financial reports showed that a steady decrease in the receipts from various sources had been going on for several years past, the amount received under the head of assessment having fallen from £124,424 in 1876 to £108,272 in 1879, and the receipts from all sources from £212,095 to £165,007. The attention of the Synod was given to the discussion of the relations of the Divinity School in Trinity College with the Synod, of the status of proprietary churches, the formation of a General Church Committee, the claims of the minor incumbents and curates, the increasing expenditure of the representative body, the consecration of church-building, and primary education. The Provincial Synod of the Episcopal Church in Canada was held in Montreal in September. The Synod decided that the name of the Church should hereafter be "The Church of England in Canada"; that a Board of Foreign Missions should be formed for the collection of money for missions to the heathen abroad, and a Board of Domestic Missions for work in British America, particularly in the diocese of Algoma; and that persons might be admitted to the diaconate, but not to the priesthood, without surrendering their worldly callings. The fifth Synod of the Diocese of Sydney met in Sydney, New South Wales, June 22d. Bishop Barker, in his opening address, mentioned as important topics affecting the interests of the Church, the Public Instruction Act of 1880, and the Church and school land revenues, an act concerning which was pending before the Colonial Parliament. He urged the clergy to avail themselves of the opportunities for imparting religious instruction in the public schools. A resolution was proposed reciting that the Church had not the influence in the colony to which it should, by its numbers and position, be entitled, and advising the members to take a more active interest in politics. After considerable debate, it received the vote of a large majority of the clergy, but was defeated by the negative vote of the laity. The income of the Church Society for the year had been £14,000. The Society granted stipends to thirty-eight clergymen and eight catechists. The triennial meeting of the General Synod of New Zealand, was held at Christchurch in April, and was attended by seven bishops, twenty clergy, and twenty-three lay representatives. The Primate suggested that a revision of the wording of the constitution of the Synod was needed to adapt the instrument to the changes which had taken place in the circumstances of the colonies since it was framed, and a motion providing for a revision was made, but not acted upon. The principal subjects considered by the Synod were the consolidation of the parochial system, and clerical education. The Board of Theological Studies provided a uniform standard of education for all the dioceses. It was resolved not to attempt to establish a central theological college, but to found exhibitions which might be held in New Zealand or elsewhere. The arrangements for the selection of hymns and the musical parts of the service were declared to be under the control of the clergymen, not of the vestry. Favorable accounts were given of religious work among the Maories, and in the islands. ANTIMONY-MINES IN MEXICO. The antimony of commerce has hitherto been derived almost exclusively from the sulphide-ore called stibnite, or gray antimony. In this state the metal is distributed very widely over the globe, though it is found nowhere in large deposits. It is mined in Hungary and different parts of Europe, and is found in California and Nevada ; but the principal source of the supply is Borneo, whence it is shipped in ballast to the English smelters. The cost of the purified metal is quite high, being as great as that of tin and copper, and about four times that of lead. Its high price is owing not only to the comparative infrequency of the ores, but to the difficulty of reducing the sulphide, in which the antimony is usually associated with various troublesome mineral impurities, which impede and complicate the process of extraction. The reduction of the sulphide is a long process. The sulphide is first separated from the gangue by fusion, and then reduced to an oxide by roasting in a reverberatory furnace; and from the oxide the metallic antimony is obtained by fusion with charcoal saturated with a solution of carbonate of sodium. Extensive mines of the oxide of antimony have recently been discovered in Sonora, Mexico, in the district of Altar. The attention of metallurgists was called to these deposits in 1879 by the discoverer; E. T. Cox, of Arizona. A company of capitalists from Boston was soon formed who secured nine claims of the dimensions allowed in Mexico, 2,624 by 656 feet, including all the outcropping lodes. The geological character of the country where this valuable discovery was made is identical with that of southern Arizona. The mountains are in short, narrow ranges, running mostly in a north-andsouth direction. Some of the summits are irregular and rugged, and some are smooth, round cones, owing to the different degrees of erosion in the different materials of their masses. Between the parallel ranges is table-land or mesa, formed of the eroded material. The peaks are porphyry, quartzites, basalt, diorites, and trachytes, the principal mass of the mountainchains granite, the sedimentary rock on their flanks a sub-carboniferous limestone, in which the fossil remains have been effaced by igneous action. The débris which forms the mesa is so loose that the rain sinks through it, leaving the surface always dry and arid. In the immediate neighborhood of the mines only the limestone and quartzite are found. The lodes are from four to twenty feet thick. The ore has been removed to the depth of thirty feet, and the fissures are found to be filled from one wall to the other with the solid ore. It is oxide of anti mony, almost pure, and remarkably uniform. The course of the lodes is north and south, parallel with the axis of the mountains. The pitch is high to the east. All the lodes are found within an area five or six miles long and one half mile wide; on three of them the ore crops out above the surface of the ground, and can be seen bulging out for several hundred feet along the lode. The ore is almost pure oxide, the only impurity being silica, which is present in very small quantities. The ore assayed 60 and 70 per cent. of pure metal, and is expected to average 50 per cent. There is no indication that the oxide ceases and gives place to sulphide deeper down in the lodes. The mineral varies from a light color, almost white, to a dark brown. The purest specimens have the specific gravity 5:07; in these there is 75 per cent. of antimony; they contain 5 per cent. of water. It corresponds in composition and specific gravity to the mineral called stibiconite. It is only slightly soluble in hydrochloric and nitric acids, and aqua regia. Fused with carbonate of soda in a crucible of platinum, it decomposes readily. The ore is reduced only with difficulty before the blowpipe, but yields readily in a crucible with powdered charcoal or cyanide of potassium, giving star antimony. This particular oxide of antimony has never before been met with except as a slight coating on other minerals containing antimony. It has before been so rare that specimens containing only a few grains were diffi cult to procure. Antimony is an exceedingly useful metal, and if more abundant could be applied to additional uses. It is chiefly valuable for the alloys which it gives in combination with other metals. The chief of these are type-metal and britanniametal. Type-metal is composed of lead and antimony, the proportion of the latter varying between 17 and 20 per cent. Britannia-ware is made of an alloy with tin, copper, and zinc, containing 16 per cent. of antimony and 81 of tin. The valuable pharmaceutical preparations of antimony, tartar-emetic, etc., must be freed absolutely from arsenic and other impurities which the antimony of commerce nearly always contains. ARGENTINE REPUBLIC (REPÚBLICA ARGENTINA). The President of the Republic is Brigadier-General Don Julio A. Roca (inaugurated on October 12, 1880); and the VicePresident, Don Francisco B. Madero. The new Cabinet is composed of the following Ministers: Interior, Señor Del Viso; Finance, Dr. Cortinez (ad interim until May, 1881, when the regular appointee, Dr. Don Juan José Romero, Governor of the province of Buenos Ayres until that date, will assume the portfolio); Justice, Public Worship, and Public Instruction, Señor Pizarro; War, and the Navy, Señor Victorica. The Argentine Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States See Annual Cyclopædia" for 1872, 1877, and 1878, for statistics concerning area, population, territorial divisions, etc. and Great Britain is Dr. Manuel R. García. The Argentine chargé d'affaires in the United States (during the Minister's absence in England) is Señor Don Julio Carrié. The ConsulGeneral (at New York) for the American Union is Señor Don Carlos Carranza. The Governors of the several provinces, etc., were: Buenos Ayres...... Dr. Juan José Romero.* Minister of the Interior.. Dr. Carlos A. D'Amico, October, Minister of Finance...... Dr. Mariano Demaria, 1880. M. J. Rodriguez. M. Juarez Celman. F. Cabral. Catamarca... Corrientes.. Jujuy.. San Luis. Tucuman... Gran Chaco Territory. Patagonia.... . Colonel J. Anteto. V. A. Alinonacid. M. Moreno. T. Mendoza. 8. de Iriondo. Santillan. D. Martinez de Muñecas. Colonel L. V. Mansilla. Colonel A. Barros. tional Guard, comprises 7,175 men, as follows: The Argentine army, exclusive of the Na2,929 horse; 3,332 foot; artillery, 914. There are 5 generals of brigade, 9 colonels-major, geants-major, and 735 officers of other grades. 30 colonels; 107 lieutenant-colonels; 166 serThe National Guard was, at the time of last returns, 236,000 strong; and the reserve, 68,000. steam ironclads, 6 steam gunboats, 2 steam The navy was composed of 27 vessels: 2 torpedoes, 12 steamers (transformed into warships), 3 steam transports, and 2 sail of the line; with an aggregate tonnage of 12,000, an armament of 88 guns, and manned with 2 chiefs of squadron, 5 colonels, 8 lieutenantcolonels, 6 majors, 7 captains, 26 lieutenants, 22 students, 43 midshipmen, 7 paymasters, 26 2,000 infantry and artillery (National Guard); engineers; 900 seamen, including officers; and 1 torpedo section, with 3 commandants, 8 subaltern officers, and 80 men. There is a naval school and a school for cabin-boys; and an arsenal has been built at Zárate. the fiscal year 1879-'80 were as shown in the The estimated revenue and expenditure for following tables: The surplus observed on comparing the totals of these two tables is $770,386. Some of the more important items of expenditure in the several departments of the Government, according to the estimate already referred to, are exhibited in the subjoined table: $46,920 530,578 52,458 $8,433,857 The customs receipts for each month of the year 1879, as given in the following table, though in general but little below the standard for the most favorable years, do not aggregate as high as the estimated receipts for 1879-'80, shown in the foregoing table of the revenue: January. February.. March.. April. June.. July. August. September.. October. November. Total..... young nations to have the largest possible number of inhabitants educated, while it is perhaps the noblest tributed to the Government. Finally comes the Minmanner of returning to the people what they have conistry of War and the Navy with $82,720, of which $50,000, are for the new powder-factory, a medical corps, and Board of Health, the placing in commission of several ships at present lying up, the erection of marine workshops, etc. The taxes all remain as they were in 1880, except some slight modification in the manner of collecting them. The financial condition of the Argentine 246,036 Republic is, on the whole, and despite of many unfavorable circumstances, chief among which 875,600 are the devastating revolutions which attend electoral campaigns, extremely favorable, and $4,487.963 640,752 the country's credit is uniformly maintained abroad, thanks to the unexceptional regularity $168.863 observed in the service of the national debt. 865,656 Between the years 1863 and 1870 the revenue increased 120 per cent., and between 1870 and 1878 a further advance of about 4 per cent. was apparent. The returns for 1879 now show an increase of rather less then 5 per cent. as compared with those for 1878;* but this is attributed in part to the enhanced import tax on wool, for which Minister Plaza obtained permission from Congress in 1878. Notwithstanding that it is an express violation of the Constitution to impose any export duties on native products, yet the tax on wool was raised to 6 per cent. ad valorem, a state of things regarded as prejudicial to the interests of the republic, since it would be impossible for Buenos Ayres, shackled with such an impost, to compete with Australia, which exports its wool free of duty. Dr. Plaza's policy, however, was cordially supported by the people of Buenos Ayres. As the inhabitants of the city already paid forty-five dollars per capita to the national Government, twenty dollars to the provincial government, and about ten dollars to the Municipal Council, it was deemed wise and "more patriotic" that any new taxes should be laid on the estancieros (farmers, etc., occupying the estancias in the rural districts). The incidence of taxation was as follows: $1,199,487 25 1,011,146 07 1,029,261 84 929,997 22 888.809 53 1,152,853 93 930,427 98 4,196,588 71 $18,150,828 50 Dr. Avellaneda, in his message to Congress, immediately before surrendering the executive power to his successor, made the following statement concerning the budget: The total expenditure for the year 1881 is estimated at $20,207,851, as follows: Interior, $3,452,995.08; Foreign Affairs, $140,840; Finance, $9,455,322.57; Justice, etc., $1,499,452; War and the Navy (army, $4,740,610; navy, $917,622) $5,658,232; and showing an increase of $1,724,337 over the present year (1880) as follows: Interior, $870,114; Foreign Affairs, $24,000; Finance, $42,252; Justice, etc., $202,484; War and the Navy (army, $302,647; navy, $279,840) 8582,487. This increase is in a great measure merely nominal, as the whole amount appropriated is rarely spent, although it well might be in the present instance, and particularly in the branches for which the increase is intended. A few words will explain this: Of the $870,114 asked for the Interior, $650,000 are for the extension of the Central North and Andine Railways, and may be looked upon as the earnings of said lines. Consequently, the real increase is only $220,114, which will be chiefly devoted to immigration and colonization, and subsidizing the municipal bodies to be created for those purposes; the founding of new colonies in Patagonia; the improvement of roads, bridges, and public buildings; the canalization of the port of Santa Fé; the repairing of the dredging-machinery, and other urgent public items which reach in the aggregate $85,848 in the estimates of the other ministerial departments. The increase for Public Instruction is comparatively insignificant, if the appropriations made in former years for this branch are considered, and how important it is for In the foregoing statements are not included the municipal taxes of Buenos Ayres, or the local taxes of the thirteen other provinces. It is, however, sufficient to remark that the city of Buenos Ayres paid thirty-five times as much per capita as the other provinces, than which circumstance none can more satisfactorily explain the wish of the Buenos Ayreans to get rid of so much government. "The cause of such heavy taxation," observes an Argentine economist, "is the extra liberality of the British public in lending us money," and indeed the interest and sinking fund of the following loan constitute a heavy yearly drain: there is too much of the gambling element; and a country whose foreign securities have almost attained par value, ought not to be exposed to the humiliation of a depreciated currency at home. The great feature in Argentine history during the past few years is the increase of production, and the marked excess in the value of the exports over that of the imports, the reverse of which condition was formerly the rule. The appended tables show the values, sources, and destinations, respectively, of the imports and exports for 1879: 5,750,000 10,500,000 $63,750,000 In this table are not comprised the Buschenthal loan of 1863, the foreign indemnity bond, the 1876 loan of 500,000,000 pesos current money (about $20,000,000), the Lottery loan of 1878, nor such minor matters as the loans to Santa Fé and Entre-Rios. If the railway guarantees be excepted, the whole indebtedment of the republic and of Buenos Ayres is about $100,000,000, or a little over $10 per capita of the population of the country, and one fourth of the Australian average. If the finances be carefully handled, says the writer last referred to, the country will retrieve itself in ten or fifteen years. It is a pity that the public men are violent protectionists, and paralyze the imports with an impost of 50 per cent. ad valorem for the purpose of protecting manufactures. In this way "good sheep farmers are being converted into bad bootmakers and execrable tailors," and the exports for 1878 showed a decline of 20 per cent. from those of the year immediately preceding, particularly in wool, tallow, and hides. At the close of 1877 the price of Argentine bonds in the London market (taking those of 1868 for a guide) was 70; at the end of 1879 it was 90 to 92; and in December, 1880, some were, for the first time, sold at par. Here is an evident indication of financial prosperity. Yet one great drawback still proves a heavy drag on the financial and commercial prosperity of the country, namely, a depreciated currency which calls aloud for remedial measures. Gold, the "shuttle-cock of the bolsa," is still at a high premium. With the large influx of gold from Great Britain in 1879, and the confidence felt in the stability of the Government, there ought to be but little difficulty in reestablishing the Oficina de Cambios, making paper a legal tender at the former rate of 122 pesos to the pound sterling, a financial achievement which would favor the flow of capital into the republic, and render commercial transactions safe and steady. As things have been for a number of years past, however, 724,000 2,177,000 8,794,000 2,116,000 128,000 943,000 8,076,000 $44,867,000 Values. $18,870,000 8,279.000 1,180,000 11,621,000 1,586,000 8,753,000 1,602,000 464,000 736,000 8,791.000 1,436,000 1,018,000 475,000 8,004,000 $47,765,000 The values of the principal commodities exported in the same year were as follows: wool (91,951,094 kilogrammes), $21,610,000; oxhides (2,336,799 kilogrammes), $8,149,000; horse-hides (317,429 kilogrammes), $292,000; sheep-skins (25,088,878 kilogrammes), $3,965,000; tallow (15,538,289 kilogrammes), $2,033,000; salt beef (32,309,577 kilogrammes), $2,812,000; animals (297,073), $2,130,000; hair (2,372,962 kilogrammes), $766,000; bones, $506,000; various skins, not above enumerated, $789,000. According to statistics, Buenos Ayres owned at the commencement of 1880, 5,116,029 head of cattle, or 936 for every 100 inhabitants; and 46,600,000 sheep, or 8,275 for every 100 inhabitants; which last figures are without a parallel elsewhere, though, singularly enough, the number of cattle in Uruguay was 6,000,000, or 1,385 per 100 inhabitants, while the number of the sheep was but 12,000,000. No returns of shipping movements at the various ports of the republic have been published of a later date than those given in the "Annual Cyclopædia" for 1879. The total length of railway lines in operation in 1878 was 1,448 miles; and concessions had been, up to the end of that year, granted for new lines to the extent of 1,989 miles, including the great interoceanic railway from Buenos Ayres to Santiago (Chili), 888 miles. Still further concessions were granted in 1879 and 1880, and works on the new lines and continuation of those already built were carried on with activity. The telegraph lines in operation in 1877 comprised 9,887 miles of wires, of which 3,365 belonged to the state. The total number of dispatches in 1878 was 214,714. The tide of immigration continues to increase, the number of immigrants for 1879 having reached 50,000, a figure hitherto unprecedented outside of the United States, and showing an increase of 14,329 as compared with that of the year immediately preceding. The lack of immigration from Northern Europe to the Argentine shores is very generally deplored, and active measures are on foot for encouraging its augmentation. Of the 286,000 immigrants from the United Kingdom and Germany in 1879, hardly 1,000 went to the River Plate regions. The political situation of the country in 1880 contrasted widely with that of 1879, the events of which latter year comprised only measures of peaceful industry at home, while the single question of a menacing character in the foreign relations of the republic was the still existing vexed question with Chili as to the possession of territory in Patagonia. In the year just past, as the final issue of the elections for a new President approached, the smoldering fire of.party strife broke out and raged for several months with unmitigated violence, paralyzing all branches of trade and industry, and being attended with considerable bloodshed, the city of Buenos Ayres itself having suffered the hardships and inconveniences inseparable from a state of siege. An incident which seriously complicated the main question at issue was that of the discussion concerning the definitive establishment of the capital of the republic, Buenos Ayres, which had been the provisional capital ever since the days of the independence, with the trammels and expense of a double gubernatorial machine, and the object of envy and jealousy of all the provinces save that in which it is situated. The first days of October brought the reestablishment of peace, with the termination of the electoral campaign, and the inauguration of the new Chief Magistrate of the Republic, Brigadier-General Don Julio A. Roca, whose administration is regarded as one full of patriotic and fruitful promise. General Roca gained considerable distinction as Minister of War and in other important capacities under the Avellaneda government. The fact of his being a soldier, together with his resolution to initiate a military policy, and the continued arrival, for some time past, of war material for the Argentine Government, gave place in some quarters to apprehensions of belligerent designs toward Chili, with which country, as already hinted, the Patagonian boundary question is still pending. But a more reasonable explanation of the armament would be the prudent desire on the part of the Argentine Republic to be prepared in case Chili, after making peace with Peru, should feel tempted to make use of her liberated forces in support of her claim to sovereign jurisdiction over the disputed Patagonian peninsula. The following extracts we translate from President Roca's inaugural speech to the Argentine Congress on October 12, 1880, than which no other description could present a clearer view of the present political condition of the country: MESSRS. SENATORS AND DEPUTIES: I have just taken the oath prescribed by the Constitution for the office to which the most important duties and the gravest responsibilities attach; and I consider that I should, on this solemn occasion, express to the representatives of the Argentine people what my intentions are on accepting that high post. I do not come unconsciously to power. I well know that the path now before me is beset with snares for him who feels the responsibility of this elevated charge among a free people; nor am I unaware of the bitter discharge of his duty. But, as you know, it was betrials ever awaiting him who is resolved upon the rigid yond my power to control the current of opinions which has terminated in this (by me unsought for) result of the electoral contest-a contest which has served as a pretext for staining once more our country's soil with blood. When the liberties of mankind and the growth of a nation are concerned, all that is great or enduring is to be attained only at the expense of vast efforts and painful sacrifices. Nor are the severe trials passed through by the Argentine Republic to be wondered at, when we survey her rapid progress and the triumplis achieved in half a century of national existence, as compared with the tardy development to which history bears testimony in the governments of the most advanced societies. We live very rapidly, and in our feverish impatience to reach in a day the level arrived at by other nations through centuries of labor and sanguinary attempts, most of the problems of our organization, political and social, take us by surprise. The Congress of 1880 has completed the federal repsaid to have this day fairly entered the period of conresentative system of government; and we may be stitutional rule. The law just sanctioned by your body for the final settlement of the capital of the republic, is at once the starting-point of a new era in which the Government will have entire freedom of action, and the realization of the people's dearest wish, as implying the consolidation of the union and the reign of peace for long years to come. The existence of that law had come to be an inevitable necessity, and your highest claim to the nation's esteem will be your having so faithfully interpreted its desire. Henceforth, free of preoccupation and undisturbed by the internal commotions which hourly imperiled the very integrity of the republic, the Government will be enabled to devote its attention to the concerns of administration and the fruitful works of peace; and constantly retarded our onward march, we shall soon the revolutionary period being closed for ever, which reap the fruits of your firmness and tact. On assuming the general administration of the country, I would mention the subjects which occupy my mind more particularly than all the others-the army, and means of internal communication. The army and navy, implying, as they do, the integrity and safeguard of our country from without, |