Items of Interest September 12, 1914 Issue

Items of Interest

Massachusetts is to have a three thousandacre fish and game preserve on the end of Cape Cod as the result of the efforts of the chairman of the harbor and land commission, who has succeeded in getting trees and grass to grow on the sand dunes, thus keeping them from drifting. There are thirty-three hundred acres of sand owned by the commonwealth on the end of the cape. They form the northwestern part of Provincetown. Race Point light stands at the extreme northwestern angle of the proposed reservation. The ocean at high tide makes up into the sand back of the light, forming a fair-sized but shallow basin called Race run. It is proposed to dam this water and make a pond of it. The fish and game commission has promised to put fish here and in several other ponds in the reservation. A public park may be made out of this former waste of dunes, and a refuge afforded for the thousands of sea birds that frequent the New England shores. No hunting or fishing will be allowed in this preserve. The possibility of having such a reservation on Cape Cod grew out of the success achieved in getting trees and grass to grow in the sand. Brush was distributed over the sand and grass planted between. This has taken hold.

Mt. Washington, in New Hampshire, is the nation's property at last. The government and the owners have now agreed upon the purchase price, the foresters are satisfied with the terms, and it is altogether probable that the forest reservation commission will at once authorize the transaction. This is the most important purchase that the government has made in connection with the White Mountain National Forest establishment. Already the government owns some of the summits of the Presidential range, Madison and Adams and their northern slopes. This latest purchase of thirty-five thousand acres includes all of the great central peak, Mt. Washington, together with its flanks and spurs and six other Presidential peaks as well, Clay, Jefferson, and Adams of the northern group, with Monroe, Franklin, and Pleasant in the southern chain. Included within this area are the Great gulf, a wild ravine six miles long on the easterly side of Mt. Washington, and the Huntington and Tuckerman ravines, where, in ages past, glaciers dwelt.

It is intimated as being probable that the world is about to shake itself free from the domination of the German Kali syndicate. Potash in immense quantities has been discovered only recently in Spain, and already French and Spanish engineers have proved up deposits in the vicinity of Barcelona, which, it is said, contain more than two hundred million tons of the highest grade potash salts the world has yet discovered. These discoveries are of incalculable value to the fertilizer companies; they also mean much to the woolen industry, which uses potash in wool scouring and for other purposes. Potash goes into a wide range of industrial endeavor. These Spanish deposits outcrop in certain cases, something which rarely happens in Germany. Some of the German mines run down fifteen hundred to two thousand feet, and the shafts through which operations are conducted, are expensive to construct owing to the necessity of keeping all water seepage out of the mine.

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