JAVA. This large and important island, in the Eastern Archipelago, yields abundantly the yarn, the sweet potato, the Java potato, arrow root, the common potato, artichokes, cab bages, and peas. The Javanese also cultivate cucumbers, onions, capsicums, cocoa-nuts, ground-nuts, Areca palm, betel, tobacco, coffee, sugar, pepper, cardamom, ginger, cotton, and great varieties of dye-stuffs, and fruits. They procure oil from many of their trees, and make toddy from the palm. Few minerals are known to exist in Java ; but iron, sulphur, salt, and saltpetre are obtained.
Java is extremely well adapted for an exten sive commerce. The island itself is rich in productions, and its northern coasts, which are accessible to vessels all the year round, lie opposite the richest countries of Asia. Besides this, the Dutch government has made it the centre of all the trade which Holland carries on with its extensive settlements in the Indian Archipelago. Hence the transmission of
native produce to other countries, and the importation of foreign commodities, are both very large. The exports of British produce and manufactures to Java, in 1848 amounted to 336,8431., of which by far the largest items were cotton and linen goods. The prodnce of the Dutch possessions in Java was in 1848— coffee 144,861,372 lbs., sugar 112,000 tons, indigo 1,151,368 lbs., cochineal 146,000 lbs., tea 988,529 lbs., pepper 461,680 lbs., cinna mon 250,550 lbs., tobacco 1,500,000 lbs. In the year 1828, the island supplied Great Britain with only 15,000 tons of sugar ; ini 1847, the quantity of sugar imported from Java into Great Britain amounted to 75,000 tons.