COLORADO. 



COMMERCE, INTERNATIONAL.^109 



subject was brought up in the Legislature again, 

 and an attempt made to remove the location. 

 The people of Boulder, however, by subscribing 

 a large amount toward the erection of a proper 

 building, secured its retention there. In 1874 

 the Legislature appropriated $15,000 for the 

 construction of the building, on condition that 

 an equal amount be raised by the people of 

 Boulder. This was immediately pledged, and 

 the trustees began operations, securing plans 

 and making a contract for the work in 1875. 

 The corner-stone was laid on the 20th of Sep- 

 tember of that year; and in the fall of 1876 

 the building was accepted by the trustees. It 

 is of brick, 112 feet by 81, and four stories high. 

 Its whole cost was about $110,000. It is under 

 the charge of a board of regents, of which L. 

 "W. Dolloff is president, and Junius Berkley 

 secretary. President Bewail, when chosen, 

 was Professor of Natural Sciences in the State 

 Normal School of Illinois. He is a native of 

 Scarborough, Me., and received a medical edu- 

 cation in Boston, Mass. He afterward pur- 

 sued a course of study in the Lawrence Scien- 

 tific School of Harvard University. The Pro- 

 fessor of Latin and Greek in the new University 

 is Justin E. Dow, a native of Newbury, Mass., 

 and a graduate of Dartmouth College. 



The present State government consists of 

 John L. Routt, Governor ; Lafayette Head, 

 Lieutenant-Governor; Wm. M. Clark, Secre- 

 tary of State; D.C. Crawford, Auditor; George 

 C. Corning, Treasurer; J. C. Shattuck, Super- 

 intendent of Public Instruction ; and A. J. 

 Sampson, Attorney-General. The first Legis- 

 lature closed its session in March. Its principal 

 work was the preparation and adoption of a 

 code of laws, which was printed in English, 

 German, and Spanish. Three new counties 

 were formed Routt, Gunnison, and Custer 

 making the whole number 30. The total 

 valuation of property is $40,882,412.36, of 

 which $23,552,397.01 is real estate, and $17,- 

 330,015.35 personal. Taxes are paid on 1,552,- 

 774 acres of cultivated land. The State has 

 no bonded debt, and the floating indebted ness, 

 in the form of warrants selling at about 95 

 cents on the dollar, will probably be liquidated 

 from the tax levy of the year. The product of 

 gold and silver bullion for the year was about 

 $7,500,000 ; the value of agricultural products 

 was about $3,192,500 ; cattle and horses, 

 $7,410,000; wool, $750,000. There are valu- 

 able deposits of coal in Colorado, and consid- 

 erable progress has been made in mining it. 

 The product of the year is put at $611,563. 

 There are three varieties of coal found in the 

 State : the ordinary lignite of the northern 

 part of the State, the semi-bituminous or gas 

 coals of Cafion City and Trinidad, and the so- 

 called semi-anthracites of the Gunnison and 

 Lower Bear River. There are seven lines of 

 railroad in the State, six of which have a ter- 

 minus at Denver. The following statement 

 shows the number of miles operated in the 

 State : 



BROAD GAUGE. 



Kansas Pacific 268 



Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe 138 



Denver Pacific 106 



Boulder Valley 28 



Colorado Central 136 



Total broad gauge 675 



NARROW GAUGE 



Denver and Eio Qrande 297 



Colorado Central 66J 



Denver and South Park 17 



Total narrow gauge 8SOJ 



Total railroad miles 1055J 



During the year 132 miles of road have been 

 built by the Colorado Central and the Denver 

 and Rio Grande companies. 



A complete system of public education has 

 been established under the law passed by the 

 first Legislature. A State Superintendent is 

 elected by the people every two years; and 

 there is a county superintendent chosen in each 

 county. Besides the State University at Boul- 

 der, which has a permanent endowment of 

 75,000 acres of land granted by the national 

 Government, and is supported by a tax of one- 

 fiftieth of a mill on the dollar of all the taxable 

 property in the State, there is a School of Mines 

 at Golden, and an Institute for the Deaf and 

 Dumb at Colorado Springs; while an Agricult- 

 ural College has been provided for, and will 

 be speedily established at Fort Collins. 



COMMERCE, INTERNATIONAL. For 

 four or five years the entire commercial world 

 has been laboring under one of those periodi- 

 cal crises which seem to be the unavoidable 

 drawback of modern times. These crises are, 

 indeed, caused by the very activity and elasti- 

 city of commercial enterprise in the modern 

 world, and their extent and gravity are aug- 

 mented by the very closeness and complexity of 

 the mercantile ties and influences which con- 

 nect communities and nations with each other, 

 and which are, under normal circumstances, 

 the source of their economic prosperity. The 

 late period of depression has probably extend- 

 ed more widely, and will have a longer dura- 

 tion, than any similar one. The causes of the 

 mercantile paralysis and social misery were dif- 

 ferent in different countries and in different 

 industrial branches ; but all of them the ex- 

 haustion of war, the fever of speculation, the 

 undue stimulation of certain industries and the 

 squandering of labor in useless works, the in- 

 flation of nominal values and uncertainty of 

 prices in countries having a paper currency, 

 besides the natural causes of the failure of 

 crops, inundations, conflagrations, and other 

 disasters, and the political causes of changing 

 governments, uncertain policies, and rumored 

 wars culminated when the period of con- 

 traction set in, and the financial shock was 

 communicated from industrial centre to indus- 

 trial centre, and from land to land. Great 

 Britain, possessing the firmest foothold in the 

 markets of the world through her useful me- 

 chanical productions, has not suffered as much 

 as other countries ; yet the growth of commer- 



