National.

The committee of Senators appointed at the last session of Congress to investigate and report upon the general conditions in Indian Territory, is now making an extended tour for that purpose. The subjects under consideration are remedial legislation and modifications of existing rules and regulations of the Interior Department that would permit a more general sale and rental of allotted tribal lands, the levying of taxes under statehood, the maintenance of a better public school system, the disposal of the segregated coal and asphalt lands in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations and the sale and rental of the surface of these segregated lands for commercial purposes.

One of the regulations issued by the Department of Agriculture for the enforcement of the Pure Foods and Drugs Act reads: "Manufacturers of proprietary foods are only required to state on the label the names and percentages of the materials used, in so far asthe Secretary of Agriculture may find this to be necessary to secure freedom from adulteration and misbranding." In cases of drugs and medicines the label will only have to show the percentage of alcohol, or the amount of certain drugs or their derivatives which are specifically referred to in the act, if such are contained in the preparation; it is not necessary to show all ingredients in any case.

Culebra Peak, ten or twelve miles west of Stone Wall, Col., is reported from Trinidad, Col., to be in a state of eruption. The peak is in the great Sangre de Cristo Range and is one of the loftiest in the United States, rising far above the timber line, so that the chance of the phenomenon being a forest fire is considered out of the question.

The cost of living in Manila is twice as much as in Washington and three times as high as in New York. This is largely due to the importation of food products which could be, but are not, raised in the islands.

The United States Census Bureau has estimated the total wealth of the country in 1904 to be $106,881,415,009. This shows an increase in wealth over the estimates for 1900 of nearly twenty-one per cent, and is sixty-four per cent over the estimate for 189a

General Alexander MacKenzie, Chief of Engineers, has reported to the Secretary of War that $16,052,431 will be required to complete the engineer work upon the fortifications projected by the board convened under the President's order of Jan. 31, 1905.

Scarcity of labor on the Canal Zone is hindering the progress of the work on the canal. Two thousand more men could be used to advantage. The daily average for September, including every department on the entire division, was 2,267 men.

Foreign.

Professor Charles Waldstein, professor of Fine Arts at King's College, Cambridge, England, has gone to Rome for the purpose of perfecting an agreement with the Italian Government concerning the carrying out of his project for the excavation of Herculaneum. The professor's plans to this end have been accepted by the Italian Government on the condition that the participation of foreign countries in the work be only in the form of private contributions, and that there be no foreign official interference.

The highest undergraduate honor in the University of Cambridge is the victory in the final examination in mathematics. The winner is known as the Senior Wrangler, and not a few men famous in scholarship and other fields have figured in this honor roll. This has just now been virtually abolished, the desire to win the honor having led too many young men to leave all other subjects and choose only mathematics.

The French Council of Ministers has announced that France, England, and Spain conjointly refuse to accept the reservations the Sultan desires to make conditional on his acceptance of the decision of the Algeciras Conference. The signature of the Sultan is necessary before the programme of reforms drawn up by the Algeciras Conference and signed by the delegates can be put into effect.

St. Helena, the prison and for a time the tomb of Napoleon, has ceased to be a British military and naval station. The island lies in the South Atlantic, twelve hundred miles from Africa and farther from Brazil. It has an area of forty-five square miles.

Santos-Dumont, after several trials with his aeroplane, the Bird of Prey, last week made his best performance. He sailed seven hundred and five feet against the wind in 21 1-5 seconds. He flew about twelve feet above the ground.

Uruguay reduced her national debt by $1,570,450 during 1905. The total debt on Jan. 1, 1906, was $121,455,757, of which about eighty per cent was external. Uruguay is a prosperous country.

The total shipments of cotton from Egypt for the year ending Sept. 1 aggregated 798,015 bales.

Industrial and Commercial.

Plans have been presented for the construction of a Rapid Transit Railroad on Long Island, to be built upon the Behr mono-rail system. If the plans should be adopted, Greater New York will possess the first mono-rail system to be built and operated in this country. Because of the peculiar construction of the track and cars, including the essential fact that the center of gravity of the cars would be below their point of support, it would be possible to make use of speeds of over one hundred miles an hour between stops. The road is estimated to cost approximately $170,000 per mile, and the estimated cost of the cars, which are of exceptional size, is $45,000 each. The rail is six feet above the roadbed, and on account of the low center of gravity the danger of derailment on curves is eliminated.

The new railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec has been formally opened for traffic by the President of Mexico, and is now prepared to transport steamship freight from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The new road is 170 miles long and saves 1,429 miles of the distance between New York and San Francisco by way of the Panama Canal. The completion of the enterprise has been hastened to secure as much of the transcontinental traffic as possible before the Panama Canal is finished, and it is hoped that a large portion of this trade will be retained after the canal is in operation. It is expected that a considerable portion of the sugar tonnage now carried from Hawaii to the eastern ports of the United States by way of Cape Horn will be transferred at once to the new route.

The management of the Rock Island Railroad has issued orders for new equipment to cost $5,000,000. This is in addition to orders previously given this year aggregating $3,000,000. Included in the new equipments are two thousand forty-ton box cars, two hundred and fifty stock cars, one thousand ballast cars, six hundred and fifty coal cars, three hundred flat cars, twenty-five hundred hopper cars, and nearly one hundred passenger, postal, and baggage cars. All the new passenger cars are to have steel under-frame construction, and the mail cars are to be all steel.

Six hundred steel passenger cars are to be built for the Pennsylvania Railroad in the next year. Space for five hundred and fifty cars has been reserved with the American Car and Foundry Company, and fifty cars will be constructed at the Altoona shops of the road. The total cost is estimated at $6,000,000. The order to the American Car and Foundry Company will be divided so as to include coaches for the baggage, express, and mail cars. The company has also ordered twenty-five new freight engines. These will be built at the company's shops at Altoona.

Over $100,000,000 was sent out of the United States in the fiscal year of 1906 in the purchase of luxuries. This total includes over $40,000,000 worth of diamonds and other precious stones; about $40,000,000 worth of laces, edgings, embroideries, and ribbons; about $7,000,000 worth of feathers, natural and artificial; over $6,000,000 worth of champagne, and the remainder miscellaneous articles. If to this is added the value of tobacco, cigars, and cigarettes imported, the total will reach $125,000,000.

The executive officials of all railway lines west of Chicago have decided to ask the Interstate Commerce Commission to become a board of arbitration for the settlement of all disputes between the employes and the railways. Prominent Eastern railroad men have been consulted on the subject. The question which led to the arbitration scheme is the concerted demand made by the engineers of twenty-seven roads for an increase in wages averaging from twelve to fifteen per cent.

The Cape-to-Cairo line has been built over two thousand miles north from Cape Town and some fifteen hundred miles south from Cairo. With the completion of the four hundred and fifty miles section which is now being built northward to the southern extremity of Lake Tanganyika, there will remain only four hundred and ten miles of railroad to be built in order to give a continuous rail, river, and lake route from Cape Town to the Mediterranean.

An increase of ten per cent in the salaries of employes now receiving less than $200 a month has been announced by the directors of the National Express Company. The wages of employes ofthe American Express, who are paid less than $200 a month, have also been increased ten per cent. This latter increase affects eight to twelve thousand men and will cost the company about $600,000 to $700,000 a year.