ussian petroleum so far receives but little attention in this market
from the regular traders and consumers, so long as supplies from the
United States can be regularly imported at reasonable prices. It,
however, remains an open question, in the event of lower prices ruling
in the Russian petroleum regions, whether American supplies may not
later on experience some greater competitive foreign interference.

According to the statistical data, steam vessels of all nationalities
have continued to make Gibraltar their port of call, not only for
orders, but also for replenishing their stock of fuel and provisions,
and in larger numbers than ever before, the number in 1888 having
reached 5,712 steam vessels, measuring in all 5,969,563 tons, while in
1887 the number was only 5,187 steam vessels, with an aggregate
tonnage of 5,372,962. This increase cannot but result in considerable
benefit to the coal and maritime traffic, which now forms the most
important portion of the general commerce of Gibraltar, in spite of
the keen competition it experiences from other British and foreign
coaling ports.

Freights have also advanced in favor of steamship interests, which,
with higher prices in England for coal, have also caused an advance in
the price of coal at this port, to the benefit of the coal merchants
and others interested in this important trade. At present the ruling
price for steam coal is 24s. per ton, deliverable from alongside of
coal hulks moored in the bay. As near as I have been able to
ascertain, the quantity of coal sold in this market during the past
year for supplying merchant steam vessels has amounted to about
508,000 tons, which is an increase of about 20,000 tons over the year
1887.

Notwithstanding that plans have already been submitted to the British
government for the construction of a dry dock in Gibraltar, the matter
remains somewhat in suspense, since it meets with some opposition on
the part of the British government, which, in face of the European
fever for general arming, seems more inclined to utilize in another
form the expense which such a work would entail upon the imperial
government, by replacing the obsolete ordnance recently removed from
this fortress and substituting new defenses and guns of the most
approved patterns, a matter which has evidently been receiving, for
some time past, the special attention of the British military
authorities, not doubting that the recent visit to the fortress