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ALMERIA — ALPES,

railway was completed in 1898, also a line connecting the three provinces of Aimeria, Granada, and Jaen, and the three with Madrid. Another line from Baeza to Linares is near completion. The local industries have developed with the growth of the means of communication in the last decade. Manufactures of textiles, chocolate, matches, bricks and chalk, oil and flour mills, foundries, have attained importance. Agricultural interests have received a great impulse in the valleys nearest the sea and on the banks of the Almanzora, Antas, and Aguas. Viticulture has been much developed, chiefly with a view to meet the increasing foreign demand for the fruit; a great number of new plantations have been made to replace the indigenous vines. Esparto grass, oil, cereals, barley, have also been exported in greater proportion than a few years ago. Mining interests have been given a considerable impulse by foreign and native capital. The province contained, in 1898, 210 working mines, covering 4710 acres. Of these 14 were zinc mines, 66 iron, 102 lead, and 21 argentiferous lead. The number of hands employed in 1898 was 6449; a few hundred were engaged in 3 lead and 6 argentiferous lead works. The Sierra Alhamilla railway brought down 50,086 tons of iron ore in 1898. A short railway is being constructed between Calahorsa and Alguip to work 10 million tons of fine ore at Alguip. The live stock consisted, according to the latest official statistics, of 1163 horses, 11,983 mules, 16,221 donkeys, 3299 oxen and cows, 128,078 sheep, 30,513 goats, and 15,041 pigs. 50,350 acres were devoted to the culture of wheat, 105,000 acres to other cereals, 6500 acres to vineyards, 5000 acres to olive plantations, and 44,500 acres to pod fruit. The population in 1897 was 344,681, or only 78 to the square mile. Education is still in a backward condition, though some improvement has taken place in the last twenty years. With a higher rate of births than deaths the population has yet not increased, because of the steady flow of emigration, which carries away to French Algeria annually from 2000 to 3000 Almerians. Almeria, a port of Spain in the above province. Population, 46,806. It has greatly grown in importance, and in 1898, 1130 vessels, with a total tonnage of 638,551, entered, exactly the same number of vessels and tonnage clearing. In 1897, 178 British vessels of 173,133 tons entered and cleared; in 1898, 191 British vessels (only 13 with British cargoes) of 183,125 tons. Imports in 1898 were chiefly coal, 14,430 tons; patent fuel, 4331 tons; timber, cod, steel, and railway bars. In the export trade 143 British vessels cleared for Great Britain and her colonies with 129,973 tons. Exports were 135,000 tons of iron ore, valued at <£56,700 ; 658,530 barrels of grapes, <£237,071 ; 17,300 tons of esparto, £69,200; and 24,000 cases of almonds, oranges, melons, pomegranates. The western pier, recently built, is 1 mile 77 yards in length, and has a depth of 8 fathoms at the end. Almodovar del Campo, a town of Spain, in the province of Ciudad Real, 181 miles S.S.W. of Ciudad Iteal. There are lace and linen factories. Population in 1897, 12,110. . It was formerly an Arab fortress, hence its name, meaning a sphere. ^ Aim ora, a town and district of British India, in the Kumaun division of the North-West Provinces, situated on ^ mountain - ridge 5494 feet above the sea. Population (1881), 7390; (1891), 7826; municipal income (1897-98), Rs. 10,135. It has a college, called after Sir Henry Ramsay; a government high school, a Christian girls’ school, and 4 printing presses. The district of Almora was recently constituted, together with Naini Tal, by a redistribution of the two former districts of Kumaun and the Tarai. It lies among

BASSES

the mountains of Kumaun, between the upper waters of the Ganges and the Gogra, here called the Kali. Area, 5416 square miles; population (1891), 411,501, the average density being 77 persons per square mile; (1901), 465,876, showing an increase of 13 per cent. The land revenue and rates are Rs.2,65,946; the incidence of assessment being R.O : 12 : 5 per acre ; the cultivated area in 1896-97 was 239,684 acres, of which 2602 were under tea; the number of police was 58; there are 122 vernacular schools, with 4080 pupils; the death-rate in 1897 was 24 per thousand. The district includes the military sanatorium of Ranikhet. The nearest railway via Naini Tal is the extension of the Oudh and Rohilkhand line from near Bareilly to Kathgodam. AlilWick, a market-town, under an urban district council, and the county town of Northumberland, England, in the Berwick-upon-Tweed parliamentary division of the county, on the Ain, 34 miles N. by W. of Newcastle by rail. By prescription, Alnwick is a borough, and its freemen form a body corporate. This body has no authority over the affairs of the town, but, by the Alnwick Corporation Act, 1882, it is required to expend, out of corporate property, not less than £500 a year in payment of teachers’ salaries, &c. in connexion with the corporation schools. The peculiar ceremonies long observed in the initiation of freemen are now discontinued. Area, 4777 acres; population (1881), 6693; (1891), 6746; (1901), 6716. Area of parish, 16,985 acres; population (1881), 7440; (1891), 7428; (1901), 7385. AI ora., a town of Spain, in the province of Malaga, 17 miles W.N.W. of Malaga, on a spur of mountains commanding a fertile plain where maize, sugar-cane, and palms are grown. There are distilleries, Arab ruins of some importance and sulphurous springs, and the town is a favourite summer resort for wealthy families from Malaga. Population (1897), 10,308. A lost (Flemish Aelst), a town of Belgium, on the eastern frontier of the province of East Flanders, on the river Dender, 17 miles S.E. of Ghent by rail. Jute yarns and tissues are manufactured. Population (communal) (1880), 20,679; (1890), 25,544; (1897), 28,771. Alpena., a city of Michigan, U.S.A., the capital of Alpena county, situated on the eastern side of the lower peninsula, on Thunder Bay, an arm of Lake Huron, at an altitude of 607 feet. Its excellent harbour attracts much lake commerce. It is entered by the Detroit and Mackinaw Railway. Its industries consist mainly in the manufacture of lumber, shingles, and laths. The population in 1880 was 6153, in 1890 it was 11,283, and in 1900 it was 11,802. Alpes, Basses, a department in the S.E. of France, traversed by the Alps of Provence, and watered by the Yar, the Durance, and its affluents, the Buech, the Ubaye, the Bleonne, and the Yerdon. Area, 2699 square miles, distributed among 30 cantons and 250 communes. The population fell from 129,494 in 1886 to 112,763 in 1901. The inhabitants readily emigrate to America, more particularly to Mexico. Births in 1899, 2441, of which 63 were illegitimate; deaths, 2537 ; marriages, 797. The chief towns are Digne (7751 inhabitants in 1896), Barcelonnette, Castellane, Forcalquier, Sisteron, and Manosque. In 1896 there were 604 primary schools, with 18,757 pupils. Nine per cent, of the population was illiterate. The soil of the department is poor in the mountainous region, but more fertile in the valley of the Durance, especially in the neighbourhood of Manosque. The surface under cultivation comprised 841,380 acres in