I38 RECOLLECTIONS OF

CHAPTER XII.

FRENCH COLONIES.

French Colonies, although sadly reduced from their former
importance, still contribute a well varied exhibition, which,
thanks to the able classification of Mr. Aubry-Lecomte,
Director of the Colonial Museum, offer many points of
interest.

We shall commence with Martinique and Guadelupe, who
derive their chief products from sugar-cane with which more
than one half of the available area of their territory is-
planted.

So far back as 1789, Martinique exported eighteen thousand
tons of sugar, a large quantity for those times. Now,
thanks to improved cultivation and to the introduction of
steam machinery, the yearly average amounts to thirty thousand
tons of sugar besides about one hundred thousand
gallons of molasses and one million gallons of rum.

Guadelupe produces nearly twenty-five thousand tons of
sugar, fifty thousand gallons of molasses, and three hundred
thousand gallons of rum.

Those colonies possess besides a great variety of vegetable
substances which are easily turned into alcohol. Professor
Dulmann* of Saint-Pierre, sends specimens of these alcohols
made from yueca-rootj mahogaiiy applesj potatoes; bitte'f