and America. The
olive is more extensively cultivated than in any other state, but both
the fruit and the oil are mainly consumed at home--the latter taking the
place of butter. Raw silk is grown for export to France.

Although a larger part of the peninsula must depend on the American and
Scandinavian forests for lumber, there is one tree product that is in
demand wherever bottles are used--namely, cork. The cork is prepared
from the bark of a tree (_Quercus suber_) commonly known as the cork
oak,[73] which grows freely in the Iberian peninsula and northern
Africa.

[Illustration: SPAIN AND PORTUGAL]

Metals and minerals of economic use are abundant. Iron ore is sold to
Great Britain, France, and Germany. Since the Spanish-American War,
however, there have been extensive developments in utilizing the coal
and the ore which before that time had been sold to other countries.

The undeveloped coal and iron resources are very great, and must figure
in the payment of a national debt that is near the limit of bankruptcy.
The state, however, is entering a period of industrial prosperity.

The most available metal resource is quicksilver. Of this metal the
mines in Almaden produce about one-half the world's supply. The working
of these mines is practically a government monopoly, and the income was
mortgaged for many years ahead when Spain was at war with her rebellious
colonies.

Both Spain and Portugal are poorly equipped with means for
transportation. The railways lack organization, and freight rates are
excessive. Not a little of the transportation still depends on the
ox-cart and the pack-train. The merchant marine has scarcely more than a
name; the foreign commerce is carried almost wholly in British or French
bottoms. The imports are mainly cotton, coal, lumber, and
food-stuffs--these in spite of the fact that every one save lumber might
be produced at home.

Wine and fruit products, iron ore, and quicksilver are leading exports.
Of these the United States purchases wine and raisins for home
consumption and lace and filigree work for the trade with Mexico. Spain
has a considerable trade in cotton goods with her colonies, the Canary
Islands, and the African provinces of Rio de Oro and Adrar.

Portugal likewise supplies her foreign possessions--Goa (India), Macao
(China), and the Cape Verde and Azores Islands--with home products. The
chief Portuguese trade, however, is with Great Britain and Brazil.

_Madrid_ is