After many consecutive years of heavy outlays, difficulties, and constant disappointments, a new English company has recently succeeded in commencing the construction of a railway from the neighboring Spanish town of Algeciras to join, via Ronda, the railway station of Bobadilla, on the railroad line toward Malaga.  It is presumed that when this railroad will be in running order it will greatly benefit this community, especially if the Spanish government should decide to establish custom houses at Algeciras and the Spanish lines outside the gates of this fortress, similar to those existing on the frontiers of France and Portugal.

That some idea may be formed of the constant important daily intercourse which exists between this fortress and Spain, I may state that late police statistics show that 1,887,617 passes were issued to visitors entering this fortress on daily permits during the year 1888, 1,608,004 entering by the land route and 279,613 by sea.  I must, however, observe that the larger portion of these visitors consists of laborers, coal heavers, market people, and others engaged in general traffic.

A new industry in cork has lately sprung up, in which leading Spanish and native commercial firms in Gibraltar are directly interested to a considerable extent.  Extensive warehouses for the storing of cork wood and machinery for the manufacture of bottle corks have recently been established at the Spanish lines, about a mile distant from this fortress, in Spanish territory, where large quantities of cork have already been stored.  The cork is obtained and collected from the valuable trees, which are owned by the representatives of some of the oldest nobility of Spain, who have sold the products of their extensive woods to private individuals for periods reaching as far on as ten years, for which concession large cash advances have already been made.  The woods commence at a distance of about twelve miles from Gibraltar, and are of considerable extent.

The railway now in course of construction passes through these woods, which may ere long offer quite picturesque scenery for travelers, especially when the cork trees are bearing acorns, which form the principal food for the fattening of large herds of swine during certain seasons of the year, in this way, also, contributing to the value of this tree, which, like the other kinds of oak trees, is of long and tardy growth.  The tree from which the cork is obtained is somewhat abundant in the mountainous districts of Andalusia.  It grows to a height of about 30 feet, and resembles the Quercus ilex, or evergreen oak, and attains to a great age.  After arriving at a certain state of maturity it periodically sheds its bark, but this bark is found to be of better quality when artificially removed from the tree, which may be effected without injury to the tree itself.  After the tree has attained twenty-five years it may be barked, and the operation is afterward repeated once in every seven years.  The quality of the cork seems to improve with the increasing age of the tree, which is said to live over one hundred and fifty years.  The bark is taken off during July and August.