alth.

Very little is known concerning the mineral wealth of the islands. It
is stated that there are deposits of coal, petroleum, iron, lead,
sulphur, copper and gold in the various islands, but little or
nothing has been done to develop them. A few concessions have been
granted for working mines, but the output is not large. The gold
is reported on Luzon, coal and petroleum on Cebu and Iloilo, and
sulphur on Leyte. The imports of coal in 1894 (the latest year for
which the statistics have been printed) were 91,511 tons, and it came
principally from Australia and Japan. In the same year the imports
of iron of all kinds were 9,632 tons.

If the Cebu coal proves to be good quality there is a large market
for it in competition with the coal from Japan and Australia.

Agriculture.

Although agriculture is the chief occupation of the Philippines,
yet only one-ninth of the surface is under cultivation. The soil is
very fertile, and even after deducting the mountainous areas, it is
probable that the area of cultivation can be very largely extended,
and that the islands can support a population equal to that of Japan
(42,000,000).

The chief products are rice, corn, hemp, sugar, tobacco, cocoanuts
and cacao. Coffee and cotton were formerly produced in large
quantities--the former for export and the latter for home consumption;
but the coffee plant has been almost exterminated by insects, and the
home made cotton clothes have been driven out by the competition of
those imported from England. The rice and corn are principally produced
in Luzon and Mindoro, and are consumed in the islands; the rice crop
is about 765,000 tons; it is insufficient for the demand and 45,000
tons of rice were imported in 1894, the greater portion from Saigon,
and the rest from Hongkong and Singapore; also 8,669 tons (say 60,000
barrels) of flour, of which more than two-thirds came from China and
less than one-third from the United States.

The cacao is raised in the southern islands, the best quality of it
in Mindanao. The production amounts to only 150 tons, and it is all
made into chocolate and consumed in the islands.

The sugar cane is raised in the Visayas. The crop yielded, in 1894,
about 235,000 tons of raw sugar, of which one-tenth was consumed in
the islands and the balance, or 210,000 tons, valued at $11,000,000,
was exported, the greater part to China, Great Britain and Australia.

The hemp is produced in southern Luzon, Mindoro