Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/545

Rh should alone produce all that commerce collects together from the rest of the hemispheres."

The problem of fuel supply which for a long time had been a serious question, reached a seeming solution in the discovery of surface coal on the line of the Mexican Central railway. Though of poor quality, the announcement of the economic find was received with general rejoicing, for while the market price of ordinary brushwood was thirty dollars a cord, first-class firewood commanded eighty. The mountain slopes had long since been denuded of timber, owing to forest fires and wanton destruction, and the necessity for the encouragement of arboriculture was made manifest to the government in 1884, when it awarded a contract for the planting of two million trees in the lake valley region.

[A. D. 1886,] Owing to the treasury deficit of $24,043,600 at the expiration of the previous fiscal year in June, and left by Gonzalez as an embarrassing legacy to his successor, to Diaz was entrusted the financial problem of providing for a gross expenditure of $44,323,055 out of the ordinary income of $27,000,000. The six per cent, bond issue of $2,5,000,000 already referred to was depended upon to meet this. To facilitate the disposition of this and other special financial obligations, a central bureau was established by the government in the city of Mexico for the registration, liquidation and conversion of all national indebtedness and claims against the exchequer, a financial agency being opened in London at the same time. The new "three per cent, consols" for the conversion