National.

The cruisers of the Pacific fleet, commanded by Rear Admiral Swinburne, finished the first stage of the cruise undertaken to test the practicability of towing torpedo boat destroyers, when the flagship West Virginia, the Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee docked at Honolulu on the 2d inst. The destroyers Preble and Perry were towed the entire distance from San Francisco without break or delay of any kind. The Whipple's line once became chafed, and her consort was obliged to slacken speed while repairs were made. Each of the other destroyers had one or two broken tow-lines to its credit.

The Bureau of Equipment of the Navy Department had taken up with Secretary Metcalf the project of making use of the Washington Monument as a wireless station, and advised him that the plan is feasible. Without relaying, it is asserted, it would be possible to reach stations in western Europe and to communicate with the vessels of the American fleet at sea in distant waters. The plan is to use the Washington Monument only temporarily, and if the experiment proves successful to erect a permanent tower of the necessary height.

Six Chicago educational institutions, says the Chicayo Inter-Ocean, have perfected plans for consolidation into a university that will be liberally endowed by Andrew Carnegie. Under the name of the Jefferson Park College the following will affiliate: The Illinois College of Law, the Bennett Medical College, the Jefferson Park College of Pharmacy, Jefferson Park Hospital Training School for Nurses, Jefferson Park Musical Institute, and Brooks Classical School.

Suit to recover land granted the Oregon and California Railway Company, now controlled by the Southern Pacific company and valued at over $40,000,000, has been begun by he United States Government. The suit is based on the alleged failure of the railroad company to live up to the terms of the grant in disposing of the lands in question, which represent some of the best timber tracts on the Pacific coast.

A new world record in aeroplane flights was established at Fort Myer, Va., on the 9th inst., when Orville Wright circled above the broad parade grounds there fifty-seven times and remained in the air fifty-seven minutes and thirty-one seconds, official time. He has since made several better records. His brother, who is in Europe, has also made records there with a similar aeroplane.

The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company has secured control of the Northeastern Telephone Company, the Lewiston-Auburn Telephone Company, three independent telephone companies operating in some twenty-five towns and cities in the State of Maine.

The Government has contracted with the Atlas Portland Cement Company of Northampton, Pa., for 4,500,000 barrels of Portland cement for use on the Panama Canal. This is said to be the largest cement contract ever awarded in the history of the cement business.

The estimated acreage of tobacco in Wisconsin shows a slight falling off from that of last year. The beet sugar industry cut into it to some extent, and it is believed that next year the acreage will be reduced from thirty-five thousard to thirty thousand acres.

The demand of Mississippi Valley interests for a fourteen-foot waterway from the Lakes to the Gulf and for a big extension in the scope of river improvement in general, is officially recognized in the annual report of the Mississippi River Commission.

Governor Fort of New Jersey, at a recent dinner at Long Branch, urged the construction of an ocean boulevard from Atlantic Highlands to Cape May, which he thought could be built and maintained at a comparatively small expense.

The total excavation for the month of August at the Panama Canal was 3,252,506 cubic yards, against 3,168,840 cubic yards in previous month, and 1,288,692 cubic yards in August last year.

On Sept. 5 the American Atlantic fleet weighed anchor at Melbourne and stood out to sea for Albany, West Australia.

International.

The Federal Government of Mexico has agreed to give its financial support to the proposition to build a great dam across the Nazas River at a point where it emerges from the mountains in the San Fernandez canyon, about one hundred miles southwest of Torreon. Government engineers have been making surveys and estimates of the projected dam for several months. According to these estimates the dam will cost about $6,000,000, gold, to build. It will be one of the largest water-storage reservoirs on the continent, and will afford a water-supply for the whole Nazas River cotton-growing district for a period of three years without replenishing. In connection with the great dam it is planned to install a hydro-electric plant, which will generate enough electric power to supply all of the towns within a radius of one hundred and fifty miles.

The new railway from Damascus to Medina, which was projected as long ago as 1900, has just been opened. Medina is the second city in Islam in point of sacredness, and is near to Mecca, the objective point of the pilgrimages of Moslems. It is the purpose of the Sultan later to extend the road to Mecca itself. The distance from Damascus to Medina is one thousand miles, and Mecca is nearly three hundred miles farther. Hitherto the only method of penetrating to the holy city from the north has been by camels and horses through the heat and sand of the Arabian desert. The country opened up is for the most part barren and unproductive.

The Japanese Exposition has been postponed from 1912 to 1917. In that year will be celebrated also the fiftieth anniversary of the accession of the Emperor to the throne, and this will be a season of general rejoicing for Japanese subjects.

The Sultan of Turkey has announced his intention to surrender crown domains yielding a yearly revenue of $2,000,000 as a guarantee for the forthcoming loans for the treasury and the civil list.

The majority in Switzerland in favor of the prohibition of absinthe was 100,694. Twenty-three out of twenty-five cantons were carried.

Andrew Carnegie has added a gift of $60,000 to his present total of $500,000 for district libraries in the city of Glasgow, Scotland.

The two new steamships of the White Star Line, just laid down at Belfast, will be bigger, but no speedier, than the Lusitania.

Industrial and Commercial.

The entire car-line system of Sheffield, Eng., which is owned by the municipality, furnishes regular employment for fifteen hundred men, and the weekly wage bill amounts to $12,165. During the time of municipal management. the hours of labor have been reduced forty per cent, while the rate of wages has been increased substantially for motormen and doubled for conductors. In 1907 the total number of miles run was seven million, and seventy-four million passengers were carried. The receipts a car mile have amounted to nineteen and a half cents, and the total working expense to a fraction under twelve cents.

During the third annual shoe and leather market fair, held recently at the Coliseum in Chicago, fifty thousand persons, according to the estimate of the management, viewed the display. Exhibitors booked orders aggregating $2,000,000.

A combination to include every independent hand-blown glass company in the United States, and to involve $7,000,000, is in process of formation to compete with the American Window Glass Company.

The United States Steel Corporation has decided to embark in the manufacture of steel cars for its own use. The Clark Car Company has been incorporated at Pittsburg for that purpose.

The annual statement of the Memphis Cotton Exchange, covering the season of 1907–08, shows that the value of cotton handled in that city during the year was $29,588,582.

A total of $19,200,000 worth of gold was shipped from Australia to Germany this year.

General.

To secure the better definition of international electrical units and standards is the main reason, says Scientific American, for an international electrical congress, which will convene at London on Oct. 12. Since the electrical congresses of Chicago in 1893 and of St. Louis in 1904, the subject has been under the careful consideration of leading physicists and electrical engineers and much experimental work has been carried on in various national and other laboratories with the object of obtaining data which would lead to the amplification and more accurate statement of the definitions adopted at Chicago. First suggested in 1906, the coming congress has been twice postponed, but now, apparently, matters are in shape for action.