1841 .] 
of Tasmania . 
145 
The number of bales of wool exported, the produce of 
the Island, has increased from 10,873 to 13,227, or at the 
rate of 21 percent.; the value from £171,599 to £236,391, 
or at the rate of 37 per cent.: that of the previous three 
years was at the rate of 20 per cent. The quantity of oil 
has also increased, at the rate of .27 per cent., although 
the value was less from the depreciation in the home 
market. The returns for 1842 give a rather larger 
number of bales of wool exported, or 13,390, but exhibit 
a great falling off (it is to be hoped for that year only) in 
the exports of oil and whalebone, our next great staple 
commodities. 
Of the five hundred and seventy-two thousand pounds 1 
worth of imports, no less than two hundred and two 
thousand are for articles of food. The wool ex¬ 
ported is more in value than appears in the pre¬ 
ceding table, because it includes many bales of Australian 
growth re-exported from hence. The value of ex¬ 
ported produce of the Island amounts to £510,743, 
or at the rate of £10 a head for every individual. In 
Great Britain and Ireland it is at the rate of £2 only. 
The number of vessels belonging to Hobart has in¬ 
creased from 72 to 96, or at the rate of 33 per cent. : 
during the previous three years the progress was 28 per 
cent. only. The number of vessels belonging to the 
port of Launceston has increased much more rapidly, or 
from 29 to 48; the tonnage in the same period having 
more than doubled. 
The number of vessels built during the three years 
ending with 1838 was 20; tonnage, 1554: the corre¬ 
sponding numbers for the three years ending with 1841 
were 38 and 1856 respectively. The ships employed in 
the fisheries were also more, and their tonnage one-third 
greater, than in 1838. 
In the three years ending 1838, the average price per 
vol. a. NOi VII. L 
