National.

The members of the forestry division of the National Commission for the Conservation of Our National Resources, appointed by President Roosevelt last June, have just returned from a trip to Germany, France, and Switzerland, where they have been studying forestry conditions with the idea of adapting some of the foreign forestry methods to our forests. The chairman of the committee says, "One of the best administered forests visited was that of Sihlwald, fifteen miles outside of Zurich, Switzerland. The city of Zurich owns the forests. It is the best managed forest in the world. One hundred years ago Switzerland and Germany were in the same position we find ourselves to-day. Their forests had been cut away and there was little timber to be had. The forest of Sihlwald costs for administration $16.50 an acre. The city of Zurich receives $28.25 an acre from the output of the forest every year. So the net profit to the city is $11.75 an acre. The net profit on our own forest preserves is not more than ten cents an acre. They take stock every year. They know exactly how many million feet of lumber are in each of the divisions. The roads through the forests are beautiful. The dead limbs are collected as they drop from the trees. On every Friday the poor people of Zurich are allowed to come into the forest and carry off the broken limbs in little packages on their backs. Nothing goes to waste. They find abroad that they have to keep the forests up for the sake of the rivers. We have got to do the same thing for our rivers."

The National Association of Audubon Societies has mapped out every section of the United States and organized a force of speakers to bring home to all the people the necessity of protection for the native land and shore birds. It is hoped that eventually the Federal and State Governments will establish bureaus to meet adequately the national need for economic bird preservation. Seven able ornithologists have been assigned to cover as many divisions of the whole country and establish local headquarters in this campaign. At a cost of ten thousand dollars a year these trained workers will be kept on tour till every community in the land has had the opportunity to hear the story of the wisdom and need of protecting the birds.

The Argentine Republic has become a rival of the United States in the world's beef market, supplying 7.1 per cent of the entire cattle stock of the world, against 17.5 supplied by the United States. The Argentine Republic ranges in latitude from about 22 degrees south to 52 degrees and has an area of about three hundred and twenty thousand square miles and a population of less than six million, while the United States has an area of over three million square miles and nearly eighty million people.

Chicago is to have the highest school building in the world. It will be fourteen stories and will be a commercial high school. The total cost will be not less than $1,000,000. There will be room for grammar school children, but primarily it will be a commercial school building. It is one step toward carrying out the idea of commercial and continuation schools which have been successful in Germany.

The United States Forest Service practically looks after 168,000,000 acres embraced in forest reservations. There are fifteen hundred rangers, with nearly one hundred and fifty supervisors, to whom these rangers report. These rangers receive from $900 to $1,400 a year, their salaries alone amounting to a million and a half dollars annually. All these men are located in the West, with one exception.

It is expected that the announcement of the names of the cities which are to be the six administrative headquarters of the United States Forest Service, along with the lists of the men to be in charge of the various offices, will be made this week. The actual transfer of the business to the field will be made gradually, so that there will be practically no interference with the routine work.

The tug Edwin L. Pilsbury was the first of all water craft to make the trip through the big lock of the Charles River Dam at Boston last week. It signalized the opening of the lock as a main channel for all river craft, up or down. The former open channel in the main river will soon be entirely closed. The dam, however, will not be completed for about two years.

The comparative statement of the Government receipts and expenditures shows a deficit for the month of August, 1908, of $3,909,127 as against a deficit for the preceding month of $24,869,438, and a surplus for August, 1907, of $3,628,491. This small deficit for the month just closed is wholly due to the very large decrease in expenditures for the month.

The receivers of the Metropolitan surface road of New York city have flatly denied that the Public Service Commission has authority to force joint routes or rates upon the street railway companies. The issue raised is said to affect the very life of the Commission,

The famous old schooner yacht Puritan, which in 1885 defended the American cup and defeated the English challenger Genesta, is to pass from the ranks of racing and pleasure craft to the packet trade and is to ply between Providence and the Cape Verde Islands.

Recent rains and floods have caused a loss of a million and a half of dollars in Augusta alone, and of a million in other cities in South Carolina and parts of Georgia, and rendered thousands of people homeless.

Architects for the new Grand Central station, New York, have completed their plans and estimates for the structure. The total cost of the building will reach $20,000,000.

The Chinese government is said to be considering the recall of Wu Ting-fang, the Chinese Minister at Washington, because of alleged diplomatic indiscretion.

A shortage of upwards of $53,135 has been discovered in the Bureau of Supplies and Vouchers in the General Post Office in Cuba.

Importations into Cuba for the fiscal year of 1907-8 reached a value of $96,993,131, and exportations, $97,449,917.

International.

The Geographical Commission appointed by the Mexican government seven years ago to map all of the towns of the country has just made its report and states that they discovered 7,679 towns which were not officially known to exist and which have heretofore had no federal control. Many of these towns are of considerable size, ranging in population from five thousand to fifteen thousand people. Most of them are situated in the remote recesses of the Sierra Madre and in localities far removed from ordinary courses of travel.

The German Foreign Office has sent instructions to the German ambassadors and ministers accredited to the governments that signed the Algeciras pact, that in the opinion of the German government the speedy recognition of Mulai Hafid as Sultan of Morocco by all the signatories of the act would be in the interests of peace.

An edict has been issued setting forth in detail the stages that will be reached each year in the conversion of the form of government in China to the foreign system, and assuring the people in the name of the Emperor that a constitution will be granted nine years hence.

An extra session of the House of Delegates of Porto Rico was called for Sept. 8 to consider the irrigation project, an additional appropriation, the continuance of the commission which has been investigating the disease anæmia and the settlement of the Church cases.

The German War Department has invited Wilbur Wright, the American aeroplanist, to carry out his experiments in Berlin.

Industrial and Commercial.

The petroleum output of the United States in 1907 was 166,095,335 barrels, more than 100,000,000 barrels in excess of that of its closest rival, Russia, and was far in excess of any previous year. There was also an unparalleled accumulation of stocks and high prices for oil of all grades. The increase alone of nearly forty million barrels was greater than the total output of petroleum in any year up to 1889. The total value was $120,106,749.

The extensive dock and terminal facilities of the Atchison Railroad at Port Bolivar, Texas, will be opened for traffic about Sept. 20. This will mark the establishment of a new deep-water port on the Texan Gulf coast. It is to be primarily a lumber port and will be used as the gateway for the Atchison's export lumber traffic from eastern Texas.

As a result of the prohibitory wave which has of late swept over the country, the California Wine Association, so it is reported, has decided to buy no wine grapes this year, as the association has already more wine than it can sell. It also has a large acreage of its own grapes under previous contract still extending for a number of years.