The formerly valuable silver mines of Mexico, neglected for a long time, were partly reopened in 1864. The richest of all the mines now worked are those of Real del Monte and Pachuca, situated about sixty miles from the city of Mexico, and belonging to an Anglo-Mexican company. The total exports of silver ore from Mexico to the United Kingdom amounted in value to 80l. in 1869, to 3,3407. in 1870, to 29,774l. in 1871, to 25,6437. in 1872, to 16,0197. in 1873, to 2,2547. in 1874, to 7,9197. in 1875, to 14,5721. in 1876, to 14,5387. in 1877, to 5,066l. in 1878, to 38,2617. in 1879, and to 22,3951. in 1880.

Mexico had 1,070 miles of railway open for traffic in 1881. The principal line, called the 'National Mexican,' 300 miles long, from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico, with branch to Puebla, was commenced, under state aid, in 1864, and completed in 1869. The lines under construction include an Inter-Oceanic railway across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, between the mouth of the Coazacoalco and the Upper Lagoon on the Pacific side. This line will be 60 miles long, and was to be opened at the end of 1882.

The total length of telegraph lines, at the end of June 1881, was 10,580 English miles. There were, at the same date, 363 telegraph offices.

The post-office carried 4,406,410 letters in the year 1879-80. At the end of June 1881 there were 873 post offices in the republic.

Diplomatic and Consular Representatives.

Mexico has no representatives in Great Britain, and the only representatives of Great Britain in Mexico are commercial agents at some of the outports.

Money, Weights, and Measures.

The money, weights, and measures of Mexico and the British equivalents, are as follows:

Anales del Minesterio de fomento, colonizacion, industria y comercio. 8. Mexico, 1870-80.

Boletin del ministerio de fomento de la República Mexicana. Fol. Mexico, 1879.

Comercio exterior de Mexico. Fol. Mexico. 1881.

Memoria del Secretario del despacho de hacienda. Fol. Mexico, 1881. Report by Mr. R. T. C. Middleton, H.M.'s Secretary of Legation, on the trade, industry, finances, and population of the Mexican Empire, dated August 12, 1865; in Reports of H.M.'s Secretaries of Embassy.' No. XI. London, 1866.

Report by R. T. C. Middleton on the financial position of Mexico, dated February 25, 1867; in 'Reports by H.M.'s Secretaries of Embassy and Legation.' No. V. 1867. London, 1867.

Reports by Mr. R. T. C. Middleton on the mines and mineral districts, and on the sulphur deposits of Mexico, dated July 10 and December 31, 1866; in Reports by H.M.'s Secretaries of Embassy and Legation.' Nos. I. and II. 1867. London, 1867.

Report by Mr. R. T. C. Middleton on the silver mines of Guanaxuato, dated November 29, 1867; in Reports by H.M.'s Secretaries of Embassy and Legation.' No. I. 1868. London, 1868.

Reports by Mr. C. Moye, U.S. Consul at Chihuahua, dated June 3, 1867, Mr. F. B. Elmer, U.S. Consul at La Paz, dated Sept. 30, 1867, and of Mr. F. Chase, U.S. Consul-General at Tampico, dated June 30, 1867, on the commerce, agriculture, and mining industry of Mexico; in Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Nations. 8. Washington, 1868.

Reports by Mr. Thomas N. Nelson, Minister-Resident of the United States, on the political and social condition of the republic of Mexico, dated Mexico, February-May, 1871; in 'Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States.' 8. Washington, 1871.

Trade of the United Kingdom with Mexico; in Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom with Foreign Countries and British Possessions in the year 1880.' 4. London, 1881.

2. NON-OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS.

Boletin de la sociedad de geografia y estadística de la República Mexicana. 8. Mexico, 1878-79.

Chevalier (Michel), Le Mexique ancien et moderne. 18. Paris, 1866.

Cubas (A. Garcia), Atlas metodico de la geographía de la República Mericana. 8. Mexico, 1874.

Diccionario geografico y estadistico de la República Mexicana. 5 vols. Fol. Mexico, 1874-76.

Domenech (Emmanuel), Le Mexique tel qu'il est. La vérité sur son climat, ses habitants et son gouvernement. 12. Paris, 1866.

Flint (H. M.), Mexico under Maximilian. 12. Philadelphia, 1867.

Garcia y Cubas (A.), Apuntes relativos à la poblacion de la Repúblies Mexicana. 8. Mexico, 1871.

Geiger (John Lewis), A Peep at Mexico: Narrative of a Journey across the Republic from the Pacific to the Gulf. 8. London, 1874.

La Bédollière (Émile G. de), Histoire de la guerre du Mexique. 4. Paris,

1866.

Müller (J. W.), Reisen in den Vereinigten Staaten, Canada und Mexico, 3 vols. 8. Leipzig, 1865.

Perez (J. E.), Almanaque estadistico de las officinas y Guia de forasteroso del Comercio de la Republica para 1880. 8. Mexico, 1881.

NICARAGUA.

(REPÚBLICA DE NICARAGUA.)

Constitution and Government.

THE constitution of the republic of Nicaragua was proclaimed on August 19, 1858. It vests the legislative power in a Congress of two Houses, the upper called the Senate, comprising ten members, and the lower, called the House of Representatives, eleven members. Both branches of the legislature are elected by universal suffrage, the members of the House of Representatives for the term of four, and those of the Senate for the term of six years. The executive power is with a President elected for four years.

President of the Republic.-Don Joaquin Zavala, elected President of the Republic, March 1, 1879, as successor of Don Pedro Chamorro, President from 1875 to 1879.

The President exercises his functions through a council of responsible ministers, composed of the four departments of Finance, Foreign Affairs, Public Instruction, and War and Marine.

Revenue, Population, and Trade.

The revenue of the republic in the year 1879-80 was 487,2187., and the expenditure 514,0271., leaving a deficit of 26,8097. There were annual deficits, increasing in amount, since the year 1865. Two-thirds of the total annual revenue are derived from government monopolies on spirits, tobacco, and gunpowder, and the remainder chiefly from import duties and a tax on slaughtered cattle. The expenditure is principally for the maintenance of an army of two thousand men, and the payment of interest of the public debt.

The total amount of the public debt at the end of 1877 was estimated at 9,500,000 dollars, or 1,900,000l. The public liabilities of Nicaragua were wholly contracted within the country.

The area of the republic is estimated at 49,500 English square miles, and the population at 350,000 souls, giving an average of nearly seven inhabitants to the square mile. There are no census returns. The great mass of the population consists of aboriginal 'Indians,' Mulattoes, Negroes, and mixed races, and the number of Europeans and their descendants is very small and on the decrease. There are few towns, and the chief occupation of the inhabitants is the rearing of cattle, carried on in a rude fashion. Old capital of the republic is the city of Leon, ten miles from the Pacific, sur

rounded by five active volcanoes, and partly in ruins. At presen: the seat of the government is the town of Managua, situated on the southern border of the great lake of the same name, with 8,000 inhabitants. The capital is provisional, being built on the slope of an active volcano, and liable therefore to instant destruction.

The commerce of Nicaragua is very small, and, in the absence of official returns, its value is not known. In the annual 'Statement of the Board of Trade,' the commercial intercourse of Great Britain with the Republic is merged into Central America.' (See page 541.

Diplomatic and Consular Representatives.

1. OF NICARAGUA IN GREAT BRITAIN.

Envoy and Minister.-General F. Guzman, accredited December 15, 1879. 2. OF GREAT BRITAIN IN NICARAGUA.

Minister and Consul-General.-F. St. John.

Money, Weights, and Measures.

The system of money, weights, and measures is the same as in Honduras. (See p. 548.)

Statistical and other Books of Reference concerning Nicaragua.

1. OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS.

Report by Mr. Edwin Corbett, British Chargé d'Affaires, on the financial condition of Nicaragua, dated Guatemala, May 29, 1869; in Reports by H.M.'s Secretaries of Embassy and Legation.' No. IV. 1869. 8. London, 1869. Report by Mr. Consul Gollan on the commerce of Greytown, and the construction of an interoceanic canal through Nicaragua, dated January 1876; in Reports from H.M.'s Consuls.' Part IV. 1876. 8. London, 1876. Report by Mr. Consul Gollan on the trade and commerce of Nicaragua, dated Greytown, January 1877; in 'Reports from H.M.'s Consuls.' Part V. 1877. 8. London, 1877.

2. NON-OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS.

Belly (N.), Percement de l'isthme de Panama par le canal de Nicaragua. 8. Paris, 1858.

Belt (Thomas), The Naturalist in Nicaragua: a Narrative of a Residence at the Gold Mines of Chontales, &c. 8. London, 1873.

Bülow (A. von), Der Freistaat Nicaragua in Mittelamerika. 8. Berlin, 1849. Keller (J.), Le canal de Nicaragua. 8. Paris, 1859.

Marr (Wilhelm), Reise nach Centralamerika. 2 vols. 8. Hamburg, 1863. Scherzer (Karl, Ritter von), Wanderungen durch die mittelamerikanischen Freistaaten Nicaragua, Honduras und San Salvador. 8. Braunschweig, 1857. Squier (E. G.), Sketches of Travel in Nicaragua. 8. New York, 1851. Squier (E. G.), Nicaragua, its People, Scenery, Monuments, and the proposed Interoceanic Canal. 2 vols. 8. London, 1852.

Whetham (J. W. Bodham), Across Central America. 8. London, 1877.

PARAGUAY.

(REPÚBLICA DEL PARAGUAY.)

Constitution and Government.

THE republic of Paraguay gained its independence from Spanish rule in 1811, and after a short government by two consuls, the supreme power was seized, in 1815, by Dr. José Gaspar Rodriguez Francia, who exercised autocratic sway as dictator, till his death, Sept. 20, 1840. Dr. Francia's reign was followed by a state of anarchy, which lasted till 1842, when a National Congress, meeting at the capital of Asuncion, elected two nephews of the Dictator, Don Alonso and Don Carlos Antonio Lopez, joint consuls of the republic. Another Congress voted, March 13, 1844, a new constitution, and, March 14, elected Don Carlos Antonio Lopez sole President, with dictatorial powers, which were continued by another election, March 14, 1857. At the death of Don Carlos, September 10, 1862, his son, Don Francisco Solano Lopez, born 1827, succeeded to the supreme power, by testamentary order, without opposition. President Lopez, in 1865, began a dispute with the Government of Brazil, the consequence of which was the entry of a Brazilian army, united with forces of the Argentine Confederation and Uruguay, into the republic, June 1865. After a struggle of five years, Lopez was defeated and killed in the battle of Aquidaban, March 1, 1870.

A Congress, meeting at Asuncion in June 1870, voted a new constitution for Paraguay, which was publicly proclaimed on the 25th of November 1870. The constitution is modelled closely on that of the Argentine Confederation, the legislative authority being vested in a Congress of two Houses, a Senate and a House of Deputies, and the executive being entrusted to a President, elected for the term of six years, with a non-active Vice-President at his side.

President of the Republic.-General B. Caballero, appointed President of the Republic, pro tem., May 1881, as successor of Don Caudido Bareiro, elected September 1878.

Vice-President.-Don Adolfo Saguier, elected September 1878. The President exercises his functions through a cabinet of responsible ministers, five in number, presiding over the departments of the Interior, of Finance, of Worship and Public Instruction, of War and Navy, and of Foreign Affairs.