Soap, Candles and Chemical Products.— A great part of the raw materials used in these industries is still imported though the republic is capable of producing most of them. The Laguna Soap Company, capital $5,000,000, formed by the amalgamation of two large cottonseed-oil companies, produces daily in normal times and conditions, 400 tons of cot tonseed oil, 7.500,000 pounds of soap and 2,000 metric tons of glycerine, together with a vari ety of edible cottonseed-oil products. It em ploys from 800 to 1,000 men. La Union Soap Factory of Torreon, capital $2,000,000, is en gaged principally in the manufacture of soap and glycerine. The company also has a large refining plant near Torreon. There are a num ber of smaller soap and many candle factories scattered throughout the republic. Chemicals, paints, varnishes and acids are also manufac tured in or near numerous cities and towns. A few years ago all the petroleum and petro leum products used in Mexico were imported and sold in the republic at excessively high prices. Now petroleum, benzine, kerosene, paraffine wax, asphalt and many •y-products are manufactured in the country; and native oil has become an important factor in the national life. Whole railway lines use oil burners on their engines and petroleum is employed for producing motive power in many kinds of in dustrial life. Yet but a very small percentage of the possible native oil sources has been ex ploited,- for the oil belt extends all the way from Texas to Guatemala on the Gulf side and large deposits are known to exist on the Pacific Coast. The refining of crude petroleum has become a business of considerable importance in Mexico and the exploitation of the asphalt deposits has already influenced the pavement of the streets of the cities and larger towns of the republic.
Iron and Steel No other Mexi can industry has grown so fast within the past dozen years as that of the great iron and steel foundries now turning out products equal to those of the steel-producing centres of the world. This output Includes smaller agricul tural implements, marketable iron and steel, and a constantly increasing number of finished products such as are turned out from the great American and European steel plants. The Monterey Iron and Steel Company, capital $10, 000,000, with its great blast furnaces, produces 300 tons of steel per day. It makes steel rails and structural iron and steel in vast quantities and of excellent quality. Monterey is the most important centre of this new industry; and naturally there the business has reached the highest state of perfection in the republic. The steel and iron industries of Richard Honey, in Hidalgo and the Federal District, are next in importance to those of Monterey. Two other important iron foundries in Jalisco rely chiefly upon local trade. One of these at Zapalapa supplies iron to Guadalajara, Aguas calientes, Manzanillo and surrounding country.
In Mexico the production of rubber is a real manufacturing industry in certain parts of the republic where the guayule i plant grows in abundance. This plant is a low shrub from two to four feet in height from which crude rubber is extracted by means of specially constructed machinery. The plant is torn out by the roots, is crushed and the sap extracted from it. It then undergoes certain processes before it becomes commercial rubber. The Guayule Rubber Company produced in this way, in the first seven months of 1912, 1,818,880 pounds of rubber. The International Rubber Company of Torreon, which is capital ized at $37,500,000, possesses 2,000,000 acres of land in the state of Zacatecas, on which wild guayule grows abundantly. The company has an extensive factory at Torreon, in which is installed the most modern rubber machinery.
The guayule exported from Mexico in the fiscal year 1912-13 was valued at $7,234,000, which was only about $1,000,000 less than the value of the tree rubber grown in the country ing the same period. In 1911-12 the payi exports brought $11,798,800.
There are many cigar and mg rette factories In Mexico; but the latter it exceed the former in volume of business ilk principal tobacco manufacturing centres r. Mexico City, Orizaba, Puebla, Jalapa, Yr. Cruz, Cuernavaca and Guadalajara. But fir is scarcely a city or town in the republic does not make either cigars or cigarette a both for local consumption; and each mann?: turing district has its own favorite local brae In the city of Mexico an immense number; cigarettes are made, the Buen Tono Comp turning out alone daily about 20,000.000; ac the Tabacalera makes about 4,000,00(1 he these companies are backed by million capital. In the Buen •Torso's factories (ter ing the Cigarrera Mexican), 1,700 hands a employed. Certain brands of Mexican rig are favorably known in Europe and in a United States.
Packing There are a number packing houses in Mexico. Several are on zk Pacific Coast where the cattle ranges are rxr or less isolated from the European and Are ican markets; but the National Packing On parry, with a capital of $7,500,000, opera- from its headquarters in the capital, a largest and most important, and does an late national business.
Paper is made (though not oar for local consumption) by the San Rafael is Anexas Company, situated near the caFil. This institution, which is capitalized for sza 000, has two factories, a pulp mill and ere sive forests from which it draws its raw me dal. Though the output of San Rafael runs: the commoner grades of paper, including by quantities of newspaper print, yet it also stir high-grade paper of numerous styles and & grees of fineness, among these being caltr...v and the finer grades of half-tone paper.
Dynamite and Other including giant powder, are manufactured Mexico; and the government has its own 0 munition factory at Santa Fe, near the capd The Mexican National Dynamite and Ere sives Company, at Dinamita, Durango. r duces over 50,000pounds of explosives di It is capitalized at $3,400,000 and employs fry 900 to 1,000 hands.
Flour Large flour mills, moiler r every respect, and others of smaller aPr: and more primitive types, are to be faun Mexico from Monterey to Yucatin. Of tire the most modern are: El Hermosillense. He mosillo; the Chihuahua Flour (72 huahua; the Goleta Mills, Saltillo and terey; the Phoenix Mills, Saltillo; the Eare ralda Mills, Monterey and Ramos Alliance Mills, Torre6n; the Diamond GOmez Palacio; the Gulf Flour Company. Luis Potosi and Merida; Aurelio Company, Irapuato; the Union Mills, Win the National Flour Manufacturing ComPr Mexico City; the Bakers' Mutual Associamr Guadalajara; and La Perla Mills, Ae calientes.
estadistico reptiblica (Mexico annually); `k' uario de estadistica fiscal) (Mexico anninN Baker, F. W., 'A Naturalist in Mexico' fC' cago 1895) ; Bancroft, H. H., 'Resources and Development of Mexico' ( San Francisco 11394) ; Cubas, A. Garcia, 'Mexico : Its Trade Industries and (Mexico 1893) ; Duclos Salinas, A., 'The Riches of Mexico and its Institutions' (Saint Louis 1893) • Felix and Lenk, eBeitrage zur Geologie and Pala ontologie von (Leipzig 1892) ; Good rich, J. K., 'The Coming Mexico' (Chicago 1913) ; • Howell, E. J., 'Mexico : Its Progress and Commercial Possibilities) (London 1892) ; Martin, P. F., 'Mexico of the Twentieth Cen tury' (2 vols., New York 1907) ; 'Mexican Yearbook) (London, annually) ; Romero, Ma tics, 'Mexico and the United States) (New York 1898) ; Wells, D. A., 'A Study of Mex ico) (Mexico 1:-:7).