Items of Interest May 30, 1914 Issue

Items of Interest

The Senate territories committee has ordered a favorable report on a bill restoring to the public domain the Chugach national forest in Alaska. There are eighteen million acres in the forest, created several years ago by presidential order. The bill would not affect lands withdrawn for the conservation of coal. Hearings on the Alaska railroad bill, members of the committee say, developed that the timber in the Chugach forest is not merchantable, that there is enough rainfall in the territory to take care of agricultural lands without conserving the forest as a rainshed, and that as a reserve it costs the government about sixteen thousand dollars annually.

Denmark is to have a museum of shipping and commerce. It is to be arranged at Kranberg castle, in the rooms which have until now been used as picture galleries. This castle was built in the time of Frederick II, from money paid as Sound dues, and has therefore always been associated with the history of trade and navigation in Danish waters. It is expected that the beautiful situation of the castle and its many attractions will be highly advantageous to the museum. All the Danish dependencies—Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe islands, the Danish West Indies—will be represented.

The first reports of forest fires have begun to come in to Washington from the national forests, and they indicate to the federal officers an early start of the fire season, with unfavorable weather conditions from the very beginning. In the Northwest there was less snow on the mountains at the end of the winter than for many years past. Railroad rights of way which were last year deep in snow, are reported clear now, and dry enough to burn readily. From the Canadian border to Mexico the reports are similar, and there have already been extensive fires in California and Arizona.

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