National.

"What we want to do," says the Secretary of the Inland Waterways Commission, "is to get back to nature in dealing with water First to prevent floods, and second to compel the water to run clear and pure. It is a fact that each year the rivers of mainland United States pour into the sea a thousand million tons of richest soil—matter in the form of suspended sediment, an impost greater than all our land texes combined and a commensurate injury to commerce in the lower cult of control by the unstable load. The rivers, which are rendered capricious and diffi-difference in the power value alone between controlled and uncontrolled streams would in ten years pay the entire cost of stream control in the United States. And this, coupled with the billion dollars' loss every year through soil erosion, due to floods, would construct a comprehensive system of water control in the United States."

The magnificent forests of the country everywhere, says the Independent, have simply been slaughtered. Vast sections of Georgia and the Carolinas are absolutely stripped of yellow pine. The stumps only remain, with strewn brush. Pennsylvania can show us some of the most blasted sections of the whole country. The superb chestnut forests of Connecticut have been obliterated, and rocky hills, bare of all vegetation, take their places. The editor of the Jackson Patriot, of Michigan, says that he went last summer, for two days, on the Au Sable River, right through the heart of the white pine region, before he saw a single white pine. The great furniture-building interests of Grand Rapids are warned that their work is about done. The Chicago Record-Herald states that in Illinois nearly one hundred and fifty millions is invested in industries approaching extinction.

In the last session of Congress an attempt was made so to amend the agricultural appropriation bill as to prohibit the preparation of information concerning forestry for the use of newspapers and magazines, but the amendment as passed was so worded that instead of prohibiting the work it sanctions it. The United States Attorney-General, in an opinion on the legality of the publication work, says, "In distributing such information as is compiled and sent out by the Forest Service, especially to persons engaged in the practice or study of forestry, and generally to the public at large through the newspapers and magazines, the Forestry Division is fulfilling the primary and fundamental duty imposed upon the Department of Agriculture by the law."

Special agents of the Government in Chicago are, it is said, trying to collect evidence to substantiate proceedings for the disruption of the Harriman system of railroads, if it can be proved that the system is being used at all to stifle competition and restrain trade. Information is being sought from the shippers with respect to conditions before the combination of the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the Oregon Short Line, and the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, and a comparison between those conditions and the conditions which exist to-day.

Consumption of cigarettes increased largely in the last fiscal year ending June 30, but the public smoked fewer cigars than the preceding year, took less snuff and chewed less tobacco. Less spirits was used than in 1907, the heaviest falling off being in the spirits distilled from grain, the revenue on which declined over $15,000,000. The beer business, however, continued to grow. The total decrease in internal revenue as compared with the preceding fiscal year was $17,998,072.

In four States steps have been simultaneously taken against the proposed $300,000,000 lumber corporation. The Attorneys General of Missouri, Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma, by prearrangement, have begun legal action to prevent the formation of the merger, to deprive the companies in it of their franchises in the four States, and to oust them from business.

The last section of the Market Street subway, in Philadelphia, extending from City Hall east to the Delaware .River, has been officially inspected and is now operated regularly. The subway is declared to be one of the finest in the world, and cost approximately $20,000,000. The entire distance of the subway and elevated road is about seven miles.

That the Administration has set out to prevent increases of freight rates on any general scale by application of the Sherman law has been made plain by the action of the Department of Justice in sending out special agents to various sections of the country to investigate proposed increases in freight rates.

The sub-committee of the National Monetary Commission sailed last week for Europe. The commission was appointed by Congress to study the financial systems of European countries, and make a report to the Congress next December.

One of the "sounder" balloons sent up recently by the Blue Hill Observatory from Pittsfield, Mass., reached an elevation of six miles and a temperature of thirty degrees below zero, as recorded by its automatic instruments.

By the removal of restrictions on the alienation of land owned by members of the five civilized tribes of Indians in Oklahoma, about nine million acres of land which had been tied up have become available to purchasers.

The excavation for July on the Panama Canal was considerably greater than for June, the total excavation being 3,168,640 cubic yards, against 3,056,976 cubic yards for June, and 1,077,498 cubic yards for July a year ago.

The Thomas automobile in the New York-to-Paris contest reached Paris July 30, thus winning the race for the Americans.

The treasury deficit during July amounted to more than a million a day.

International.

The forests of India under British control cover nearly one hundred and eighty million acres, and are classed as reserved, protected, and unclassed. The reserved forests now comprise 9.5 per cent of the State forests, but in the course of time it is expected that they will amount to at least fifteen per cent of the total area of British India. The right of the State to intervene for the general welfare by protecting and developing the forests has been clearly recognized by the people and successfully applied. Forest fires have always been very destructive, but an area of 3,500,000 acres is now effectively protected against fire. The State forests are handled upon the basis of a sustained and increasing yield, both natural reproduction and artificial planting being used to keep up the forest growth as areas are cut over.

A German chemist has lately perfected a process which brings into competition with celluloid a form of cellulose acetate named cellit. It is easily soluble in such solvents as alcohol or acetic ether, which do not seriously affect the health of workmen; and combines with camphor exactly as does gun cotton, yielding plastic masses quite similar to ordinary celluloid. Camphor can be replaced by other organic substances, and the resultant products range from hard and tough to soft, leather-like, even rubber-like compositions. All of these varied forms of cellit are perfectly transparent, totally unaffected by water, free from brittleness, and not readily combustible. Some varieties do not burn at all. Others burn in a flame, but combustion ceases when the flame is removed.

Siam has within the past decade made enormous strides in civilization. The Public Works Department is working strenuously to develop internal communications in over a dozen country districts, and lines of railway to the most remote parts are being actively pushed, about one hundred and forty miles of track having been declared open to traffic last January. A scheme has been sanctioned for a water supply for the Siamese capital at an estimated cost of over $1,000,000, which will pave the way for greater developments in sanitation in Bangkok and its neighborhood.

Industrial and Commercial.

After years of thorough testing and experimenting; the officials of the Burlington Railroad have come to the conclusion that the use of concrete for ties is not satisfactory, and that the most satisfatory solution of the tie problem is to treat wood so that it will withstand the action of the elements. Accordingly they have decided to construct a large plant for treating ties, bridge timbers, etc., with creosote. This immense plant will cost about $270,000.

Three hundred thousand acres of blueberry "barrens," says the Boston Herald, furnishing in an average year a yield to the packers alone of about forty thousand bushels of ripe fruit, and giving employment for six weeks to an army of pickers, probably as many as five thousand in the height of the season, bringing to the average family all the ready cash its members get in their entire year,—that is what the blueberry crop means to Maine's great east coast county.

The injury to wheat and oats from rust, five hundred million dollars, probably exceeds that caused by any other fungus or insect pest, and in some localities is greater than that caused by all other enemies of the crops combined.