The first lucifer match was made in 1829.
First steamer crossed the Atlantic in 1819.
The first horse railroad was built in 1826-7.
The first newspaper advertisement was in 1652.
The greatest grain port in the world is Chicago.
Cork is the bark taken from a species of oak tree.

Edward III. is called the Father of English commerce.
The canning industry is making great headway in Georgia.
There are 20,000,000 acres under cotton in the United States.
Soap was first manufactured in England in the sixteenth century.
First American express ran from New York to Boston-W. F. Harn-
den's.

Until 1776 cotton spinning was performed by the hand spinning wheel.

The first mill-stones sent over here from England paid 11 freight in 1628.

Postage stamps first came into use in England in 1840; in this country in 1847.

The Wetherills of Philadelphia made white lead before the American Revolution.

During 1891 there were 584 factories in this country engaged in the silk industry.

Since 1840 the world's production of meat has increased 57 per cent, that of grain 120 per cent.

The exports of this country in the fiscal year 1891-2, amounted to $970,506,282; imports, $828,321,646.

The largest number of whaling ships in the world is sent out by Nantucket and New Bedford, Mass.

Certificates for proficiency in commercial knowledge are now granted at Cambridge and Öxford universities.

Ostrich taming is a very profitable industry in Africa, where it is computed there are over 150,000 tame birds.

First sugar-cane in the United States was cultivated near New Orleans, 1751; first sugar mill was built in 1758.

From August '91 to August '92 our cotton crop was reported at 9,035,379 bales, an increase of 382,000 over previous year.

The Harrisons, who figure so extensively in our manufactures, made oil of vitriol in Philadelphia in 1806, the first in the country.

The leather industry in the United States was worth $130,000,000 in the administration of Gen. Taylor and employed 146,000 persons.

Virginia led off just before the Constitution in putting a tariff on foreign leather and shoes, and Congress soon followed the example.

It is said to cost less to send the product of an acre of wheat from Dakota to England than it does to manure an acre of land in England so that it can grow good wheat.

In 1860 Chicago had less than twelve millions of total products for all her factories, while today such factories as the Pullman works turn out that value of cars alone in a year.

The name demurrage in mercantile law means the sum paid by the owner of a ship to the charterer for keeping the ship in port a longer time than that provided in the charter.

According to Orfila, the proportion of nicotine in Havana tobacco is two per cent; in French six per cent, and in Virginia tobacco seven per cent. That in Brazilian is still higher.

The production of mercury reaches about 55,000 to 66,000 frascos a year. The frascos are enormous bottles of cast iron, which contain four arrobes of about twenty-five pounds each.

The Cinchona tree is indigenous to Peru, and from it quinine is extracted; it derives its name from the Countess of Chinchon, who was cured of fever by the bark (Peruvian bark).

Paper making ranks high among the industries of the United States. Last year there were about 1,100 mills in operation in this country, having an average capacity of about 16,000 pounds of paper.

A new substance called valzin is now being manufactured in Berlin under a patent, and it is claimed to be two hundred times sweeter than sugar and free from certain objectionable properties of saccharin.

A commission agent, or merchant, is a person employed to sell goods consigned or delivered to him by another who is called his principal, for a certain percentage, commonly called his commission or factorage.

The world annually consumes about 650,000 tons of coffee. Estimating coffee as being worth about $400 per ton, which is about a good average, this represents an outlay of $260,000,000 for this one beverage each year.

New Orleans boasts the largest custom-house in this or any other land. It was begun in 1848 and over thirty years elapsed before it was finished and ready for use. It is built of Quincy granite and the interior is finished in finest marble. It has 111 rooms. The height from the

pavement to the top of the cornice is 80 feet, and to the top of the light on the dome, 187 feet. The dome itself is 49 feet square and 61 feet high. The estimated total cost of building, $4,900,000.

Caviare is the salted roe of the common sturgeon and other fishes of the same genus. It is esteemed by epicures as a delicacy, but the taste is purely an acquired one-hence the phrase, "caviare to the multitude."

A commercial traveler is a person whose occupation is to transact business as the accredited traveling representative of a trading house to other trading houses. In this country he is commonly styled a "drum

The latest authority puts the silk production of the world down at $320,000,000 worth of silk annually, of which France produces two-fifths of the whole, with her 230,000 looms. China and Japan grow one-half of all the raw silk.

Clipper is a name familiarly given to a sailing ship built expressly for speed. Aberdeen was long celebrated for building swift tea-clippers, which since 1860 have been gradually superseded by steamers. The Baltimore clippers were also famous.

The Zollverein ("Customs Union") was a union of the German States for fiscal purposes under the leadership of Prussia. The first step towards its establishment was taken in 1818. It continued to exist until the German Empire was founded in 1871.

In 1820 we made only 400 tons of white lead in the whole country, and at the end of the civil war we made 14,000 tons. A white lead manufacturer of Cincinnati, Mr. Goshorn, was the President or Director-General of the Philadelphia Exhibition.

Customs duties are the portion of the revenue derived from a tax on imports. In some countries, customs duties are imposed on certain exports also. Customs is the general term applying to the service of their collection, also to the amounts collected.

One tug on the Mississippi can take in six days, from St. Louis to New Orleads, barges carrying 10,000 tons of grain, which would require seventy railway trains of fifteen cars each. Tugs in the Suez Canal tow a vessel from sea to sea in forty-four hours.

The average annual production of flax is as follows: Russia, 270,000 tons; Austria, 53,000; Germany, 48,000; Belgium and Holland, 38,000; France, 37,000; United Kingdom, 25,000; Italy, 23,000; United States, 12,000; Scandinavia, 4,000-total, 510,000 tons.

Corundum is a mineral consisting essentially of mere alumina, yet of great specific gravity-about four times that of water-and of remarkble hardness, being inferior in this respect only to the diamond. Mineralogists regard the sapphire as a variety of corundum.

Having imported some big cattle from Denmark, the Ingalls family of Lynn, near Boston, began a tannery about 1630, and a shoemaker followed in five years, and from these beginnings we record the vast shoe industry of Lynn, which has produced a Vice-President in Henry Wilson.

The Alpaca is a half domesticated fawn of the wild vicuña, closely related to the llama. It somewhat resembles the sheep in form, but has a longer neck and a more elegant head. It is a native of the Andes. About fifty years ago the wool of the alpaca, which, if allowed to remain for some seasons grows to a great length, became a regular article of

commerce. Sir Titus Salt, of England, was the first person to take steps toward raising the alpaca manufacture to its present status as a considerable industry. Various attempts have been made to introduce the alpaca into the United States, but all have resulted in failure.

There is a lake of pitch in the island of Trinidad about a mile and a half in circumference. While the asphaltum near the shores is sufficiently hard at most seasons to sustain men and quadrupeds, it grows soft and warm toward the center, and there it is in a boiling state.

Rum is a kind of spirit made by fermenting and distilling the "sweets" that accrue in making sugar from cane-juice. The scummings from the sugar pans give the best rum that any particular plantation can produce; scummings and molasses the next quality; and molasses the lowest.

Anthracite, called in America hard coal, as opposed to bituminous or soft coal, has its largest fields in Pennsylvania. It has only a small proportion of the constituents of bitumen and consists almost entirely of carbon. It burns nearly without smell, smoke or flame and gives out an intense heat.

The Chamber of Commerce is a body of merchants, traders, bankers and others, associated for the purpose of promoting the interests of its own members, of the town or district to which the society belongs, and of the community generally, in so far as these have reference to trade and merchandise.

The United States produces 2,220 pounds of grain to each inhabitant; Denmark, 2,005; Canada, 1,500; Russia, 1,200; Roumania, 1,150; Spain, 1,100; France, 990; Sweden, 980; Argentine Republic, 850; Australia, 760; Germany, 700; Belgium, 600; Portugal, 550; Ireland, 500; Scotland, 490; England, 360.

Disston sold his common saws for a profit of only seven cents on the dozen in order to underbid the English, who then controlled our market. Out of that manufacture the Disston boys have erected a whole town, and there is no man in Australia or the British Colonies that would not prefer the American saw to a foreign one.

The ways of auctioneers in different parts of the world vary greatly. In England and America the seller bears the expense of the sale, but in France the purchaser pays the cost, five per cent being added to the price he pays. In Holland it is still worse, the buyer being required to pay ten per cent additional for the expenses of the sale.

A Galleon was a large ship formerly used by the Spaniards to carry home the gold, silver, and other wealth contributed by the Mexican and South American colonies. They were armed, and had usually three or four decks, with bulwarks three or four feet thick, and stem and stern built up high like castles. They had a particular fascination for Drake and other Elizabethan rovers who so contrived that many of them never reached the ports of Spain.

The blue pigments in common use by artists are few in number, and consist of native and Artificial Ultramarine, Cobalt, Indigo and Prussian Blue. Genuine ultramarine, prepared from the mineral lapis lazuli, and ordinary cobalt blue, sold for artists' work, are permanent colors. They are used either alone, or mixed with other pigments, chiefly for skies and distances in landscape; and by themselves, or to make up grays and other mixed tints in figure painting.

The Mississippi river, from the source of the Missouri to the Eads jetties, is the longest river in the world. It is 4,300 miles in length and drains an area of 1,726,000 square miles. The Amazon, which is without doubt the widest river in the world, including the Beni, is 4,000 miles in length and drains 2,330,000 square miles of territory.

The name bitumen is especially given to a mineral substance of a highly inflammable character, marked by a peculiar odor. It is generally supposed to be a vegetable origin. The term is very broad in its use by mineralogists and by some is made to include the mineral resins, naphtha, petroleum, asphalt and mineral caoutchoue.

Bricks and common pottery ware owe their red color to the iron naturally contained in the clay of which they are formed, the iron, by the action of the heat, being converted into red oxide of iron. Some varieties of clay, like that found near Milwaukee, contain little or no iron, and bricks made from such clay are consequently of a light yellow color.

The

Curaçoa is a well known and esteemed liqueur, usually made in Holland with the dried peel of the Curaçoa orange, the peel being macerated with water, and then distilled with spirit and water. result is sweetened with sugar, and a little Jamaica rum is often added. A palatable imitation can be made from the fresh peel of bitter oranges and whisky.

The fair of Nijni-Novgorod is the greatest in the world, the value of goods sold being as follows: 1841, $35,000,000; 1857, $60,000,000; 1876, $140,000,000; the attendance in the last named year including 150,000 merchants from all parts of the world. In that of Leipsic the annual average of sales is $20,000,000, comprising 20,000 tons of merchandise, of which two-fifths is books.

Coastguard is the name of a British organization formerly intended merely to prevent smuggling, but now constituted so as to serve as a defensive force also. The old coastguardsmen were in the employment of the Customs department; they were posted along the shore at spots commanding extensive views of the beach, and were expected to be always on the lookout for smugglers. In 1856 the coastguard was transferred to the Admiralty.

Ambergris is a fatty substance supposed to be a morbid secretion in the intestinal canal of the spermaceti whale. It is found in lumps weighing from half an ounce to one hundred pounds and upwards, either floating upon the sea or washed up on beaches. Often it is taken immediately from the whale. Ambergris is largely used in perfumery, and is worth about $30 an ounce. In general appearance it is like dirty, gray fat, with yellow or reddish striæ. It contains little black spots, caused by the presence of the beaks of the sepia octopodia. Spec. gravity .780 to .920.

In commerce and political economy Barter is the exchange of one commodity for another, as contrasted with the sale of commodities for money. It is simply a primitive form of exchange carried on in countries in which the use of money has not yet been introduced or is not prevalent. It was an economic stage through which all communities must have passed. Even yet in many rude countries barter is very common; and European travelers find it convenient to take with them weapons, tools and ornaments to exchange with the natives for their commodities. In civilized communities barter is a very exceptional thing, having been superseded by the use of money in various forms.