Items of Interest December 6, 1913 Issue

Items of Interest

A decision that is expected to have a farreaching effect in determining land titles in cases in which compaines and private parties have made improvements without obtaining proper authority from the secretary of the interior, was handed down by the United States circuit court of appeals at St. Paul, Minn. The court decided that the Utah Power & Light Company of Logan, Utah, has no rights to land it occupies, which is a part of the national forest in Cache county, Utah. The decision which reverses the district court of Utah in effect, will practically make possible confiscation by the government of the entire plant, in which five million dollars is said to be invested.

The question whether the governments of the United States and the European countries should not prescribe the lanes to be traversed by ocean liners and pass laws requiring all vessels under the respective flags to adhere strictly to those lanes, is raised in the annual report of the naval hydrographic office. The lanes now in use were adopted by the steamship companies April 15, 1913, and will continue in force until changed by them, unless an international agreement should be reached. The naval hydrographer is at present in London, attending the international conference on safety at sea, and it is expected that he will submit the proposed change to that body.

Success crowned the three weeks of experimentation at Washington, D. C., when the United States naval observatory on Nov. 21 heard the beats of the Paris observatory clock as transmitted by radio signals from the Eiffel tower to the great navy radio station at Arlington. The beats were compared with those of the Washington clock for some minutes. The American and French commissioners, who are conducting these experiments to detrmine the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington and velocity of of propagation of radio signals through space, were encouraged by their success.

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