The mineral wealth of Korea is a vexed question. Probably between the view of the country as an El Dorado and the scepticism as to the existence of underground treasure at all, the mean lies. Gold is little used for personal ornaments or in the arts, yet the Korean declares that the dust of his country is gold; and the unquestionable authority of a Customs’ report states that gold dust to the amount of $1,360,279 was exported in 1896, and that it is probable that the quantity which left the country undeclared was at least as much again. Silver and galena are found, copper is fairly plentiful, and the country is rich in undeveloped iron and coal mines, the coal being of excellent quality. The gold-bearing quartz has never been touched, but an American Company, having obtained a concession, has introduced machinery, and has gone to work in the province of Phyöng-an. The manufactures are unimportant. The best productions are paper of several qualities made from the _Brousonettia Papyrifera_, among which is an oiled paper, like vellum in appearance, and so tough that a man can be raised from the ground on a sheet of it, lifted at the four corners, fine grass mats, and split bamboo blinds. The arts are _nil_. Korea, or Ch’ao Hsien, has been ruled by kings of the present dynasty since 1392. The monarchy is hereditary, and though some modifications in a constitutional direction were made during the recent period of Japanese ascendency, the sovereign is still practically absolute, his edicts, as in China, constituting law. The suzerainty of China, recognized since very remote days, was personally renounced by the king at the altar of the Spirits of the Land in January, 1895, and the complete independence of Korea was acknowledged by China in the treaty of peace signed at Shimonoseki in May of the same year. There is a Council of State composed of a chancellor, five councillors, six ministers, and a chief secretary. The decree of September, 1896, which constitutes this body, announces the king’s absolutism in plain terms in the preamble. There are nine ministers--the Prime Minister, Minister of the Royal Household, of Finance, of Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, War, Justice, Agriculture, and Education, but the royal will (or whim) overrides their individual or collective decisions. The Korean army consists of 4,800 men in Seoul, drilled by Russians, and 1,200 in the provinces; the navy, of two small merchant steamers. Korea is divided into 13 provinces and 360 magisterial districts.