including $2,841,002 whale and $10,747,579 other fisheries. (See Fisheries.) The number and chief nationalities of emigrants arriving in the United States each year to the close of 1873 are given in the article Emigration. For the years 1874 and 1875 they were:
| COUNTRIES. | 1874. | 1875. |
| England | 43,396 | 30,040 |
| Ireland | 47,683 | 29,969 |
| Scotland | 8,765 | 5,739 |
| Wales, Man, Jersey, and Channel islands | 573 | 431 |
| Total British isles | 100,422 | 66,179 |
| British America | 30,596 | 23,420 |
| Norway | 6,581 | 4,465 |
| Sweden | 4,336 | 6,031 |
| Denmark | 3,188 | 1,951 |
| Holland | 1,533 | 1,073 |
| Germany | 56,927 | 36,565 |
| Austria | 6,891 | 6,039 |
| Russia | 7,447 | 4,369 |
| France | 8,741 | 3,607 |
| Switzerland | 2,436 | 1,641 |
| Italy | 5,787 | 3,315 |
| All other countries | 25,929 | 27,576 |
| Total | 260,814 | 191,231 |
The whole number of customs districts in the United States is 112, each having a port of entry. There are also 15 interior ports of delivery, at which duties may be collected on appraised merchandise transported in bond from exterior ports of entry, viz.: Albany, N. Y. ; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Parkersburg and Wheeling, W. Va.; Cincinnati, O.; Evansville, Ind.; Cairo and Galena, Ill.; Burlington and Dubuque, Iowa; Omaha, Neb.; Louisville, Ky.; Memphis and Nashville, Tenn.; and St. Louis, Mo. Of these the following have also been made ports of entry, to which merchandise may be transported directly without prior appraisement: Cincinnati, O.; Evansville, Ind.; Louisville, Ky.; Memphis, Tenn.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; and St. Louis, Mo. The railroad, canal, telegraph, and postal systems of the United States are described in the special articles on those subjects.—The wealth, taxation (not national), and public debt (not national) in 1860 and 1870 were as follows:
| PARTICULARS. | 1860. | 1870. |
| True value of real and personal estate | $16,159,616,068 | $30,068,518,507 |
| Assessed value of real estate | 6,973,006,049 | 9,914,780,825 |
| Assessed value of personal estate | 5,111,553,956 | 4,264,205,907 |
| Assessed value, total | 12,084,560,005 | 14,178,986,732 |
| Taxation, state | ............ | 68,051,298 |
| Taxation, county | ............ | 77,746,115 |
| Taxation, town, city, &c. | ............ | 134,794,108 |
| Taxation, total | 94,186,746 | 280,591,521 |
| Public debt, state, bonded | ............ | 324,747,959 |
| Public debt, state, all other | ............ | 28,118,739 |
| Public debt, county, bonded | ............ | 157,955,880 |
| Public debt, county, all other. | ............ | 29,609,660 |
| Public debt, town, city, &c., bonded | ............ | 271,119,668 |
| Public debt, town, city, &c., all other | ............ | 57,124,852 |
| Public debt, aggregate | ............ | 868,676,758 |
—The several states of the Union, so far as their internal affairs are concerned, are supreme and independent, while for the common interests of all they delegate a portion of their powers to a central government, whose laws, so long as they are not in conflict with the constitution, are paramount to state authority. All powers not expressly granted by the constitution to the federal government, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. The government consists of three branches, the legislative, executive, and judicial. The executive power is vested in a president, who together with a vice president is elected for four years by a college of electors, each state returning as many electors as it is entitled to have senators and representatives in congress. The present total number of electors is 366. The constitution provides that they shall be appointed in such manner as the respective legislatures may direct. At first they were generally chosen by the legislatures themselves, and this continued to be done in South Carolina till 1860; but now they are designated in all the states by popular vote at an election held every four years (counting for this century from 1800), on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November. The electors meet in each state on the first Wednesday in December and cast their votes for president and vice president. On the second Wednesday in February the certificates of the votes thus cast are opened by the president of the senate in presence of the two houses of congress, when the votes are counted and the result declared. The official term of the officers declared elected begins on the 4th of March following. In case of the removal, death, resignation, or inability of the president, the vice president succeeds to the presidency, and, if the disability be not temporary, serves the remainder of the presidential term; and in case of the failure of both president and vice president, congress has authority to declare what officer shall act as president until the disability be removed or a president shall be elected. By act of congress approved March 1, 1792, the president of the senate pro tempore, or in case there be no president of the senate, the speaker of the house of representatives, is to act as president in such a case, and a new president is to be elected if the vacancy occurs more than five months before the end of the existing presidential term. Neither the president of the senate nor the speaker of the house has ever succeeded to the presidency under this law. Three presidents have died in office and been succeeded by vice presidents, viz.: William Henry Harrison in 1841, succeeded by Vice President John Tyler; Zachary Taylor in 1850, succeeded by Millard Fillmore; and Abraham Lincoln in 1865, succeeded by Andrew Johnson. When there is no election of president by the people for want of a majority of electoral votes for any one candidate, the house of representatives chooses the president from the three having the highest num-
