ords of tribute or other matters from districts which probably stood in a subject relation to the eity of Minos. The building in which the excavations were made is described by Mr. Evans as being of vast extent, before which the palaces of Mycenae, Tiryns, and other similar structures shrink into comparative insignificance. The entrance is approached from a paved court on the eastern side, and, flanked by two columns, leads into a large antechamber furnished with stone benches. Hence the visitor passes into an apartment which has been given the name of "the council chamber of Minos." Against the wall on the right stands a throne of gypsum, having a low seat and a tall, curiously carved back, which still shows traces of painting. Along the walls on either side are continuous stone benches; on the opposite side, protected by a high parapet to which seats are also attached, is an oblong rectangular depression, constructed with finely compacted slabs and evidently intended to contain water, but without visible outlet. It is approached by descending steps. The walls of the council chamber are ornamented with frescoes, still sufficiently preserved to enable landscapes, flowing water, and flowering plants to be distinguished. On either side of a door leading into a smaller apartment are two griffins, seated on baskets and apparently engaged in hatching. In another part of the building is a long corridor, on each side of which are a series of frescoes representing male and female figures arrayed in rich costumes, of most of which only the lower parts of the bodies have been preserved; but one piece, which had fallen, showed the figures of two men to above the waist, draped in long flowing mantles. On the left side, the central figure is a lady distinguished from the rest by her wide flounces. In another room were found parts of a fresco in a new miniature style, showing groups of elaborately dressed young women, seated and engaged in animated conversation. A figure that has attracted especial notice is that of a youth putting crocuslike flowers in an ornamental vase. The royal magazines or storerooms are approached by a long corridor which leads to a succession of 12 apartments. Some of these contained rows of oil vases 5 feet high, some highly ornate and furnished with numerous small handles. Beneath the floor of several of the chambers and passages are receptacles of closely fitted stonework, one above the other. Mr. W. J. Stillmann suggested in 1881 that this building, of which a wall of Cyclopean masonry was the only vestige then visible, was probably the Labyrinth. This view is confirmed not only by some of the features of arrangements, but also by the numerous figures of the double axe, λáßpus, recurring often in different parts. The figure corresponds to one of the epithets of Zeus, and is found in both the linear and the pictographic inscriptions as a significant character. The remains of the life-size figure of a bull of painted gesso duro, of which the head is perfect, discovered in the later days of the work of excavation, suggest an allusion to the bull of Europa, or to the one associated with the name of Pasiphæ, whose progeny, the Minotaur, dwelt in the Labyrinth. The sculpture and painting in this palace are characterized by Mr. Evans as of a higher level than those at Mycenae or Tiryns. "For monuments of the Mycenaean painting, indeed, the palace of Cnossus stands almost alone. On many of the walls the frescoes are found still adhering, almost as brilliant as when they were executed, and we have here a new revelation of ancient painting. Quite new in ancient art are certain miniature groups of ladies fashionably dressed in somewhat décolleté attire, seated in animated conversation, apparently in the courts and balconies of the palace itself." In the decorative designs and the fabulous animals-griffins and sphinxes-the influence of Egyptian models of the eighteenth dynasty is evident, but these foreign elements are adapted in an independent manner. Of more special interest are processions of youths bearing various vases, which Mr. Evans regards as having a singular general resemblance to the procession of the tribute-bearing Keft chieftains on the tomb of Rekmara at Thebes, which dates from the first half of the fifteenth century B. C. The Kefts of the Egyptian monuments are accepted as representing the Mycenæan race of the Egean isles and coast lands. "On the Cnossian wall painting we see them in their home." The upper part of one of these Cnossian figures is of the highest anthropological interest as presenting for the first time a careful naturalistic portrait of a Mycenæan man. The profile is of a pure European character, almost classically Greek. The type of head represented is essentially that of the race which through all the changes of Cretan history still remains predominant in the island. A new and striking piece of evidence of intercourse between Crete and the Egyptian middle kingdom was found in the palace in the form of a diorite figure with hieroglyphic inscriptions. Its good style and material have been recognized by Egyptologists as indicating a work of the twelfth, or at most of the thirteenth, dynasty. "In other words, the latest date to which it can be safely referred hardly comes down to 2000 B. C. We have here, therefore, a valuable indication for the approximate chronology of the earlier elements of the palace of Cnossus itself, which in any case go back of the period to which the remains of Mycenae have given a name." Mr. Evans, in order to avoid confusion of periods, purposely did not go below the Mycenaean deposits; but Mr. D. C. Hogarth, digging at another spot, found a whole series of early painted pottery, many of the pieces showing artistic designs of lilies, tulips, and other flowers, with shapes in some cases so graceful as never to have been surpassed in any age of Greece. This style of Cretan pottery, which has received the name of Kamaraes from the grotto where its first occurrence was described by Mr. J. L. Myers, has been found by Mr. Petrie at Kahun, in Egypt, again in a twelfth dynasty connection. The intercourse between Crete and the Nile valley in the third millennium B. C. has thus left its traces on both shores of the Libyan Sea. Such data "give additional interest to the fact that the palace of Cnossus, in its turn, overlies a vast neolithic settlement." Trial shafts were sent down by Mr. Evans through 14 feet of continuous stone-age deposits. The great bulk of the remains explored at Cnossus were contemporary with the eighteenth and nineteenth Egyptian dynasties. In describing his discoveries in the British Association, Mr. Evans said that they not only carried back the existence of written documents on Greek soil about eight centuries before the first known muniment of Greek writing and five before the earliest Phoenician, as exhibited in the Moabite stone, but they afforded a wholly new point of view for investigating the origin of the alphabet. The letter forms borrowed by the Greeks from the Phoenicians seemed to have been even influenced by these pre-existing Ægean scripts. The common elements existing in the Phoenician alphabet itself were very noteworthy. De Rougé's theory of the derivation of the Phoenician letters from remote hieratic Egyptian prototypes must be definitely abandoned. The Phoenician, and with it the Greek, alphabet must be regarded as a selection from a syllabary belonging to the same Ægean group as the Cretan. Such a phenomenon on the Syrian coast was naturally accounted for by the settle ment there in Mycenaean times of the Egean island race, the Philistines, whose name survived in that of Palestine. Though later Semitized, their biblical names of Kaphtorim and Cherethim or Cretans, sufficiently recorded their Ægean origin. tion with this discovery that Prof. Hilprecht had pointed out eleven years before, when Dr. Peters was at the head of the expedition, that the remains of the library would be found at this very spot. The discovery has proved to be more important than had been anticipated. In the course of three months more than 17,000 tablets bearing cuneiform writing were recovered. They comprise historical, philological, and literary documents, mythological writings, works in grammar, lexicography, science, and mathematics. There is reason to believe, Prof. Hilprecht observed in giving an account of his discovery to the London Daily News, that these tablets will for the first time enable the world to form an adequate idea of life in Babylon such as could only be possible by the discovery of a national library recording the national progress in literature, science, and thought generally. No document is found in this collection of a later date than 2280 B. C. As this date marks the invasion of the Elamites, the fact adds confirmatory evidence that the library was destroyed during this invasion." The unexplored remains of this library are represented as being even more extensive than those already examined. The tablets are generally arranged with regularity on clay shelves around the rooms, and Prof. Hilprecht estimates that at the present rate of working five years more will be required for the excavation and examination of the contents, and it is calculated that the unexplored part will yield 150,000 tablets to be added to those already discovered. Prof. Hilprecht, writing from Nippur, May 9, to the Lutherisches Kirchenblatt, described the 16,000 tablets taken from the eastern wing of the temple as being of the very greatest importance, " because for the most part they consist of religious, astronomical, linguistic, and didactic cuneiform texts, besides letters and other historical documents. From other parts of the extensive ruins we have taken out 5,000 other inscriptions, mostly referring to business transactions, so that the entire find of An exploration of the cave of Psychro in the valuable cuneiform tablets amounts to over 23,000. Lasithi district of Crete, made by Mr. D. G. Ho- In addition to this, I have to a large extent ungarth, confirmed the view that it was the Lyttian covered and determined the eastern fortifications, grotto connected with the story of the infancy of which reach back to the fifth thousand year B. C., Zeus in the legend, the earliest version of which together with the northeast gate of Nippur. One was preserved by Hesiod. The cave was double. of the most important discoveries was the southern A shallow grotto on the north had a rude altar façade, over 600 feet in length, of a palace deeply in the center, surrounded by many strata of ashes, buried in the earth belonging to the fourth thoupottery, etc., among which many votive objects in sand year B. C., and the complete uncovering of a bronze, terra cotta, iron, and bone were found, large government building with a colonnade, betogether with libation tables in stone, and an im- longing to the first thousand year B. C." The mense number of earthenware cups used for depos- writer further speaks of having devoted special iting offerings. The lowest part of the upper attention to the reconstruction of the temple of grotto was inclosed by a wall partly of rude Bel at Nippur-" the greatest national sanctuary Cyclopean character and partly rock cut. Within in the whole of ancient Babylon "--and of a great the Temenos the untouched strata of deposit number of articles of art obtained, " ornaments of ranged from the early Mycenaean age to the geo- gold and silver, and other antiquities." The works metric period of the ninth century B. C., or there- of excavation mentioned in this letter include the about. In the southern or lower grotto, in the continuation of the systematic exploration of the vertical chinks of the lowest stalactite pillars, temple and the completion of the examination of there were found toy double axes, knife blades, the southern and eastern lines of the walls of fortineedles, and other objects in bronze, placed there fication of the ancient city. "These walls show by dedicators as in niches; and also statuettes clearly the different epochs in which they were and engraved gems. The frequent occurrence of constructed. There are, first, portions of which the the double axe, both in bronze and molded or builders were the pre-Sargonic rulers. These are painted in pottery, found in the caves indicated followed by the works of Sargon (3800 B. c.) and that its patron god was the Carian Zeus of La- of Narum-Sin, his son; then about a thousand branda or the Labyrinth. years later are the fortifications of Ur-Gur, to be followed by the later Cassite kings, belonging to the comparatively modern period of from 1700 to 1100 B. C. The numerous weapons found along the whole line of fortification, especially in the lower strata, were welcome material for determining the methods employed by besieging armies in the earliest periods of Babylonion history." A palace be Babylonia. The work of the expedition of the University of Pennsylvania at Nippur, under the direction of Prof. H. V. Hilprecht, has resulted in the discovery, in the ruins of the great temple of that city, of the ancient library which had been lost on the destruction of the temple by the Elamites, 2280 B. C. It is a remarkable fact in connec longing to the pre-Sargonic period was uncovered beneath an accumulation of 70 feet of rubbish on the northeastern side of the Shate-el-Nil. This building, which is mentioned in the letter as having a frontage of 600 feet, is believed to have been the palace of the early priest-kings of Nippur. The few rooms excavated have already given valuable results in the shape of pre-Sargonic tablets, seal cylinders of the earliest type, and clay fig. urines of early date. At a later period in the history it was used as a quarry for materials for other buildings. Some of the discoveries correct previous conclusions reached by the Philadelphia expeditions. A large building with a remarkable colonnade, having been completely excavated, proves to be of a date a thousand years later than Dr. Peters had estimated it to be, and is a work of the Persian period. A cruciform structure which had been supposed to be connected with the temple turns out to have been a fortification constructed some time during the last two centuries B. C. A catalogue of the collection of Assyrian and Babylonian tablets in the British Museum, prepared under the direction of Prof. Carl Bezold, of Heidelberg, includes principally the list of the 23,000 tablets that formed part of the library collected by Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, 681-625 B. C., which have been recovered from the Koyunjik mound, Nineveh. The library, as appears from the records associated with it, was a careful selection, made by the order of the two kings named, of the more important works from the libraries of southern Chaldea, as a means of supplying the lack of literary culture felt by the Assyrian conquerors of the Babylonian empire. Assyrian youth might, indeed, resort to the libraries and temple schools of Babylonia, among which those of Borsippa, Sippara, and Nippur were conspicuous; but the influence under which they were brought there was all Babylonian, and not favorable to the aspirations of the Assyrian monarchs. In order to counteract this condition, Esarhaddon determined to form a library and school at Nineveh; and this work, begun by him, was completed by Assurbanipal. The library was named after the great library of E-Zida in Borsippa, and was dedicated to Nebo, the god of learning, and his consort Tamitum, the hearer or pupil. Many of the tablets bear a colophon, reading, "These tablets I wrote, engraved, and, for the inspection of my people, placed in my palace," which is interpreted as meaning that the library was a public one. The scribes engaged in preparing the tablets were instructed to copy all works of educational or literary value in the colleges of the south; and the fidelity with which the transcription was done is indicated by the indorsement "Like its old copy on most of the books, and by the occasional occurrence of the statement that the original was damaged. The collection includes educational works and handbooks, medical tablets, astronomical and astrological texts, and letters and dispatches, and were written in the different scripts current in the empire, and one that is unknown. Many of the tablets are furnished with a legend corresponding in character with the modern bookplate, in which the royal proprietorship is asserted and a warning is embodied against carrying the book off or converting it to another person's use. Renewed Excavations at Susa. Soon after retiring from the museum at Cairo M. de Morgan was commissioned to continue, under the permission of the Shah, the excavation at Susa, in Persia, which had been begun several years ago and carried on with considerable success by M. Dieulafoy. He adopted the method of proceeding there that had been used, with satisfactory results, by Mr. Petrie in Egypt and by Dr. Peters in Mesopotamia, of driving tunnels in the mounds reaching from the base to the summit. Beneath the charred remains of the Shushan of Arab times the excavators came upon the Elamite palace which was destroyed by Sardanapalus, and beneath this, in successive strata downward, the bricks of royal buildings and the flint implements of remote times. Among the more important of the ancient objects found was a limestone monument bearing a sculptured portrait of a bearded king wearing a flowing robe and armed with a bow and shaft. Egyptian.-Excavations were carried on in Egypt during the winter of 1899-1900 under the auspices of six institutions at seven principal sites. A party working in behalf of the museum of Gizeh at Sakkarah, near the pyramid of Horæ, in search of burials of princes and princesses, came upon an unfinished burial of the Saitic period, the disposition of which casts light on the way in which the massive sarcophagi were erected. In a chamber reached by a narrow doorway from the bottom of a well 20 metres deep was a very large sarcophagus, not yet occupied, the lid of which was raised about 2 feet above its place by six little pillars of masonry. On the sides of the wall of the chamber were notes in demotic on the progress of the work, written in black ink by the overseer, and other examples of unfinished construction contributed to illustrate the method of proceeding. The work of M. Gayet, representing the Musée Guimet at Shekh Aabadeh, the ancient Antinoe, has as yet brought to light nothing more important than some Coptic embroideries. Mr. Garstang, working for the Egyptian Research Account in some tombs near Abydos, came upon several undisturbed burials of the twelfth and eighteenth dynasties, and some which it is hoped may belong to the period between these two ages of which little is yet known. The University of California had two parties in the field, one of which, under Mr. Reisner, made an unsuccessful search at Kuft for the cemetery of Coptos. The other party was that of Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt, prosecuting at Ummel Barakât, on the southern edge of the Fayum, the fourth season of their searching for papyri. The ruins of a large town, hitherto wholly unknown, were discovered, the name of which appears to have been Tebtunis. The remains found indicate that this place flourished from Ptolemaic times down to those of the Arabs. Many papyri were found, largely from the houses of the priests in the temple inclosure, which date from the first to the third century of the Christian era. A very large cemetery, the earliest monuments of which date from the twelfth dynasty, was discovered. About 60 of the mummies found in the Ptolemaic cemetery were in good preservation. They were furnished with papyrus cartonnage like those found by Prof. Petrie at Gurob. Thousands of mummified crocodiles were found, some of them wrapped up in papyrus sheets and stuffed in the head and stomach with papyrus rolls, many of which are large and fine, although hardly supposed to contain important literary remains. All of them are of a late Ptolemaic date. The general result of the work of Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt is nearly to double the quantity of Ptolemaic papyri extant. The work of Prof. Petrie and Mr. Mace at Abydos in the interest of the Egypt Exploration Fund was very successful, and contributed important additions to our verified knowledge of the most ancient Egyptian history. Explorations had already been carried on at this site by M. Amélineau, who had discovered the tombs of a number of the earlier kings and recovered a number of objects illustrating the arts of that remote period. But his work has been criticised as lacking in system. Prof. Petrie, going over the ground again, applied the scientific processes and methods of identification and registry which were described in the Annual Cyclopædia for 1899. While M. Amélineau's researches left the exact date of the relics he found in doubt, with room for wide differences of opinion, those of Prof. Petrie resulted in the settlement of this question and in the collection of large quantities of material identified as of the first dynasty. While this first dynasty, Prof. Petrie said in giving an account of his discoveries at University College, Gower Street, London, had generally been looked upon as more or less mythical, we were now able to handle the royal drinking bowls from the palaces, to compare the art and tho Usafais, Miebis, and Semempsis, had been identified. Other royal tombs of the same group were those of other kings of the first dynasty. This discovery had also, by the style of the work and the position of the objects of King Aha, led to this king's being certainly identified with Menes, the founder of the Egyptian monarchy. Thus the tablet found by De Morgan in the tomb of Aha proved to have been correctly interpreted by Borchardt. We were now in a position to form a correct appreciation of the whole of the first dynasty between 4000 and 5000 B. C. The art, which was rude and archaic under Menes, rose to its best point under the luxurious King Deu-setui, the fifth of the dynasty. His tomb was paved with red granite and richly furnished with cups of crystal and beautiful stones, bearing his name in OBJECTS RECOVERED FROM TOMBS OF THE FIRST DYNASTY AT ABYDOS, EGYPT. 1. Box of pottery, with figures of gazelles, a boat, and fishes (on the end); prehistoric. 2. Box for eye paint, in the form of two half ducks linked at the tails; carved from a single piece of ivory; first dynasty (beginning). 3, 4, 5. Stone jars; beginning of the first dynasty. 6. Piece of pottery marked with accounts of workmen; tomb of Zet Ateth, third king of the first dynasty. 7. Palette of slate, King Merneit Ata; first dynasty. 8. Copper tweezers; first dynasty. 9. Copper harpoon; first dynasty. 10, 11. Pieces of painted Egean pottery; tomb of King Mersek ha-Semenptah; first dynasty. 12. Stele erected on the grave of two dwarfs (king's servants), and bearing figures of dwarfs. 18. Canopic jar; about 2,500 B. c. the carvings of the period, to criticise the posthumous respect paid to each king, and “to feel much more familiar with the daily life of the age than we could with our own Saxon kings. All this had come about through the careful study of three or four insignificant-looking lumps of black mud." The royal wine jars, of which many remains were found, were sealed by the officials, and bore generally only the hawk name or Ka name which, not being recorded in the lists of kings, was not sufficient for historical identification. But one or two seals of each king bore both his names, and from these the actual tombs of the fifth, sixth, and seventh kings of the first dynasty, named by Mane large, finely cut hieroglyphs, while no fewer than 20 tablets of ivory and ebony carved with inscriptions were known of from his tomb. The tombs of the later kings were less sumptuous, but a more general habit of inscribing the objects of the palace and the tomb seems to have prevailed among them. Among the principal classes of antiquities obtained during the winter, Prof. Petrie names: (1) The great tombstones of the kings, one of Merneit, a king previously unknown, and one of Qa, the last king of the dynasty; (2) the private tombstones of the royal domestics, of which 50 were obtained, one in particular giving all the official titles of a major-domo of this age; (3) the fine stone drink ing bowls and platters, portions of several hundred dishes of fine stone, together with numerous alabaster and slate dishes, about sixty of which bore royal inscriptions; (4) the impressions of seals on the closing of the wine jars, of which 88 different inscriptions were now drawn; (5) the labels and tablets of ivory and ebony, of which parts of 30 had been found with inscriptions; and (6) the innumerable pieces of carving in slate, ebony, ivory, and stones. A collection of these objects was exhibited at University College, London, early in July. Among them a group of Egean pottery, of forms hitherto unknown, from the tomb of King Mersekha-Semenptah, was considered very remarkable. It appeared evidently of the same family as the Mycenaean pottery of later times. Prof. Petrie speaks of it as dated by the tomb to about 4500 B. C., and as giving the earliest fixed point yet known in the history of Greek civilization. Besides the articles belonging to the kings of the first dynasty were some appertaining to two preMenite kings, the extreme beauty of some of which -especially a carved hand-" seems to indicate that they were the products of the zenith of a long artistic history." In a paper on the system of writing in ancient Egypt, read in the British Association, Mr. F. H. Griffith remarked that Egyptology was now reaching a position where it might contribute trustworthy information for the benefit of kindred researches. Egyptian writing consisted of ideographic and phonetic elements. The highest development shown was an alphabet, which, however, was never used independently of other signs. Apparently not acrophonic in origin, it represented consonants and semiconsonants only, vocalization not being recorded by Egyptian writing. Phonograms were derived from word signs. The end of the native system was brought about by the gradual adoption of the Greek character, beginning perhaps in the second century A. D. Although the Egyptian system of writing might not be actually a stage in the history of our alphabet, it threw a strong light on the development of the alphabetic system; and the survival of its pictorial form for decorative purposes enabled us to recognize the highly ramified connections between the forms and meanings of characters to an extent impossible at present in any other system, whether in Mesopotamia, China, or elsewhere. The results of recent Egyptian philology proved that Egyptian was originally a Semitic language, though its character changed early. The main lines of the grammar being at length established, the materials for a complete dictionary were now being collected and classified. A papyrus assigned to the twelfth dynasty, which was discovered at Kaluen in 1898, contains data which are regarded by Prof. Borchard, of Cairo, as furnishing an important aid in fixing the date of that period, a point regarding which the extreme estimates differ to the extent of about twelve hundred years. The papyrus belongs apparently to a class of records of daily events kept by the priests in the temple. Among the items is a note respecting the first rising in the year of Sirius (or Sothis), at daybreak, as occurring on the 16th day of the eighth month of the seventh year of King Usertesen III, and embodying directions for the proper observance of the day. In another part of the papyrus is a record, dated on the 17th day of the month, the day following the festival, of the festival donations that were made "on the appearance of Sirius." Applying an astronomical method advocated by Oppolzer, Dr. Brix has computed that the phenomenon mentioned took place about 1873-76 B. C. This would bring the date of the twelfth dynasty down to about eight hundred years later than the date accepted by Prof. Petrie. ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, a federal republic in South America. The legislative power is vested in the Congress, consisting of a Senate of 30 members, 2 from each province and the federal district, and a House of Representatives, numbering 133, the ratio being fixed by the Constitution of 1898 at 1 to 33,000 inhabitants. Representatives are elected for four years, one half being renewed every second year; Senators for nine years, the provincial Legislatures and the electoral college of the capital electing every third year a third of the Senate. The President is chosen for a term of six years by an elective body chosen by the people. The President of the republic is Gen. Julio A. Roca, who entered upon his office on Oct. 12, 1898; the Vice-President is Dr. Norberto Quirno Costa. The Cabinet appointed by President Roca was composed as follows: Minister of the Interior, Dr. Felipe Yofre; Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship, Dr. Amancio Alcorta; Minister of Finance, Dr. José M. Rosa; Minister of Justice, Dr. Oswaldo Magnasco; Minister of War, Gen. Luis Maria Campos; Minister of Marine, Commodore Martin Rivadavia; Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Martin Garcia Merou; Minister of Public Works, Dr. Emilio Civit. Area and Population. The area of the republic is 1,778,195 square miles. The population in 1899 was estimated at 4,569,000. Buenos Ayres, the chief city, had 779,872 inhabitants. The number of immigrants in 1898 was 95,190, of whom 39,135 were Italians, 18,716 Spaniards, 2,449 French, 1,503 Turks, 779 Germans, 632 British, and 31,976 from other countries. Finances. The revenue in 1898 was $33,878,263 in gold and $49,744,214 in paper; expenditure, $20,931,551 in gold and $93,072,745 in paper. The revenue for 1899 was estimated at $41,870,867 in gold and $69,822,000 in paper, and the expenditure at $26,453,272 in gold and $101,170,399 in paper. The budget estimate of revenue for 1900 was $45,981,735 in gold, of which $37,500,000 came from import and $2,500,000 from export duties, and $67,122,000 in paper, of which the spirit tax produces $16,000,000; the tobacco tax, $9,000,000; wine, sugar, and matches, $7,800,000; beer and other taxes, $2,681,000; sanitary works, $5,100,000; land tax, $2,900,000; stamps and licenses, $9,310,000; posts and telegraphs, $4,550,000; land sales and leases, $4,000,000; railroads, $3,209,000; national bank, $2,000,000; various sources, $572,000. The gold expenditure for 1900 was estimated at $32,946,813, of which $23,147,962 represent the service of the debt and $9,515,250 extraordinary expenditure. The estimated expenditure in paper was $95,447,513, of which the Ministry of the Interior and Congress required $16,666,656; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, $1,097,520; the Ministry of Finance, $7,115,420; the public debt, $11,695,218; the Ministry of Justice, Education, and Worship, $16,605,678; the Ministry of War, $16,011,057; the Ministry of Marine, $11,955,680; the Ministry of Agriculture, $1,911,620; the Ministry of Public Works, $6,302,664; extraordinary expenditures, $6,086,000. At the opening of Congress on May 1, 1900, the expenditure for 1899 was stated to have been $7,000,000 below the estimate, excluding special expenditure amounting to $13,500,000. The receipts were $45,676,000 in gold and $61,420,000 in currency. The national foreign loans in July, 1899, amounted to £45,123,408, in addition to which there were provincial, municipal, and railroad |