northern people were sung, long before the means and the knowledge necessary to commit either to writing were in possession of our forefathers. In the absence of any plan for ventilation, the antiseptic properties of the smoke served a useful purpose. But in regions not heavily wooded the consumption of fuel was exhaustive of the supply. The communities which dwelt on the sea-coast and lived by fishing would be the first to feel this, and to look about for some fuel-saving device. The first they hit upon shows that it was not the inconvenience from the smoke which suggested the change. It was a structure of rude masonry, not unlike an old-fashioned "Dutch oven,' ," in which the fire There are chimneys which rank among the loftiest was placed on an elevated hearth, while the smoke structures in the world. One at Port Dundas, Glasescaped into the room, as before, through an opening gow, is 454 feet high, or 458 feet above the foundation. in the top. By this arrangement the heat was econo- At Manchester, England, there is a chimney 415 feet mized through the whole structure being heated when high. A celebrated chimney-stack at Lochee, near the fire was first started, and its continuing to radiate Dundee, is in the campanile style, built of parti-colored this heat after the fire had been extinguished. The brick and stone; it is 282 feet high. Wrought-iron earliest mention of this device is in the saga which con- chimneys are often built, but unless well lined with tains the history of Olaf Kyrre, a king of Norway brick they are faulty, since their contained air cools contemporary with William the Conqueror in Eng-off too readily. Where wood or soft coal is burned, land. The next step was to lengthen the aperture at the top of this structure until it reached the opening in the roof, and thus to secure a complete escape of the smoke and a measure of safety from the danger of firing the house. When or where this improvement was first made we have no exact information; it seems most likely that it was effected in France about the year 1170. The terms used to designate the new invention are French, not only in Normanized England, but throughout the North of Europe. The oldest instances of chimneys approaching the modern form are in France, and date from the last quarter of the twelfth century. Although the invention seems to have spread with some rapidity among the wealthy classes in Northern Europe and in the cities, it did not

soot collects rapidly in narrow or tortuous flues. For the removal of this substance machines have been invented, and these have to a great extent superseded the labors of the old-time chimney sweeps.

be found in Prof. Troels Lund's work Das Tägliche Leben A good account of the development of the house will in Skandinavien während des Sechzehnten Jahrhunderts (Kopenhagen, 1882). Prof. Lund has made large use of the investigations of the late Rev. Eilert Sundt, who examined the old houses in every part of Norway and published the results in his Afskellige Bygnings-skikken in Norge (Christiania, 1861). The literature of chimney-draughts is rather vol. i. of his Essays, is very noteworthy. Several later disimportant. A paper of Count Rumford's, to be found in cussions on the subject occur in the Journal of the Franklin Institute.

(R. E. T.)

CHINA. Since the suppression of the Tai-Ping | to China, with the exception of a small district in the See Vol. V. rebellion, in 1864, the control of affairs, so north-west, to which those of the inhabitants who prep. 544 Am. far as the imperial authority extends, has fer Russian rule are allowed to migrate. On the other ed. (p. 626 been chiefly in the hands of Li Hung Chang, hand, China paid the costs of occupation (9,000,000 Edin. ed.). the successful general of that war. Al- rubles) and granted some privileges to Russian trade on though nominally no more than the first member of her frontier. The new boundary begins at the Bedshinthe Neko, or imperial council, he has been virtually the taw Mountains, and follows the course of the Chargoss mayor of the palace, enjoying the support of the two River to its junction with the Ili, and then crosses the dowager-empresses, who, except in the interval Feb- Ili to the Usuntan Mountains, leaving the town of ruary, 1873, to January, 1875, have been regents since Koljak on the left. This, with the contemporary cesthe death of the emperor Heen Fung, in 1861. Tung sion of a larger district in the Irtysh, reduces the Chê, his only son, who succeeded him, died in his Chinese area by 35,450 square kilometres. eighteenth year, in 1875, and was in turn succeeded With France. China has been involved in diplomatic by his infant cousin, Tsaitien, surnamed Kwang-Seu, complications through the French conquest of Cochinson of Prince Chun, born in 1871. The elder of the China from the empire of Annam in 1858-59. China two empresses, Tsze-An, died in 1881, but the other, has claimed a suzerainty over the Annamese since as Tsze-Hi, still survives, and supports Li Hung Chang's well as before their revolt in the tenth century; but authority. The Mantchu princes of the royal house are the treaty of 1862, which concluded the conquest, never said to resent the pre-eminence of a soldier who has received sanction from Pekin. The comparative inno pedigree to sanction his honors, and to have been in- difference to what was happening on the southern triguing with the patriotic or war party for his overthrow.border ceased when it was found that France was preThe effect of this internal struggle upon the foreign poli-paring to extend her authority over the province of cy of the empire has been to make China more jealous of her dignity and more ready for war in its vindication. Much attention has been given to military matters. Camps of instruction have been created to impart European discipline to the troops; the capital has been made impregnable and the coast-line strengthened by forts constructed on scientific principles, and a fleet secured, chiefly of swift gunboats, for defensive service in the shallow waters of the Yellow Sea. Several powerful cruisers have been built to Chinese order in English and German dockyards, but the empire now possesses well-appointed navy-yards and arsenals of its The army is said to number 1,200,000 men, but to save the expense of maintaining so large a force in time of peace a part only is in service and under discipline at one time.

own.

Diplomatic Relations.-The long-standing dispute with Japan as to the sovereignty of the Loo Choo (or Riu Kiu) Islands is still unsettled. The hopes entertained from the mediation of Gen. Grant were disappointed. China follows a policy of delay. The last communication from Japan on the subject was left unanswered for a year and a half. In the mean time, the preference of the islanders for the suzerainty of its more distant authority is openly cherished by China, the annual proffer of tribute being received and rewarded as usual. Relations with Japan are further complicated by the claims of China to the suzerainty of the Corea; and in the recent treaties made between Corea and other countries, at the instance of China, a recognition of the claims of the Pekin government has been inserted, to the great indignation of the Japanese.

The dispute with Russia as to the retrocession of the Kuldja province has been settled. In the great uprising of the Mohammedams of Kashgar, on the western borders of the Chinese empire, this frontier province shared to an extent which threatened the peace of the adjacent province under Russian rule, inhabited by Kirghese Moslems. In 1871, Russia occupied Kuldja, with the acquiescence of China. for the preservation of order. On the suppression of the rebellion, in 1877, the return of the province to China was asked, but delayed. After some negotiation a treaty was made at St. Petersburg (September, 1879), by which Western Kuldja was ceded definitely to Russia for a payment of 5,000,000 rubles. This treaty caused great excitement among the patriotic party in China, but the government of the regency refused to approve it, and punished Chung How, the envoy, severely. The prospect of a war seemed imminent, but the warlike spirit was somewhat checked by an edict-following a precedent set by the emperor Heen Fung-which involved those who advised war in loss of their estates in case of a defeat. Negotiations were resumed, and (February, 1881) resulted in the restoration of the province

Tonquin, which lies on the seaboard between CochinChina and the southern provinces of China. The authority of Annam in Tonquin, outside the few large cities, is largely nominal; it is inhabited by half-independent tribes and infested by Chinese outlaws (Yellow and Black Flags), the remnants of the Tai-Ping rebellion. The population is estimated at 10,000,000. It was explored in 1870 by Jean Dupuis, a French adventurer, who went thither under Chinese auspices, and who in 1872 fitted out in France a filibustering expedition for its conquest. With a small fleet he penetrated to the capital, Hanoï, and drove the Annamese garrison into the citadel, and, refusing offers from the Chinese, sent to invite the French in Cochin-China to take possession of the province. The invitation was accepted, the citadel taken by storm, and the Tonquinese accepted very generally the French rule. But a new French governor abandoned the conquest, and by the treaty of 1874, in return for concessions in CochinChina, recognized the rights of Annam over Tonquin, while he drove Dupuis from the country. The attempt of another French governor of Cochin-China to set aside the treaty of 1874 and resume the occupation led China to put forward her claims to the suzerainty of Tonquin, as Annam is a vassal state of the Chinese empire. Unwillingness to have France on the frontier of the three southern provinces of China contributed to this purpose, and once more the war-party made use of the situation to force the regency and its trusted general to follow a vigorous line of policy. Yet China asked little more than recognition of her rights. She was willing to recognize the treaty of 1862 and to assist in the revision of that of 1874, or to sanction its revision after Annam and France have concluded their negotiations, but not to admit the competence of Annam to alienate territory which belongs to the Celestial Empire, nor of France to make acquisitions which will destroy the authority of her vassal in a province so situated. France, in defiance of her protests, proceeded (1883-4) with the conquest of Tonquin, taking its three great fortresses by force of arms. The inaction of the imperial government was blamed upon Prince Kung, who was removed from the council and committed suicide. At this writing negotiations for peace are pending.

The relations of China with the United States have been readjusted by a new treaty negotiated by Hon. James B. Angell in 1881, revising that of 1868, negotiated by Hon. Anson Burlingame as the envoy of China. In the new treaty each party had a special purpose in view. America aimed at securing the right to restrict the immigration of unskilled Chinese labor into the United States, in the belief that the current introduction of coolies was, in the language of Mr. Garfield, rather an importation than an immigration, and that it had the effect of displacing white labor and

of reducing white workmen's wages to a level below The foreign commerce of China is still confined to the natural and proper rate. The Pekin government the treaty-ports, now twenty-two in number. Kiungchow was opened in April, 1876; Itchang, Wuhu, Wênchow, and Pakhoï, in April, 1877. The aggregate values in taels are as follows:

agreed to concede the right of restriction for a reasonable period, with the reservation of free ingress for Chinese scholars, merchants, and the like. On the other hand, China embraced this opportunity as a first step to securing the recognition of her full autonomy in the matter of the regulation of commerce, and especially of the trade in opium. It was agreed that no opium should be carried into Chinese ports by American merchants or in American ships, and that our merchants should comply with the laws enacted by China for the government regulation of commerce in her own ports. This treaty forms an important step in the movement begun by China and Japan simultaneously to emancipate their commerce from the trammels imposed in the interests of British trade, and has been followed up by a demand for the revision of the treaties of commerce with the United Kingdom and other European countries. The demand that England shall recede from her claim of right to send East Indian opium into China is supported by a powerful body of philanthropic opinion in Great Britain, but resisted by Anglo-Indian opinion generally as involving disaster and disorganization to the finances of India. Without the revenue from the opium monopoly in Bengal-amounting in 1878 to over £9,000,000-the money to govern India in British fashion cannot be raised. Without the Chinese market for that opium, the production in Bengal must be retrenched more than one-half. The present Liberal ministry in England gives no signs of compliance with this demand, and its reluctance is shown by the fact that it has transferred from Japan to Pekin Sir Harry Parker, whose name is associated most unhappily with the second opium war (1856-58), and with the policy of dictation pursued toward Japan

since 1868.

The exclusion of opium would turn the balance of trade heavily in favor of China, in spite of a vicious system of existing duties, which taxes exports more heavily than imports, the chief of the former being tea and raw silks. The effect of these duties has been to stimulate their production in other quarters, until one-third of the tea consumed in Great Britain comes from India. In 1881 opium was imported to the value of 37,592,000 taels; cotton goods, 26,046,000; linen goods, 5,584,000; metallic goods, 4,829,000; miscellaneous, 17,590,000. The exports were: tea, 32,776,000 taels; silks and raw silk, 26,868,000; sugar, 2,584,000; miscellaneous, 9,225,000, every important article showing a decreasc. As a consequence of this dependence upon foreign countries for textile and metallic wares, there is no increase of employment for the people proportional to the increase of population, and China is falling to a lower industrial level through the want of variety in her industries.

By far the greater part of the foreign commerce is in the hands of Great Britain and her dependencies in the East. American exports to China and Hong Kong in the year 1882 were valued at $9,123,000; our imports at $22,638,433; British exports for the year 1881, at £6,234,003; imports at £10,701,645.

Statistics.-The area of the Chinese empire is estimated to be 11,767,853 square kilometres; that of The carrying-trade is also largely controlled by China proper, 4,024,690 square kilometres. The foreigners, but the Chinese are taking steps to make population is estimated at 379,700,000 for the empire, the coasting-trade their own by purchasing ships of and 350,000,000 for China itself. These figures exclude English and American build, especially steamships of Annam, but include Corea. They cannot be regarded light draught. In 1873 they owned but 344 such ships; as more than distantly approximative to the truth. A in 1878, 5168. For the use of their steamers they proper census of China never has been taken, and what first tried to work the coal-deposits in the island of profess to have been such are mutually destructive. Formosa, but the quality proved very poor. At Mr. Hippesley of Shanghai estimates the population Kaiping, a short distance from Tientsing, deposits of in 1876 at 250,000,000. The estimates made by coal equal to the best in Europe have been found, and Europeans have been based too often on observation of in 1881 a native company was mining 500 tons a day. the densely-peopled provinces of the seaboard, while Within easy reach lie great beds of magnetic iron ore, travellers who have penetrated the interior are unani- said to yield 50 per cent. of pure iron, and these the mous in the report that the inland population is sparse. same company intend to work. They carry their coal Three bad harvests in succession in the northern prov-to the seacoast by tram-cars drawn by horses, the govinces in 1876-78 produced a famine affecting the whole province of Shanse and parts of Chili, Shantang, Honan, and Szechuen; 60.000,000 people are said to have sufered, and 5,000,000 to have perished by starvation.

As the government publishes no budget of expenses, we have nothing but the estimates of European observers as to the income and outlay. Mr. A. E. Hippesley estimated the revenue for 1875 at 79,500,000 taels (the tael being worth about $1.40). Of this amount 18,000,000 was from land-tax (paid mostly in kind), 5,000,000 from the monopoly of salt, 7,000,000 from the sale of dignities, and 35,000,000 from taxes on foreign and domestic commerce. For 1881 the duties on exports were 8.329,668 taels; on imports, 5,002,011; tonnage, transit, and similar charges, 1,352.483. The rates of the import and export duties are defined in the treaties of commerce, as is the right of foreign merchants to carry goods which they really own, and which have paid those duties, out of or into any part of the empire without paying internal transport (likin) duties. The liability of such goods to pay likin duties, if transported farther than specified at the time of their importation, is a matter of dispute between China and the foreign merchants. These likin duties furnish a fourth of the revenue.

ernment having refused them leave to construct a steam railway. Baron von Richthofen estimates the area of coal-beds at 200,000 square miles.

Domestic commerce in China, when there is not a river or canal at hand, is carried on by beasts of burden. Heretofore, the construction of railroads has been discouraged, lest the amount of employment for human muscle should be diminished, and lest the little family cemeteries which are strewn over the whole country should be disturbed to make room for the lines. In July, 1876, an English company began the construction of a railroad from Shanghai to Wusum, its outer harbor, on ground purchased for the purpose, and without permission from the government. The local authorities bought up the railroad at a handsome price, and stopped traffic the next year. The rails were taken up and transferred to Formosa. But it is said that the famine and the necessity of military strategy have combined to convince Li Hung Chang of the necessity of railroads for China, and an extensive plan for their construction, involving an outlay of 30,000.000 taels, is under consideration. Telegraphs might seem open to less objection, but it is very recently that the business of connecting Pekin by telegraph with Shanghai, and thus with Europe and