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 remark-ble 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 vicuna, 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 caoutchouc 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.