FRANCE. This important country has a varied though perhaps not very rich supply of mineral wealth. Granite, sienite, porphyry, variolites, and serpentine are quarried in some of the departments ; lava in others; marble, limestone, and slate in others ; while various parts of France yield lithographic stone, por celain clay, brick clay, pipe clay, gypsum, chalk, millstones, and sandstone. Of metals, the chief ores are those of iron, manganese, anti mony, lead, and copper. Minute traces of gold and silver are met with. Thirty-three of the departments contain excellent coal. An thracite, asphaltum, bitumen, petroleum, alum, rock-salt, and lime, are also obtained. There are about 500 coal-pits in France, from which four to five million tons of coal are annually extracted.
France has always been considered one of the most agricultural countries in Europe, chiefly on account of the numerous publica tions relating to this subject; but in most parts of the country, the progress towards a general adoption of improved methods of cultivation is very slow. The northern part of France, on the confines of Belgium, and the part in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris, are the best cultivated. In most other parts, ex cept where maize is cultivated, the old system of two or three crops of corn and a fallow is generally adopted.
The arable land of France is now estimated at 23,000,000 hectares, which (taking the hec tare =2.47 acres nearly) are about equal to 56,810,000 acres English measure. In recent years there have been about 14,000,000 hec tares under corn culture, yielding 180,000,000 hectolitres (a hectolitre = about 22 gallons, or 21 bushels) of wheat, oats, rye, meslim, and maize ; the wheat being * and oats The corn culture has not increased much during the present century ; but the cultiva tion of the vine, of the artificial grasses, of pulse, and, above all, of potatoes, has much increased. Beet-root is extensively grown for the manufacture of sugar. The esculent roots and table vegetables are common. Flax and hemp are cultivated in various parts of the country, and to a considerable extent; hops, tobacco, and madder, in a small degree ; and colza and rape, for oil, are grown in the north.
The vine is one of the most important ob jects of cultivation in France. The amount of land occupied by this culture is about 5,000,000 English acres. The average yearly produce is nearly 1,000,000,000 of English gallons, of which about one-sixth is converted into brandy. The annual produce of the vineyards is estimated at about 30,000,000/. sterling, of which at least nine-tenths are con sumed in France. Of fruits and of timber trees France has a very fair supply.
The coasts abound in fish of various kinds, the taking of which occupies a number of hands : the oyster, the herring, the mackerel, and especially the sardine or pilchard, are the chief objects of attention to the fishermen of the coasts of the Channel and the Atlantic: the tunny and the anchovy to the fishermen of the Mediterranean.
Every branch of industryin France has un dergone vast improvement since the peace of 1815. The energies of the nation being turned from war to domestic employments, speedily repaired the evils which France had suffered from so long a struggle. The woollen manufacture has increased materially : the increased quantity of wool used is partly fur nished by the increased number of sheep bred, partly by the importation of foreign wool. The quality of the home-grown wool has been improved by the introduction of foreign breeds, and the Cashmere goat has been naturalized on the slopes of the Pyre nees. The cotton manufacture has increased since 1812'in a greater proportion than that of wool, and the process of manufacture and the fineness and excellence of the fabrics have undergone great improvements. The north I and east of France are the chief seats of this manufacture. Printed calicoes are made at Rouen and Bauvais ; but especially at Colmar, Miiblhausen, and other places in the depart ment of Haut Rhin, the printed cottons of which are much approved in the German markets for the vividness of their colours (es. pecially the Turkey red), and their other qua lities. The silk manufacture is carried on chiefly in the south. The brilliancy of the French silks has been increased by the sub. stitution of Prussian-blue for indigo as a dye.