HONDURAS. 



415 



in the usual form through the American min- 

 ister to Gen. Legitime. the amount demanded 

 in behalf of the owners being $200,000; that 

 for the passengers and cre\v, $150,000. The 

 'Ilavtian Republic" was to be formally ac- 

 cepted by Rear-Admiral Luce on December 

 24. On December 31, the Secretary of State 

 at Washington received the copy of a decree, 

 dated December 10, issued by the Legitime 

 Government, closing all the northern ports 

 St. Marc, Gonalves, Port de Paix, and Cape 

 llaytien to foreign commerce provisionally. 



1IOLLAM). See NETHERLANDS. 



HO'Dt'RAS, a republic in Central America , 

 area. 39,600 square miles; population in 1887; 

 329.134. 



Government The President is Gen. Luis Bo- 

 gran, whose term will expire on Nov. 29. 1891. 

 The Cabinet is composed of the following min- 

 ister? : Foreign Affairs. Licenciado Don Jero- 

 nirao Zelaya; Justice, Public Works,- and War, 

 Sefior R. Alvarado : Interior, Sefior A. Gomez ; 

 Finance, Seflor F. Planas; Agriculture, Sefior 

 A. Zelaya. The United States Minister is lion. 

 H. C. Hall, resident at Guatemala ; the Ameri- 

 can Consul at Ruatan and Trujillo is William 

 C. Bun- hard, and at Tegucigalpa. Daniel W. 

 Herring; the Consular Agent at Yuscarnn is 

 Theodore Koehnke. The Consul- General at 

 New York is Jacob Baiz; at San Francisco, 

 William V. Wells. 



Finance. The outstanding remainder of the 

 $2-1(100.000 foreign debt, contracted in 1869, 

 is gradually being canceled through the opera- 

 tions of the custom-houses, where 40 per cent, 

 of the duties may be paid with sffch old bonds. 

 The consolidated internal indebtedness is rep- 

 resented by $700,000 bonds in circulation, and 

 there is also a floating debt of $200.000. In 

 February the Government made a contract for 

 the founding of a national bank at Tegucigal- 

 pa. In March a contract was made with Don 

 Gilberto Larios for the establishment at Tegu- 

 cigalpa of the Banco Centro- Americano, with 

 a capital of $600,000, and the privilege to in- 

 crease it to 1.000,000. 



Treaties, In January the Congress of Hon- 

 duras ratified the treaty of commerce and 

 navigation signed in January, 1887, at Guate- 

 mala, between Honduras and Great Britain, 

 together with the one made with Germany, 

 under date of Dec. 12, 1887, and also the Cen- 

 tral American treaty of friendship agreed to 

 between the five republics on Feb. 16, 1887. 



Border Questions. In January, commissioners 

 delegated by the governments of Honduras 

 and Nicaragua met on the boundary-line be- 

 tween the two republics, at points in dispute 

 between the departments of Choluteca and 

 Nueva Segovia, in order to make the necessary 

 survevs for the settlement of this question. 



Railroads. Construction on the Honduras 

 North Coast Railway was begun by the con- 

 tractor George E. Mansfield, of Boston, in 

 May. The mad is being built under a conces- 

 sion originally granted in July, 1884, by the 



Government of Hondnra- to W. All-trom, who 

 organized the Honduras North Coast Railway 

 and Improvement Company in New Orleans. 

 The concession is for ;>'. years, and grants nine 

 square miles of land for each mile of line built, 

 also exemption from taxation and the pri 

 of importing material for construction ft 

 duty. The line surveyed is 150 miles long, the 

 termini being Trujillo and Puerto Cortez, and 

 it passes through extensive forests of mahoga- 

 ny, cedar, and iron-wood, and will open up the 

 Sierra Madre mountains on their northern 

 slopes. According to the grant, the company 

 is obliged to have 75 miles of road in operation 

 by July, 1889. The only railroad in Honduras 

 at present is a line of 38 miles from Puerto 

 Cortez, which is a portion of a projected trans- 

 isthmian route to the Bay of Fonseca. The 

 Honduras Railway Company was incorporated 

 in London in May, with a capital of 8,000,- 

 000, to complete this enterprise, and a New 

 York syndicate has been found to construct 

 another line from Trujillo to the Bay of Fon- 

 seca, passing through the principal mining dis- 

 tricts, and connecting with the capital, Teguci- 

 galpa. The London concewionnaire sent in 

 June three engineers to Puerto Cortez, for the 

 purpose of completing the survey of the road 

 over a track of 40 miles from Ojos de Agua 

 toward the Atlantic, and they began their 

 work on July 7. 



>e\v Steamship Line. In September the Gov- 

 ernment made a contract with F. L. Philips <te 

 Co. for the establishment of regular steamship 

 communication between the coast and bay isl- 

 ands, granting them certain privileges. 



Mining. Honduras is rapidly becoming an 

 active mining country, and many miners are 

 going there from the United States. The pay 

 is usually $50 a month, with board and travel- 

 ing expenses, for "hand-drill" men. as little 

 machinery is used, and about $75 for mill en- 

 gineers. The climate in the interior is repre- 

 sented as being healthful. To mining compa- 

 nies Honduras offers the advantages of surface 

 mining, cheap labor, and unknown but cer- 

 tain mineral wealth. The Government is also 

 willing to imvke liberal concessions. The New 

 York and Honduras Rosario Mining Company, 

 at San Jacinto, has opened tunnels driven di- 

 rect on the vein down to the 650-foot level, 

 and is producing 80 tons of ore a day. The 

 levels are 100 feet apart, and vary in length 

 from 600 to 1,400 feet on the vein, connected 

 by winzes at convenient distances almost to 

 the lowest level. The ore consists of the de- 

 composed snlphurets of copper, iron, and some 

 lead, carrying considerable chloride and native 

 silver in a quartz gangue. A three-hearth 

 roasting-furnace has been erected for chlori- 

 dizing the concentrates, which consist largely 

 of undecomposed sulphurets. The product in 

 the summer of 1888 was from 40 to 50 1 

 bullion a month, weighing 100 to 110 pounds 

 each, and running from 600 to 800 fine in sil- 

 ver and 10 to 17 fine in gold. The Los An- 



