and less valuable minerals
Colombia has copper, iron, manganese, lead, zinc and mercury. Coal is
also found at several widely-separated places, but is not mined. There
are also indications of petroleum in Tolima and Bolivar. These
minerals, however, are of little value to the country because of their
distance from the seaboards and the costs of transportation. Salt is
mined at Zipaquira, near Bogota, and being a government monopoly, is a
source of revenue to the national treasury.

_Manufactures._--The Pradera iron works, near Bogota, carry on some
manufacturing (sugar boilers, agricultural implements, &c.) in
connexion with their mining and reducing operations. Pottery and
coarse earthenware are made at Espinal, in Tolima, where the natives
are said to have had a similar industry before the Spanish conquest.
There are woollen mills at Popayan and Pasto, and small cigar-making
industries at Ambalema and Palmira. Hat-making from the "jipijapa"
fibre taken from the _Carludovica_ palm is a domestic industry in many
localities, and furnishes an article of export. Friction matches are
made from the vegetable wax extracted from the _Ceroxylon_ palm, and
are generally used throughout the interior. Rum and sugar are products
of a crude manufacturing industry dating from colonial times. A modern
sugar-mill and refinery at Sincerin, 28 m. from Cartagena, was the
first of its kind erected in the republic. It is partially supported
by the government, and the concession provides that the production of
sugar shall not be less than 2,600,000 lb per annum.

_Commerce._--In the Barranquilla customs returns for 1906 the imports
were valued at $6,787,055 (U.S. gold), on which the import duties were
$4,333,028, or an average rate of 64%. According to a statistical
summary issued in 1906 by the U.S. Bureau of Statistics, entitled
"Commercial America in 1905," the latest official return to the
foreign trade of Colombia was said to be that of 1898, which was:
imports 11,083,000 _pesos_, exports 19,158,000 _pesos_. Uncertainty in
regard to the value of the _peso_ led the compiler to omit the
equivalents in U.S. gold, but according to foreign trade returns these
totals represent gold values, which at 4s. per peso are: imports
L2,216,600, exports L3,831,600. In his annual message to congress on
the 1st of April 1907, President Reyes stated that the imports for
1904 were $14