A few years later it was commonly realized that the mountain had given birth to a mouse.

Instead of the million Jews, as originally planned, the Jewish Colonization Association succeeded in transplanting during the first decade only 10,000 Jews, who were distributed over six Argentinian colonies.
The main current of Jewish emigration flowed as heretofore in the direction of North America, towards the United States and Canada.

In the course of the year 1891, with its numerous panics, the United States alone absorbed more than 100,000 emigrants, over 42,000 of whom succeeded in arriving the same year, while 76,000 were held back in various European centers and managed to come over the year after.

The following two years show again the former annual ratio of emigration, wavering between 30,000 to 35,000.
The same fateful year of 1891 gave rise to a colonization fever even in quiet Palestine.

Already in the beginning of 1890 the Russian Government had legalized the Palestinian colonization movement in Russia by sanctioning the constitution of the "Society for Granting Assistance to Jewish Colonists and Artisans in Syria and Palestine," which had its headquarters in Odessa.