A placer claim must be worked continuously by the holder or his employee, and shall be held abandoned and forfeited if unworked for 72 hours, except for reasonable cause, satisfying the Gold Commissioner. A year's leave of absence may be given if the sum of $1,000 has been expended without reasonable return, or if all holders of the set of claims sign the application.

Provisions as to tunnels and drains, water rights, partnerships, mining recorders, gold commissioners, county courts, penalties, paying free miners' fees for employees, are much the same as those regarding mineral claims. Provisions are made for "bed-rock flumes."

Free miners may obtain a lease of placer-mining ground for ten years as follows: Dry diggings, ten acres; bar diggings, half a mile along high water mark; creek diggings, or abandoned or unworked creeks, half a mile in length; bench lands, for hydraulic workings, eighty acres, but not to exceed 500 yards in length. The lease may be renewed. The ground must not be already occupied (without consent of occupiers) nor immediately available for agricultural purposes; and only placer-mining must be carried on.

Water may be granted by the Gold Commissioner for hydraulic workings on bench lands.

Leases may be granted for twenty years of the bed of the river for dredg ing for a distance not over five miles.

(Act, 1891, Chap. 26, and amending Acts, 1894, Chap. 33, and 1895, Chap. 40).

772. A Bill intituled An Act to repeal "An Act to aid the Development of Quartz Mines," and amending Act, has been introduced this session and has passed its third reading.

Counting the consolidated Acts of 1888 and subsequent amending Acts to 1896, there are twenty-two British Columbia Acts relating to mining, without reckoning several special Acts concerning hydraulic mining companies.

773. A Bureau of Mines was established in 1895, under the Minister of Mines, with a Provincial Mineralogist, whose duty it is to collect information relating to the mining industry, and publish it. Besides a museum there are to be lecture rooms, an assay office and laboratory, where assays and tests may be made according to a schedule of fees. Arrangements may be made for giving instructions to prospectors and others, and societies of arts and other societies may affiliate with the Mining Bureau for the instruction and examination of students.

Legal Weights and Measures.-Customs Valuations.-Value Imports and Exports. -Exports and Imports by Countries.-Aggregate Trade.--Coin and Bullion.-Trade and Duties per Head.-Increased Total Trade.-Import for Home Consumption by Coun. tries.-Imports for Home Consumption, Dutiable and Free.-Duties by Countries.— Analysis by Imports.-Comparison with United States.-Imports of Luxuries.-Duties on Luxuries.-Imports by Classes.-Dutiable or Free Imports.-Duties Collected.Interprovincial Trade.-Imports Compared as to the Quantity and Value.-Total Imports by Countries.-Imports for Home Consumption by Countries.-Imports for Great Britain and United States.-Imports by Countries, 1874-84-94.-Imports by Provinces.-Imports of Raw Materials.-Imports remaining in Warehouse.--Value of Total Exports by Countries.-Domestic and Foreign Exports.-Value of Principal Exports.-Destination of Exports.-Exports Classified.-Relative Value of Exports to Great Britain and United States.-Aggregate Trade with Great Britain and United States.-Value of Exports since Confederation.-Volume of Trade.-Comparison of Exports by Means of Index Numbers.-Prices of Principal Articles of Export for Years.-Trade of United Kingdom and British Possessions.-Distribution of Trade of United Kingdom.-Exports and Imports of Foreign Goods by Canada.-Excisable Articles.-Duties on Alcoholic Liquors and Tobacco.-Imports and Exports at each Port in Canada.-Ports at which the Duties Exceeded $500,000.-Imports and Exports of Canada to different Countries.

774. The legal weights and measures of Canada are the Imperial yard, Imperial pound avoirdupois, Imperial gallon (of 277 27384 cubic inches), and the Imperial bushel. The Imperial gallon is equal to 4.54174 litres, while the wine gallon, used in the United States, is equal to 3.785 litres.

By Act 42nd Vic. (1879), Chap. 16, it was provided: That in contracts for sale and delivery of any of the undermentioned articles the bushel should be determined by weighing, unless a bushel measure be specially agreed upon, the weight equivalent to a bushel being as follows:

By the same Act the British hundredweight of 112 pounds and the ton of 2,240 pounds were abolished, and the hundredweight was declared to be 100 pounds and the ton 2,000 pounds avoirdupois, thus assimilating the weights of Canada and the United States.

775. The returns of values of imports and exports are those supplied in entries at the Customs, where imports must be entered for duty at their fair market value as for home consumption in the country of purchase. The recorded values of imports are determined by aggregating the total amounts as stated in the entries, free and for duty, of the goods imported into Canada. Such recorded values are arrived at in a similar way, in the case of exports, by aggregating the values as given in the entries of goods for exportation. The quantities of goods imported are ascertained as follows: (a) by examination of the invoices of such goods; (b) by examining a certain number of cases or packages in each importation; (c) in the case of wines and liquors, by gauging, and in the case of strong liquors, about the strength of proof or of greater strength, the recorded quantity is determined by the result as ascertained after testing by Syke's hydrometer; (d) by weighing or counting certain goods bearing specific duties. The country of origin of imports is the country of purchase or whence shipment was made to Canada ; the country of destination is that to which shipment is made. Thus Canadian wheat purchased by New York dealers, shipped to and entered in bond at New York, and thence exported to Great Britain, would appear only as exported from Canada to the United States. The only Canadian port where transit trade is recorded is Montreal, such trade comprising chiefly goods received from the United States and transhipped to other countries by the St. Lawrence route. Transit trade is not included in the general trade, which comprises all other imports into and exports from Canada. The term "special trade" in Canada is applied to imports from Newfoundland which are exempt from duties leviable on similar goods from other countries.

The accuracy of the statistical results may at times be affected by fraudulent misdescription or undervaluation by importers, and by the adoption of "sight entries," which, under the Customs Act, may be passed when importers declare on oath that, for want of full information, they cannot make a perfect entry. In such circumstances the goods may be landed, examined, and (a sum being deposited sufficient, in the collector's opinion, to pay the duty) delivered to the importer. A time is fixed within which a perfect entry should be made, but when this time is elapsed the deposit is held as payment of the duty, and the provisional valuation, which may be only approximate, is not corrected. Statistics of exports may be affected in two ways: large quantities of goods are shipped at remote points where no officer is stationed, and the prescribed entry outwards is not unfrequently neglected, while, on the other hand, it may happen, by the mistake of officers or of carriers' agents, that exports already entered outwards at the inland port of shipment are recorded also at the point of exit from Canada.

776. The following tables give the value of the imports and exports and of the aggregate trade in each year since Confederation, also the excess of imports over exports, or otherwise, the value of the several branches of trade per head of population, and the amount of duty collected, for the same period :

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS, AND TOTAL TRADE OF CANADA, 1868 TO 1895.

777. The next table gives the total imports from and exports of Canada to the United Kingdom, other British possessions and foreign countries, during the year 1895, with the percentage of the total amount in each

case:

TOTAL VALUE OF IMPORTS AND EXPORTS OF CANADA BY
COUNTRIES, 1895.

* Includes Danish, Dutch, French and Spanish West Indies. Not elsewhere specified.

The imports from the United States are greatly increased by our purchasing raw cotton, raw tobacco and naval stores from them-such articles not being supplied by the United Kingdom.

778. The following table gives the aggregate trade of the Dominion by countries, on the basis of goods entered for consumption and exported :