products of the precious metals attained its acme in 1853, when it was
$285,000,000. The increase in the amount of the precious metals in
existence has been greater during the last forty-years than during the
previous two hundred and ninety-four. Of the amount ($6,441,000,000) of
the precious metals estimated to have been obtained from the surface and
mines of the earth, from the earliest times to the close of 1884,
$12,100,000,000 are estimated to have been obtained from America
$6,724,000,000 from Asia (including Australia, New Zealand and
Oceanica), $3,751,000,000 from Europe, and $2,866,000,000 from Africa.

* * * * *




AMESBURY: THE HOME OF WHITTIER.

BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK.


Amesbury is only a town. It has defects that would strike a stranger,
and beauties that one who has learned to love them never forgets; they
linger in glimpses of wood and hill and river and lake, and often rise
unbidden before the mind's eye. The poet Whittier says that those who
are born under the shadow of Powow Hill always return sometime, no
matter how far they may have wandered. He himself, though not Amesbury
born, has found it impossible to desert the old home, full of
associations and surrounded by old friends. He always votes in Amesbury,
and he often spends weeks at a time in his old home. The river that he
has sung, the lake that he has re-christened, the walks and drives with