REPORTS AND STATISTICS. The “Compendiums of the Census” for 1840, 1850, 1860, and 1870, are desirable. The volumes of the tenth census (1880) are of great value for all questions; as is also F. A. Walker’s “Statistical Atlas” (1874). The United States Bureau of Statistics issues quarterly statements; and annually a report on “Commerce and Navigation,” and another on the “Internal Commerce of the United States.” The “Statistical Abstract” is an annual publication, by the same department, compact and useful. It dates only from 1878. The Director of the Mint issues an annual report dealing with the precious metals and the circulation. Its tables are important. The Comptroller of the Currency (especially during the administration of J. J. Knox) has given important annual reports upon the banking systems of the United States. The reports of the Secretary of the Treasury deal with the general finances of the United States. These, with the two last mentioned, are bound together in the volume of “Finance Reports,” but often shorn of their tables. There are valuable special reports to Congress of commissioners on the tariff, shipping, and other subjects, published by the Government. The report on the “International Monetary Conference of 1878” contains a vast quantity of material on monetary questions. The British parliamentary documents contain several annual “Statistical Abstracts” of the greatest value, of which the one relating to other European states is peculiarly convenient and useful. These can always be purchased at given prices. A. R. Spofford’s “American Almanac” is an annual of great usefulness. Preliminary Remarks. Writers on Political Economy profess to teach, or to investigate, the nature of Wealth, and the laws of its production and distribution; including, directly or remotely, the operation of all the causes by which the condition of mankind, or of any society of human beings, in respect to this universal object of human desire, is made prosperous or the reverse.