Missouri is the principal State for this branch of industry, California second, and Minnesota third. These states stand for nearly half the total output of Western factories. The output of California, Oregon, and Washington, in 1900, was $435,670,399, constituting 3.3 per cent of the value of products for the United States. Commenting on this, we find the census of Manufactures (part 1, page CLXXVIII) saying: The industrial condition in this group of states in 1900, considering the value, but not the character of the products, was about the same as the New England states in 1860 and the Middle states in 1850. From this point of view, the growth of the Pacific states has been remarkable. The character of its industries is still determined largely by its natural resources of farm, forest, and mine, but the recent wars in the Orient, resulting in the opening of new markets, gave to the industries of this section a great stimulus which had only begun to be felt at the time the twelfth census was taken. COMMERCE. The combined imports and exports of the United States in the year ended June 30, 1901, were geographically distributed as follows: New York, 45.73 per cent; other ports east of the Mississippi River, 35.24 per cent; the West (Pacific and Gulf ports), 19.03. Of the seven great ports in the Union, three are in the West, New Orleans ranking the third, Galveston sixth, and San Francisco seventh. New Orleans has a foreign commerce of $173,000,000 a year; Galveston $102,000,000, and San Francisco $70,000,000. Puget Sound and the Columbia River, which before many years will be large ports, have between them $40,000,000. Of the total exports of the United States in 1901, the West reported $354,682,075, or 23.1 per cent. Imports were $86,275,443, or 10 per cent. Breadstuffs form a considerable item of the exports of Western ports. For the ten years ended June 30, 1901, shipments were 240,000,000 bushels of barley, corn, oats, rye, 450,000,000 bushels of wheat, and 26,000,000 barrels of wheat flour, of a total value of $521,000,000. San Francisco led in this business, with New Orleans second, and Portland, Oregon, third. MINERAL PRODUCTIONS. Ever since the discovery of gold in California in 1848 mining has been one of the most important industries of the West. Between 1848 and 1900 California yielded gold valued at $1,385,197,097, about one eighth the total gold production of the world from 1493 to 1900. The West in 1900 produced 99.6 per cent of the Nation's gold, 99.8 per cent of its silver (commercial value), and 15.1 per cent of its coal, viz: