First of all the industries of the Andamans is that of timber, and to accelerate and increase it a steam tramway has been instituted and there are now some fourteen miles of line connecting the forests with the shores of Port Blair. As a further adjunct steam saw-mills were erected in 1896 and a forest department that employs from five to six hundred men daily under its own officers, not only supplies the settlement with all of its requirements in timber from the local forests, but also exports timber and forest produce to various places in India and Europe. Of these latter exports, rattans and gurjun oil are the chief; other natural products of the islands are trepang, tortoise-shell and edible birds’ nests, but they are collected only in small quantities. The principal cultivations in which convicts and ex-convicts are engaged are paddy, sugar cane, Indian corn and turmeric; cocoanuts have during the past thirty-five years been extensively planted, and besides the agricultural products previously mentioned, vegetables and fruits of various kinds are grown. The larger industries in which the penal community is engaged have already been alluded to, but there are many minor employments, the products from which also go toward making the settlement self-supporting. Among these are to be found the manufacture of all kinds of furniture, cane chairs, baskets, many varieties of bamboo work and ornamental woodcarving, woven articles from serviettes to saddle-girths, and blankets, pottery, rope and mats, silver, tin, brass and iron work, shoes, rickshaws and carts, besides the production of such materials as lime, bricks and tiles. Port Blair is in communication three and often four times a month with Calcutta, Madras and Rangoon by the vessels of the Asiatic Steam Navigation Company. The distances between the settlement and the ports named are 796, 780 and 387 miles respectively.