When allowance is made for the elimination of water from pulp and the shrinkage in its manufacture into paper, the average freight rate borne by the material entering into paper at the northern New England mill is about 13½ cents per 100 pounds. The manufacturers consider 17 cents per 100 pounds to be the average freight rate on the paper from the mill to places north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi Rivers. The aggregate freight charge borne on the average by the 100 pounds of paper which sells at the factory for $2.50 is therefore 30 cents. As with all things else, the rates on the ores of the far western region have been adjusted under the necessity of the transportation agencies to so serve the mines that their products may be marketed. The rate upon the ore from the mine to the smelter, upon the metal from the smelter to the refinery, and upon the refined lead or refined copper from Chicago to the seaboard market, are all determined by this prime factor. The freight charges, for example, from the Coeur d'Alene district in northern Idaho on the ores from which the extraneous material has been roughly separated, to the Puget Sound refineries, reach a maximum of $6 per ton for a distance of four or five hundred miles, and the rate from Puget Sound to New York is $14.50, the average transportation charge, therefore, being about $20 per ton. The value of a ton of copper at 12 cents a pound is $240, and a ton of lead at four cents a pound is $80. Copper passes through manifold and expensive processes and its extensive consumption has followed the development of electricity. Lead does not require so many or so expensive workings, and it has long been a great staple of general use. The mine farther from a smelter naturally has to pay a higher rate of freight than a mine nearer to it, receiving, therefore, a lesser net price for its product, _but the railroads are obliged to so adjust rates that practically every mine can reach a market_. The rate on refined petroleum between New York and Chicago is 27½ cents per 100 pounds, the average rate paid north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi Rivers being from eight to ten cents per 100 pounds. From Toledo to Atlanta the rate is 48 cents, from Whiting 46½ cents, from New Orleans 35 cents. The rate from Chicago to the Missouri River is 22 cents, to St. Louis 10 cents; while the rate from the Kansas field to St. Louis is 17 cents. One hundred pounds of refined oil contain approximately sixteen gallons which, at an average price of 12½ cents a gallon at the refinery, would aggregate $2. The price per gallon to the consumer is increased one cent with each increment of seven cents in the freight charge.