Excerpt from Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, Vol. 58: May 1905The land area of the Philippines is approximately 115, 026quare miles, of which and square miles, respectively, or nearly 70 per cent of the surface of the archipelago, is included in Luzon and Mindanao. Of the islands listed by name 342 are inhabited, and about 50 have appreciable economic importance. Although these fpresent'considerable diversity of soil, climate, and topography, they are practically a homogeneous unitfrom the industrial point of View, as the natural productions of the local divisions are similar or Identical. The pearl fisheries, which seem. Destined ultimately to become avaluable asset of the dependency, are confined to the Sulu Islands, Palawan, and possibly the southern coast of Mindanao, and no mineral wealth of importance is supposed to exist in the volcanic and coral islands of the southern and western portions of the archipelago, but agricultural and forest resources, which are the main dependence of the country, are essentially the same throughout the Philippines. Hemp, sugar, tobacco, rice, and copra, the staple products of to-day, andmost of the more experimental crops thrive in all, the islands, subject only to local conditions of soil, rainfall, and altitude.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.