National.

The Senate last week passed the Philippine Bill. The chief interest centered in the guarantee by the Philippine Government of interest on bonds to be issued to aid in railroad construction. The rate of guaranteed interest was changed from live to four per cent; the guarantee was changed to apply only to the actual construction of twenty-mile sections and proportioned to the estimated total cost; the guarantee limited to $1,500,000 and to thirty years in time; the Government to be given a first lien on the property as security.

Other provisions of the bill are: to exempt from taxation all bonds issued by the Philipine and Porto Rican Governments: to authorize municipalities in the Philippine to incur a bonded indebtedness amounting to five per cent of the assessed valuation of their property, at five per cent interest; to authorize the Philippine Government to incur a bonded indebtedness of $5,000,000 for improvements, at 4½ per cent interest; to allow administration of the immigration laws by the Philippine authorities; to establish a system for the location and patenting of mineral, coal, and saline lands; to fix the metric system for the slands, and to give the Civil Governor the title of Governor-General.

In a decision handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States last week touching the title of State ownership of some bottom lands along the Missouri River between Missouri and Nebraska, a general principle was laid down which will affect in the future similar disputes and destroy some old traditions respecting water boundaries changed by the vagaries of rivers. The Supreme Court has decided that there is a distinct difference between the gradual and almost imperceptible change in a water boundary and one which comes as the result of sudden and violet alteration in the ceurse of running water which divides states and estates. This decision restores to Nebraska land which was torn away by a wild lunge of the Missouri River in 1867, a short time after the State of Nebraska had been admitted to the Union.

It is stated that the Administration is impressed with the advisability of the construction on the Isthmus of a sea-level canal, rather than a waterway involving locks and dams, and is inclined to recommend to the Commission to proceed with plans to that effect. Secretary Taft has just returned from a mission to the Isthmus which resulted in setting several matters that irritated the Panamanian Government. He favors the sea-level plan. Should this policy be adopted by Congress it would add ten years to the time required for construction and many millions to the cost. It is claimed the cost of maintenance would be much less.

It seems probable that the House of Representatives will take action at the present session of Congress upon the subject of regulation of railroad rates, recommended in President Roosevelt's message. Two propositions are under discussion; that a joint commission be authorized to look into the subject during the summer and report to the next Congress; that the House shall pass a bill at the present session in time for the Senate to act upon it. If the Senate did not act upon the measure of this session it would at any rate give the press, the railroads, and the shippers something definite to work upon during the recess of Congress.

It now appears that Andrew Carnegie has offered to duplicate for Boston the amount of the Franklin Fund as it stood last September—$408,396,48. His gift is to be used as an endowment for the Franklin Union or Franklin Institute, whichever name it may finally bear, on the following conditions; That the Franklin Fund be devoted to the establishment of a school for the industrial training of men and women along the lines of the Mechanics and Tradesmen's School of New York and the Cooper Union; and that the City of Boston shall furnish a site.

A bill has been introduced in Congress "to secure full use of the rural mail equipment, and to place the rural service on a paying basis." It provides that within the limits of respective rural routes, parcels of mail matter shall be collected and delivered up to two hundred pounds in weight, and in size up to a barrel, provided none shall be over six feet in length. The rates prescribed for this class of matter range from one cent for parcels weighing eight ounces to twenty-five cents for a barrel weighing two hundred pounds.

The official report of the director of concessions and admissions of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition shows that the total recorded admissions for the period of the Exposition, from April 20 to December 1 inclusive, was 19.694.855; of which 12,804,618 were paid and 6,890,239 were free. The free admissions included from twenty to thirty thousand workmen who were admitted daily for several weeks to complete the work of construction of buildings and installation of exhibits.

Foreign

The report is confirmed that the Sultan of Morocco has dismissed all his foreign military instructors, including the French. Following the Perdicaris affair France sought to stop the condition of anarchy by the organization of an effective civil and military force under French officers, the Anglo-French treaty recognizing French preponderance in Morocco. Some Italian and British officers were also employed by the Sultan.

The International Commission appointed to inquire into the North Sea incident met at the Foreign Office, Paris, December 22. The commission unanimously elected Admiral Baron Von Spaun of the Austro-Hungary navy, to be the fifth member, completed the preliminary organization, and adjourned until January 9.

Sweden has notified her accession to the International Copyright Convention of September, 1886, as well as to the Explanatory Declaration signed at Paris on May 4, 1896, but, like Norway, does not accede to the Additional Act signed at Paris on the latter date.

The French Minister of Commerce has decided to present a bill to the Chamber of Deputies authorizing 250 decorations of the Legion of Honor of various ranks in connection with the St. Louis Exposition, Practically they will all go to French exhibitors.

King Alfonso has signed a decree authorizing Senor Ojeda, the Spanish minister at Washington, to sign the arbitration treaty with America. The King has also signified his cordial consent to the establishment of a Spanish-American College at Madrid.

Architect Manfredi, author of the report on the condition of the Basilica of St. Mark's, Venice, says that the measures proposed in the report are sufficient to prevent further damage. The funds on hand are almost sufficient to complete the contemplated repairs.

Antonio Flores, former President of Ecuador, has been appointed minister to Germany, with the special purpose of urging Emperor William to accept the designation of arbitrator in the boundary dispute between Ecuador and Colombia.

Two scholarships, tenable for three years at the Guildhall School of Music, London, have been founded by Andrew Carnegie and presented to the London City Corporation.

Industrial and Commercial.

At the present time the United States is making pig iron at the rate of more than 1,500,000 tons a month, or practically 19,000,000 tons a year, which is the maximum output reached by this country. This is more pig iron than is being made by England, France, and Germany. In spite of the enormous output stocks at furnaces and steel works have been steadily decreasing for months, showing that the pig iron is going into actual consumption. The output would be larger than it is, but for the fact that some blast furnaces are having trouble in getting deliveries of coke.

The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad has placed an order with the General Electric Company for 60,000 horse-power Curtis steam turbo-alternators, consisting of eight units of 7,500 horse-power each. This will be, when completed, the largest steam turbine installation of any kind in the world and the first large steam turbine installation of for supplying the motive power over three hundred miles of track now operated by steam locomotives.

In a recent test conducted by experts of the British navy between similar vessels of three thousand tons displacement equipped with marine engines of the reciprocating type and of the Parsons turbine type, a study of the details shows that when running at twenty knots the turbine required thirty per cent less coal and steam then the other; at eighteen knots, twenty per cent; at sixteen knots, ten per cent; at fourteen knots about the same.

In less than twenty years Hawail has come to rank second only to Cuba and Java in the world's sugar production. Sugar-planting as an industry there dates from the signing of the reciprocity treaty with the United States in 1876, by which all raw sugars were admitted free of duty.

General.

The Harvard Observatory announces further interesting results from the investigation of large nebulous regions by means of photographic plates, which has been carried on for some time past by Miss Henrietta S. Leavitt. One hundred and five new variable stars have been found in Scorpio. The total number of new variables discovered by Miss Leavitt and announced thus far, is 410.

The seedless orange is matched by the coreless and seedless apple, which has been produced in quantities in England. There are now about 2.000 coreless apple trees and by 1906 there will be 2,500,000.