TRANSPORTA3 ION AND COM M UN ICATIONS. For eign call at nearly every port. but most of the international trade is conducted through the port of Callao. The vessels of over 50 tons entering that port in 1901 numbered 531, of 755, 461 tons: the clearances were 537 vessels, of 753. 334 tons. There entered also 959 vessels under 50 tuns, of 12,697 tons. About one-half of the tonnage of foreign vessels was British. The steamships of the Pacific Steam Navigation Com pany, on the route between Chile and San Fran cisco, call at. nearly all the Peruvian ports. Very freight is carried in domestic bottoms, the merchant marine of the country in 1902 consist ing of only 1 steamer of 19 tons, 29 sailing ves sels of 50 tons, and 86 under 50 tons, the aggre gate tonnage being 10,629 tons.
Good wagon roads and bridges are Peru's greatest needs. Western Peru is still al most isolated front the Montafia heeause the road on which a vast sum has been spent to connect oroya, the terminus of the Central Railroad the Piehis Ricer, the head of navigation leading to Iquitos, is not yet. in a satisfactory condition. Freight between Oroya and the great mining centre of Cerro de Pasco, 66 miles, is still carried by llamas, horses, and mules.
Peru in 1902 had 1035 miles of railroad in operation, of which 844 miles were worked by the Peruvian Corporation, which manages all the property turned over in liquidation of the nation al debt. Not only Lima, but also the larger in
laud towns are connected by rail with their seaports, hut the country needs branches extend ing north and south to connect the Andean towns with the routes to the sea and with one another. Peru thus has numerous sections of a railroad system, but, owing to the lack of branches be tween them, the railroads are as yet wholly in fur the needs of the country. The greatest railroads are the line from Callao and Lima across the 1\ laritime and Central Cordilleras to oroya, 136 miles long, with 63 tunnels, enor mous bridges, eniliankments, and cuttings, and a tunnel in the mountains at an altitude of 15,645 feet, the most elevated spot reached by any rail road in the world; and the railroad between the port of 1\lollendo and Puno on Lake Titicaca, on which there is a connection by steamers with Bolivia. The gross receipts in 1901-02 felon rail roads and steamers amounted to $2,508.875: the working expenses were $1.619.135. The State owns 1400 miles and the Peruvian Corporation 533 miles. There are 48 telegraph offices, and in 1901 1:)2,808 telegrams were sent. Electric communkation with the rest of the world is sup plied by the cables along the coast, with stations at Payta, Callao, Lima, and Mollendo. There are 369 post-offices, which in 1900 carried S.884,604 letters, etc.