The industries of Mosul are chiefly spinning and weaving. A very strong kind of cotton cloth is woven, also calico and woollen goods. Many years ago this industry was much larger than it is at present, and in those days Mosul gave its name to muslin, a fabric exported by the French from that town in the last century. Weaving is done by men, while the women do the spinning and dyeing of the cotton or wool. Weaving is a very favourite occupation, as the weaver can do just as much or as little as he likes, being paid accordingly. For this reason a man who is inclined to be lazy would much rather be a weaver than a servant. Furs are largely exported from Mosul. The skin of the fox is most common, but there is another fur much resembling the sable which is highly prized amongst the natives, a coat lined with this fur costing something like L50. Some years ago furs could be bought quite cheaply in Mosul, but the merchants finding a good market for their goods in Europe, the prices soon went up, and now even fox is becoming expensive. The industries of Mosul are not what they were, but we trust better days are coming, when the old prosperity of the town will be renewed and increased. The three great questions now under consideration with regard to the land of Mesopotamia will have great influence on the future of Mosul. The first is the navigation of the Tigris from Baghdad to Mosul. This, when an accomplished fact, will make a great difference in the export and import trade of the city. The Baghdad railway will also greatly increase the importance of Mosul, for the line running through it will bring the East in close touch with the near West. Perhaps the most important subject of all in connection with the future of Mosul is that of the irrigation of Mesopotamia, which, once accomplished, will turn the whole of that vast desert into a garden. The means to be employed for this end are simply the reviving of the old Assyrian method of irrigation. This method consisted in the digging of canals to intersect the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Maps of these same canals are still to be seen in the British Museum and other places, and are of great interest. These great canals, made in the prosperous days of the Assyrian Empire, are now choked up, after having been in use for many centuries by the inhabitants of the country. Layard, in his "Discoveries at Nineveh," says, "Herodotus describes the extreme fertility of Assyria and its abundant harvests of corn, the seed producing two and three hundred-fold"; and adds later, "But in his day the Assyrians depended as much upon artificial irrigation as upon the winter rains. They were skilful in constructing machines for raising water, and their system of canals was as remarkable for its ingenuity as for the knowledge of hydraulics it displayed." Since the result of irrigation in those ancient days was two to three hundred-fold, surely if carried out