are partially under one mountain wall. You can see on the opposite side the gradations of the verdure, rich below, impoverished above. And the curves become more awful as you look ahead or back. For forty-five minutes the tourists enjoyed this sight. The train stopped at the construction bridge, near the end of the gorge. Salutes were fired, a fifteen-minutes' halt was made, and the engine started the train for Cañon City. There was no sun in the gorge, but it slanted down the opposite mountain wall as the party returned through the cañon, increasing the surpassing beauty of the scene.

Leadville, which has become the most famous spot in the State, was first noticed during the Pike's Peak excitement. At the same time the placer mines of California Gulch, Stray Horse Gulch, and Iowa Gulch were discovered. The population of the region reached 10,000, and in four years about $13,000,000 in gold was gathered. The miners worked only for gold, and the carbonates, which have since become so valuable, were then only dirt and greatly in the way, getting into their sluice-boxes and making a vast amount of trouble. They piled them up anywhere to get them out of the way. In 1874 the placer mines were practically abandoned, and, although since worked at intervals to some extent, they have caused no great exitement. In 1877 they yielded about $70,000 in gold, and can only be worked during the warm weather of the summer. In August, 1877, some twenty shanties comprised the whole town of Leadville. In June, 1878, it had a population of only 400. In October, 1878, it numbered 6,000, and in April, 1879, it had a population of 12,000 to 15,000, with an additonal daily floating population of from 1,000 to 3,000, and new-comers flocking in at the rate of 300 to 500 a day and seven days in the week. The cause of this sudden growth was the fact that the carbonates which had been rejected by the gold-miners were found to be very rich in silver. In October, 1878, the first nelting furnace at Leadville was blown in. Since that time, up to August 1, 1879, the sever1. smelting establishments have smelted 48,659 tons of ore, from which have been produced 9.958 tons of bullion, containing 3,401,283 mces of silver. The value of this silver is stated at $3,725,000, that of lead at $197,420; ad there were also produced 211 ounces of old, worth say $4,000. A large quantity of re was shipped from Leadville to Denver, Omaha, St. Louis, and other reduction works, oth before and since the erection of smelters Leadville. The value of this ore shipped up to August 1st was about $5,500,000; making total value of Leadville's production up to Angust 1, 1879, $9,426,420. Since that date The ore smelted has amounted to about 600 ins a day, yielding an average of perhaps $80 er ton; and there have been shipped per day a tons, averaging $150 per ton-more than $1,250,000 a month.

COMMERCE, INTERNATIONAL. The intimate and vital bond of international commerce by which the nations of the world are linked together for their mutual weal, but

TOL. ΣΙΧ.-11 Α

which, when it is disturbed, causes the hardest sufferings among the inhabitants of the most advanced and prosperous of the sisterhood, is, with its present delicate and all-pervading ramifications, an entirely modern development, dating from the close of the Napoleonic wars. From 1815 to 1872 the commercial and industrial growth of all countries advanced with an even and almost unbroken progress. Production has everywhere increased faster than the population, and consumption in every commercial nation has multiplied. Wars and natural calamities have temporarily and locally interfered with the regular course of the advancement; and at intervals, with an almost astronomical periodicity, in 1837, 1847, 1857, and 1866, general commercial crises occurred, which swept away many mercantile houses who had made a too free use of their credit in a time of unusual speculation, and entailed severe losses on money-lenders. But the effect of these crises was only momentary; the arrest of productive activity has been very brief and transitory in each case, and in a few months at the most commerce and production, purified by the winnowing process, bounded forward again with renewed and heightened activity.

The growth of the system of commercial interdependence, and the slight and transitory effects of former commercial crises, are apparent in the history of the export trade of Great Britain, the pioneer and chief representative of international commerce. The volume of the exports of British products from the United Kingdom to all countries, for each year from 1836 to 1872, were, in millions of pounds sterling, as follows: 1836, 53; '37, 42; '38, 50; '39, 53; '40, 51; '41, 52; '42, 47; '43, 52; '44, 59; 45, 60; 46, 58; '47, 59; '48, 53; '49, 64; '50, 71; '51, 74; '52, 78; '53, 99; '54, 97; 55, 96; '56, 116; '57, 122; '58, 117; '59, 130; '60, 136; '61, 125; '62, 123; '63, 146; '64, 160; '65, 166; '66, 189; '67, 181; '68, 179; '69, 190; '70, 200; '71, 223; 72, 256. The exportation from France, which amounted to 376 million francs in 1810, and had grown to 515 millions in 1837, in the period from 1867 to 1876 averaged 3,407 million francs a year, the single article of silk goods amounting to 437 millions in 1872, and that of woolens to 314 millions. The exports from the United States increased in the same ratio, the domestic exports of merchandise summing up to the following amounts, given in millions of dollars, in the successive years from 1835 to 1872: 1835, 100; '36, 106; 37, 94; '38, 95; '39, 101; '40, 111; '41, 103; '42, 91; '43 (9 months), 77; '44, 99; '45, 98; '46, 101; '47, 150; '48, 130; '49, 131; '50, 134; '51, 178; '52, 154; '53, 189; 54, 213; '55, 192; '56, 266; '57, 278; '58, 251; '59, 278; '60, 316; '61, 204; '62, 179; '63, 186; '64, 143; '65, 136; '66, 337; '67, 279; '68, 269; '69, 275; '70, 376; '71, 428; '72, 428. This gigantic development has been the result of various combined and reciprocally acting causes—

Since 1872 the whole commercial world has been languishing under some depressing influence which has afflicted production and trade with a progressive paralysis, from which there are yet no hopeful signs of recovery. This drooping atrophy and shrinking away is different from any of the sharp and sudden commercial crises that preceded it, which convulsed and disturbed the whole credit system, but which only for a moment checked the advancing march of production and commercial extension. Various causes are assigned for this fatal and protracted depression and gradual collapse of trade. The exhaustive effects of wars must undoubtedly manifest themselves in a succeeding period of privation and severer labor before the wasted capital is replaced and the lost time regained. The extension of productive facilities in all countries beyond the consumptive requirements of the people must result in a sharp struggle for trade, a lowering of prices, a depression of wages, and a diminution of profits. But this process has taken place before repeatedly with the best ultimate results; and to assign it as the cause of the present decline of consumption is not only to deny in a great measure the destruction of capital in wars, but to contradict all historical precedents. The discontent and revolutionary attitude of the productive classes, and their continual strikes and demands, might have the effect to alarm capital and discourage production and enterprise; but there is no evidence that they have produced any such results. Another cause, which has recently been asarted by merchants and bankers practically versed in the phenomena of international trade, may have more to do with the present unprecedented decay of commerce and prostration of industry than any of the others. This is the threatened demonetization of silver by European countries, and the actual fall in its valne in consequence of the change of standards and conversion of its currency by the German Empire. Since the first agitation of the question in Germany prices have been deelining, and with declining prices in these days of the telegraph and steamship, when mercantale operations are calculated on a minute fractional margin for profits, it is impossible to produce or export without a constant loss. If the disturbance in values caused by the con

version into gold of the silver currency of Germany, and the sale of about $300,000,000 worth of silver, is the cause of the present long and distressing prostration of trade, the action of the other western nations with reference to the 1,500 millions of silver which they still possess is a question of the most vital consequence to civilization. The present prices are based upon the present combined stock of gold and silver in the world, nearly six thirteenths of which consists of silver. Before values can be adjusted to the single standard of gold, the whole fabric of international commerce must fall into ruin, industry and art must decay, population must be thinned out by misery and starvation, and the most advanced races must physically and intellectually deteriorate.

The world's stock of gold and silver money is estimated for 1878 at about 7,850 millions of dollars, of which 4,250 millions is in gold and 3,600 millions in silver coin. The stock of metallic money is distributed in the different countries in the following proportions, given in millions of dollars :

The statistics of international commerce and domestic production show an absorption, during the ten years from 1866 to 1875 inclusive, of the precious metals in the European countries for which official returns are given to the following amounts in millions of dollars: France, 689; England, 356; Belgium, 230; Russia, 209; Spain, 130; Holland, 50; Portugal, 9; Sweden, 9; Austro-Hungary, 8; Norway, 5; Italy, 1. The total absorption in the above eleven countries is 1,699 million dollars. This sum fails to agree with the statistics of the world's production, given by Soetbeer for the same period as 2,008 million dollars, and of the absorption of Asia, calculated at 562 millions. Deducting the 387 millions produced in Europe, the products of extraEuropean mines would be 1,C21 million dollars. If 1,365 millions of this was absorbed in the above European states, the rest of the world would have but 256 millions to dispose of, or 306 millions less than the amount sent to the East; while the United States during the same period retained 65 millions of the 669 millions produced, and other gold- and silver-producing countries must have kept back a portion of their yield.

The effect of the present depreciation of silver is to most seriously interfere with the intercourse between the gold- and the silver

paying countries, besides its depressing influence on general prices and prosperity. The trade of England with the gold-paying countries showed an actual increase of over 5 per cent. between 1874 and 1878; but in the British trade with most of the bi-metallic countries there was a decline of 32 per cent., and with the countries with the single silver standard of nearly 22 per cent., or of 30 per cent. if India is not counted. Between 1872 and 1878 there was an increase of the exports of British products to countries where the gold standard prevailed of 9 per cent., but a decline of 33 per cent. in the values of the exports to silverpaying countries. The loss to Great Britain in exchange alone in last year's trade with India is computed at 75 millions of dollars, so great is the disturbance caused by the want of a common medium of exchange. If the single gold standard were permanently adopted in Europe and America, intercourse with the Orient would be reduced to barter trade. Even if the single gold standard were safely and successfully adopted all over the world, and values should accommodate themselves to it without destroying the whole progress of the nineteenth century, there would remain another evil connected with it, one from which the world has abundantly suffered in former centuries, and that is a deficient supply of metal to replace the waste of the coin and correspond to the increase in the population.

The general decline of British exports since 1872, the year when they had attained their greatest magnitude, was in the following progression, in millions of pounds sterling: Exports in 1872, nearly 256; 1873, 255; 1874, 239; 1875, 233; 1876, 200; 1877, 198; 1878, 192. The aggregate decline from 1872 to 1878 amounts to 214 million pounds sterling. The exports of British and Irish products in 1879, estimated on the returns for the first half of the year, show a further decline in values of 8 or 10 millions sterling.

The fall in prices within five or six years, when computed for the aggregate production, presents sums of startling magnitude. Of the decline of 42 per cent. in the exports of the leading British manufactures between the years 1872 and 1875, one fourth corresponds to the diminished demand and three fourths to the fall in prices. Of this fall, one half is off set by the corresponding abatement in the prime cost of materials. The decline of 68. per ton in coal from 1873 to 1878 represents a fall in value for the quantity mined in Great Britain of 200 million dollars a year.

An important consideration regarding the alteration of the existing standards of valuation is the effect which it would have on the solvency of countries which owe large public debts. This specially affects the nations in which the largest amounts of foreign public securities are held. The aggregate public indebtedness of all nations is computed by Ernest Seyd at 22,245 million dollars. Of this amount,

he considers the following state debts, amounting to 9,150 millions of dollars, as almost entirely held in the countries themselves: England, 3,925 millions: France, 3,750 millions; Germany, 825 millions; Holland, 400 millions; Belgium, 180 millions; Denmark, 70 millions. The remaining 13,095 millions he reckons as held principally by other nations, viz.: the debt of the United States, 2,000 millions; Russia, 1,875 millions: Austria, 1,730 millions; Spain, 1,300 millions; Italy, 1,255 millions; Turkey, 1,075 milions: India, 530 millions; Egypt, 475 millions; Mexico, 395 millions; Brazil, 340 millions; Portugal, 330 millions; the British colonies, 315 millions: South American and other small states, 1,475 millions. The amount of the public debt of these nations held in foreign countries is estimated at 10,000 millions, and its present value at 8,500 millions. This aggregate amount is supposed to be held in a few European countries, among which it is distributed in the following proportions: England, the richest nation in foreign state funds and other foreign investmnets, owns 3,750 million dollars, or nearly the amount of her own public debt, in the state securities of other nations, estimating them at their present current values and not at the par of issue; France, 2,250 millions; Germany, 2,000 millions; and Ho!land, Switzerland, and Belgium together, 500 millions. How nearly the above estimate approximates to the actual European holdings of foreign securities, there are no more accurate data for determining than those at the command of Mr. Seyd. The national debt of the United States, however, must be stricken from the list of public securities held abroad, as the main bulk of it has now returned to America. The securities of many of the indebted governments are of very uncertain value under the most favorable commercial conditions. Loud complaints have been heard in Great Britain of late at the swindling foreign loans, public and private, which have been successfully placed in the English market. The losses which have accrued to British investors through worthless foreign investments are immense. A nearer examination of the facts reveals in these operations methods of going to work which well deserve the name of swindling; but the persons who manipulated the loans and deluded the investing public, and who invariably received the lion's share of the plunder, were British bankers and financial agents. The Turkish Government, for instance, can show that it has already paid in interest more than it ever received of its public loan from the English go-betweens. The South American states and a great many financial companies in different parts of the world can relate the same experience.

In France the decline of exports since 1873 has been less marked than with the other great commercial powers of Europe. She is not, however, exempt from the general calamity, but is suffering more and more acutely from a

depression in her textile industries and a prostration of her coal and metal trades. The decline of French exports has been in the following progression: 1873, total exports 3,787 million francs; 1874, 3,701 millions; 1875, 3,872 millions; 1876, 3,575 millions; 1877, 3,436 millions. During the same period her imports have increased, having been 3,554 million francs in 1873, 3,507 millions in 1874, 3,536 millions in 1875, 3,988 millions in 1876, and 3,669 millions in 1877. In all articles except the prime necessaries of life, and particularly in all manufactures in which they compete with Great Britain, all the countries of Europe complain of a constantly declining export, or, if an increased export is shown for a single year, of the ruinous prices at which it has been achieved.

While the older settled industrial lands, whose products consist of the luxuries of life or go to satisfy the material requirements of a complex civilization, have been suffering from loss of trade and an industrial stoppage, in certain newer food-producing countries, although they also have had to endure the effects of the general financial derangement, the exports have been steadily growing in value, and have increased in a still more remarkable ratio in quantity, during the present period of depression. The most conspicuous example of this enlargement of trade is America. The extension of manufacturing operations, which preceded the present season of contraction and distress in Great Britain and other industrial lands, was in great measure induced by the demand for extended means of transportation and improved implements of agriculture in the countries which possess a vast area of more fertile and tillable land than Europe; and now these same countries are enabled, with the improved means of transportation, to pay off, even at the present depressed rates of value, the debts incurred for their completion under the inflated prices of a half dozen years ago, by furnishing cheaper food than can be produced in Europe. The United States has thus been in a position, through an excess of exports of merchandise and bullion in the five years from 1874 to 1878, to pay more than $130,000,000 a year of interest and principal of foreign debts. In the magnitude of their export of food-products the United States now greatly surpass all other nations. The development and importance of the trade of the United States in cereals and provisions is shown in the following résumé of the international trade in the articles which best reveal the present condition of the world's

commerce.

BREADSTUFFS.-In the ante-bellum period the exports of American grain to Europe were for the most part in the form of flour. Since the opening up of railroad communications with the upper Mississippi valley, and the immense extension of the export trade, the exports of wheat-flour have increased but very little, and are principally confined to the supply of the

West Indies and South America. Even though the grain could be manufactured into flour more cheaply in the United States than in Europe, the greater facility with which the grain can be handled, stored, and transshipped in its raw state, by the aid of modern machinery and appliances, would preclude the exportation of the manufactured product. The elevators of Chicago in 1876 had storage-room for 19 million bushels of grain, and those of Milwaukee for 4 million bushels.

The imports of wheat into Great Britain during the years 1872-'77, according to Mr. Caird, amounted, in consequence of three bad harvests, to 87 million pounds sterling more in value than in the preceding period of the same number of years. Before 1860 the average annual importations of wheat into Great Britain were 4,500,000 quarters; in the last five years they have been 12,400,000 quarters. Before 1868 the average consumption of wheat for sixteen years was 311 lbs. per capita; since that date it has increased to 335 lbs. per capita, of which 158 lbs. is grown inland and 183 lbs. imported from abroad; whereas between 1852 and 1860, of the same quantity of wheat, 252 lbs. were of domestic growth and 79 lbs. imported. Besides the growing dependence of England on foreign nations for wheat, the main article of food with her people, the importations of other food-products have increased in a similar ratio. The imports of maize from America have increased from 600,000 to 1,300,000 tons; those of potatoes, principally from Germany, from 43,000 to 300,000 tons. The consumption of foreign products in Great Britain has risen in the last twenty years from 128 million pounds sterling in 1857 to 285 millions in 1877. The consumption of foreign meat has increased within the twenty years 360 per cent.; of cheese, butter, and lard, 280 per cent.; of imported wheat, 157 per cent.; of other grains, 176 per cent. The consumption of sugar during the same period has increased 84 per cent.; that of tea, 102 per cent., or from 69 to 149 million lbs., while that of coffee has declined 7 per cent. The consumption of tobacco has grown 41 per cent. Since the conclusion of the commercial treaty with France the use of foreign wines has constantly been increasing, the percentage of the increment during the period under consideration being 170; while the importation of spirits has also risen 140 per cent. above statements refer to the average annual imports of 1857 and the two following years, compared with the average imports of the three years preceding 1877. In 1867 the consumption of domestic wheat was 40 million cwt., that of foreign wheat 38 million ewt.; in 1876 the consumption of home-grown wheat was 43 and that of imported wheat 50 million cwt. The consumption of domestic meat in the years 1867 and 1877 was about the same, 25 million cwt., but the use of foreign meat developed in the ten years from 2 to 6 million cwt.

The