National.

The surplus of Government receipts to the end of the third quarter of the current fiscal year over expenditures is $33,831,911. On the same proportion the surplus for the year would reach about fifty million dollars. Owing to the payment of heavy deficiency appropriations made upon the adjournment of Congress, and of $3,000,000 for Phillippine relief, the March addition to the surplus was only $450,434. If payment should be made on the Panama account before the close of the fiscal year, June 30, the entire surplus would be used.

For the month of March the total receipts were $45,435,434, made up of customs $23,709,968; internal revenue, $18,823,751, and miscellaneons, $2,901,715. The expenditures amounted to $44,985,000, made up of civil and miscellaneous, $13,107,000; war, $12,279,000; navy, $7,374,000; Indians, $1,052,000; pensions, $10,698,000, and interest, $484,000.

The first meeting of the Alaskan Boundary Commission has been deferred until next autumn by an agreement between the State Department and the British Foreign Office. The arguments and evidence will be submitted according to the treaty before May 3. The case of the United States is being prepared and printed by ex-Secretary John W. Foster. The counter cases are to be presented on or before July 3. At the end of two months more each party has to deliver "a written or printed argument showing the points and referring to the evidence upon which his Government relies." After that the tribunal of six commissioners may hear oral arguments, if it desires. Its decision is to be rendered December 3, unless the commission is continued by mutual consent of the two Governments.

The London Times last week headed its Foreign News column with two New York despatches of about two hundred words each marked "Marconigraph." An editorial stated that the cost was only a little in excess of the cable rates between England and France. These messages are sent by telegraph to the Marconi station at Cape Cod, thence by wireless to Poldhu, thence by telegraph to London. The transmission at present is only a series of messages which that paper expects to receive daily and is little more than an interesting but successful experiment.

Mr. Bowen, Venezuela's plenipotentiary, has signed with Senor Ojeda, the Spanish minister, the Venezuelan-Spanish protocol providing for the adjustment of the Spanish claims by a joint commission at Caracas. W. E. Bainbridge of lowa, former second secretary of the legation at Pekin, has been selected as the representative of the United States on the American-Venezuelan commission which will meet at Caracas to adjust the claims of this country against Venezuela.

Henry White, secretary of the United States embassy at the Court of St. James, was recently one of three men elected to membership in the Athenaeum Club, under the rule empowering the annual election of nine persons "of distinguished eminence in science, art, literature, or the public service." His name was proposed by Sir Leonard Lyeli, Bart., and seconded by Premier Balfour.

The Lake Superior iron are movement for 1903 has already begun. The movement last year was 27,500,000 tones. The estimate for this year is placed at three or four million tons higher.

Foreign.

The treaty of reciprocity between the United States and Cuba, as amended by the United States Senate, has been approved by the Cuban Senate by a vote of 12 to 9. In accordance with cabled instructions, Cuban Minister Quesada at Washington has signed the amended treaty on behalf of President Palma. This outcome of the measure gives great satisfaction and it is expected that Congress in special session before December I will approve the measure, at which time the treaty will be proelaimed.

It is reported that arrangements are being made between the Russian and Chinese Governments for all the funds of the latter to be deposited at Pekin with the Russo-Chinese Bank, a Russian governmental institution. If this should be done, a protest would doubtless be presented by the British Institutions which have acted as bankers to the Chinese Government.

Mr. Bowen, Venezuelan plenipotentiary, has refused absolutely to accept the insertion in the protocols signed with the blockading powers, of an article requiring Venezuela to defray the cost of the blockade in case The Hague Tribunal decides adversely in the matter of preferential treatment. A few verbal changes were accepted.

The status of Mr.Gladstone has just been erected in the north transept in Westminster Abbey. It occupies a prominent position near the statues of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Beaconsfield, and fills the last remaining space available for a standing statue in the transept. It is of white marble by Thomas Brock, R.A.

The Second Chamber of the Netherlands Parliament has begun the discussion of the Government's anti-strike bill, which provides various penalties for coercion of non-strikers, strikes by public servants, and for instigating refusals to work by public servants.

Industrial and Commercial.

In the United States District Court at St. Louis, last week Wednesday, Judge Elmer B.Adams handed down a decision dissolving the injunction granted March 3, restraining officials of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Railroad Trainmen and other labor leaders from influencing in any way or ordering the men employed on the Wabash Railway system to strike. The restraining order of the Court, however, has had the effect probably intended; time has been gained, and it is probable that the trouble will be arranged without a strike.

The greatest irrigation project in the United States and the third largest in the world has been started in Idaho under the management of a corporation originating in Salt Lake City. The plan contemplates, it is said, an expenditure of almost $5,000,000 and reclamation of 271,000 acres of the best agricultural lands in the great Snake River Valiey of southern Idaho.

The Krapp Company is about to spend five million dollars in enlarging its works, ehietly in constructing a plant for the manufacture of rails at Rhelnhausen on the Rhine, in accordance with American methods. The ore will be unloaded from the boats to the furnaces and come out finished rails without cooling.

Grain men who have visited the wheat belt of Kansas and Oklahoma agree that the present condition of the plant portends the greatest wheat crop ever grown in the West, Estimates agree that Kansas will harvest 100,000,000 bushels, Oklahoma, 40,000,000, and Nebraska 60,000,000.

The American Window Glass Company has advertised for sale seventeen of its factories in the Indiana gas belt, rendered unnecessary by the adoption in its factories of glass-blowing machines.

The census office cotton bulletin shows total actual crop of 11,078,882 commercial bales, equivalent to 10,620,945 five-hundred-pound bales.

General.

In pursuance of the plan of the Carnegie Institution to establish a laboratory for the study of plant life peculiar to the desert regions of America, a site has been selected near Tueson, Ariz. It comprises some sixty acres. An adobe building of one story will be erected on the erest of the mountain. The interior will be divided into a large and a small laboratory, a storeroom, workroom, library, office. It is expected to be ready for occupancy September 1.

The eighth annual international chess match between America and Great Britain for the possession of the Newnes challenge trophy, ten players on a side, was played last Friday and Saturday. America has won the trophy four times, Great Britain twice, and one match ended in a tie. In all sixty-eight games have been played in the successive matches. Americans have won thirty-six and the Britishers thirty-two. The present match was won by the Americans by a score of 51/2 to 41/2.

A new star between the eighth and ninth magnitude has been discovered in the constellation Gemini. Photographically it is about a degree brighter. Its spectrum exhibits many bright lines, hydrogen bands being conspicuous. Indications point to its soon becoming a nebula.

In a recent test by the gunners of the Indiana the thirteen-inch turret guns made twelve hits out of thirteen shots at a five mile range, which makes a new world record for accuracy, the previous record being fourteen out of sixteen shots.

William Blake's "Illustrations of the Book of Job" was sold by auction at London last week for $28,000. The volume, which was published in 1825, contains the forty-three original proof impressions of engravings and original designs in colors.

At a recent London sale of old English silver at Christle's auction rooms, a fifteenth century spoon, eight inches long, with the earliest known hall-mark, fetched $725. An Elizabethan cup, with the initials "E. R.," brought $1,225.

Shamrock III., the new cup challenger, took her initial spin last week in a light breeze in company with Shamrock I., the challenger of two years ago, and gave a good account of herself, proving herself faster than Shamrock I.

England won the fifth international universities cable chess match by a score of 31/2 to 21/2.