But although many efforts have repeatedly been made by speculative and sanguine men to weave all the descriptions of cotton cloth made in Great Britain by the power-loom, they have never been able to do so in the United States. Even when they have actually carried machinery and men from Manchester to work it, across the Atlantic, the produce of the looms has been of a different quality of cloth to that which the same cotton yarn would have produced by the same machinery in Great Britain. This can only be accounted for, I believe, by estimating the effects of climate. The moisture of the atmosphere, the difference of water, and other causes, have been assigned as the cause of this very remarkable circumstance, and perhaps some, or all of them, have their share in producing it. In the Philippines, the natural shrewdness of the people, who show considerable aptitude in the arts which experience has taught them will pay them best, is demonstrated by the neatness of execution which characterises many of their handiworks, demanding no small portion of skill, care, and perseverance; the elaborate execution of the gold ornaments worn by the women frequently exhibiting signs, in a very high degree, of skilful and neat workmanship. I have seen chains, &c., of native make, quite as beautifully and as curiously worked as any I have seen in China, where those ornaments are made in more perfection than the European gold or silversmiths have as yet been able to attain. But probably the pina cloth manufactured in the Philippines, is the best known of all the native productions, and it is a very notable instance of their advance in the manufacturing arts. There is perhaps no more curious, beautiful, and delicate specimen of manufactures produced in any country. It varies in price according to texture and quality, ladies' dresses of it costing as low as twenty dollars for a bastard sort of cloth, and as high as fifteen hundred dollars for a finely-worked dress. The common coarse sort used by the natives for making shirts costs them from four to ten dollars a shirt. The colour of the coarser sorts is not, however, good; and the high price of the finer descriptions prevents its becoming generally a lady's dress; and the inferior sorts are not much prized, chiefly because of the yellowish tinge of the white cloth. The fabric is exceedingly strong, and, I have been informed, rather improves in colour after every successive washing. Pina handkerchiefs and scarfs are in very general use by the Manilla ladies, although they are rather expensive; the price of the former, when of good quality, being from about five to ten pounds sterling each, while for a scarf of average quality and colour about thirty pounds is paid. The coarser descriptions can be had for much less money than the sums mentioned; and the finest qualities would cost from three to four times more than the amounts I have set down.