National.

The Reclamation Service announces that the Pathfinder dam in Wyoming, which has cost $1,200,000 and has been three and one half years in the building, has been completed. It rests on a bed of solid granite, and locks a very narrow gorge with vertical walls, through which the North Platte river flows. It is a concrete rubble masonry arch two hundred and fifteen feet in height and five hundred feet long on top. It intersects a drainage area of twelve thousand square miles, including the run-off of a large mountainous territory in Colorado and Wyoming. Back of the dam is a natural reservoir which has now become one of the largest artificial lakes in the world, its capacity being 1,205,000 acre feet, or, three hundred and fifty-eight billion gallons. The reservoir will accommodate the largest flood ever known in the river at this point, and prevent the great destruction of property in the valley occasioned by the enormous floods. The great irrigation system being constructed in connection with it is now well on its way to completion.

President Taft has signed an order creating a central agency in Washington for the purchase of supplies for the several departments of the Government. The belief is that by centralizing the agencies for the purchase of ice, coal, and other supplies used in the Government departments, it will be possible to effect a saving of several thousand dollars a year. It is among the possibilities that the Government will establish its own ice-plant in Washington, as it is alleged that the American Ice Company at present sets its own price on the ice which it sells to the Government.

The fifteenth annual peace conference, in session at Lake Mohonk, N. Y., last week, was the most representative gathering which ever assembled in this mountain retreat. England, Germany, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, Austria-Hungary, Bolivia, and other countries sent able men. Delegates came from many states in the Union, and bench and bar, law and diplomacy, pulpit and college, army and navy, finance, commerce, and industry had their advocates of peace.

The International League for Highway Improvement has adopted a bill asking Congress for an appropriation of $1,000,000 to support the work of that body through eight commissioners to be appointed by President Taft. The League purposes to open permanent headquarters in Washington, and its first effort will be to build a national model highway from Maine to Florida.

The House has passed a resolution calling on the Attorney General of the United States to inform it, if not incompatible with the public interest, what steps, if any, have been taken to annul the contract whereby the United States Steel Corporation acquired interests of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company.

President Eliot of Harvard on May 19 retired from his official connection with the university, having completed on that day forty years of service as president. He is succeeded by Prof. A. Lawrence Lowell, who, while entering now upon his duties, will not be inaugurated formally until Oct. 6.

The Supreme Court of the United States has rendered a decision in favor of a Chicago woman who brought suit against a Chicago paper for publishing her portrait in connection with an advertisement of whisky.

The total population of the District of Columbia is 363,003, according to a police census just completed, an increase of 3,600 over the census of last year. The negro population is 97,142.

International.

A proposal by Sir Robert Parks of London has been laid before the Canadian government to undertake the construction of the Georgian Bay Ship Canal, provided of the Canadian government would guarantee the bonds of his company for three per cent. He offered to begin at once the eighty miles of the French river section on the western end and to continue the other sections afterward. The Canadian government may fix the tolls and may at any time take possession of the canal by paying the actual cost of construction. The Georgian Bay scheme is a ship canal with a minimum depth of twenty-two feet, of sufficient width to accommodate boats of the large lake size of twenty feet draught. It will connect Lake Huron with the St. Lawrence river at Montreal, by the way of the Georgian Bay, the French and Pickerel rivers, Lake Nipissing, and the Ottawa river, a distance of 440 miles. Only 108 miles will require excavation work, leaving 332 miles of natural channel. The summit of the canal will be 659 feet above Montreal, and 99 feet above Georgian Bay. This will be overcome by 27 locks, with lifts of from five to fifty feet. The summit level embraces Lake Talon, the Little Mattawan river, Turtle and Trout lakes. These waters will have their present level raised by locks to 677 feet, a rise in Lake Talon of 41 feet, and 15 feet in Turtle and Trout lakes.

The fact that the dominion government and the provincial government of New Brunswick now have under joint consideration a proposal to operate by electricity the eastern section of the National Transcontinental Railway from Quebec to Moncton, draws, attention to the readiness of the Canadian authorities to undertake experiments on a large scale in government ownership and operation of public utilities. If the project should be carried out it will be the most important electric railway system in the world, so far as mileage is concerned. The dominion government already has the Intercolonial

Railway, and the National Transcontinental is under construction. Ontario owns the Temiskaming Railway, which taps the Cobalt mining region, and the province also owns and works the Gillies mine, while the installation of the most ambitious power transmission system in the world is now progressing under direct government supervision. Manitoba several years ago took over the trunk telephone lines from the Bell Company and is making a handsome profit; Saskatchewan has done the same within the past month, and Alberta is preparing to do so. State ownership of all the grain elevators in the West is now being urged upon the government at Ottawa, a deputation representing thirty thousand farmers having interviewed the cabinet.

Owing to the shortage of American and Canadian cattle landed at Birkenhead, and allegations that the United States was withholding supplies with a view to raising prices, the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce is urging the Board of Agriculture to remove immediately the embargo on live cattle from the Argentine Republic.

Negotiations between Venezuela and the French government for the reestablishment of diplomatic relations have been brought to a successful conclusion, and a protocol to this effect will be signed shortly.

Taxicabs in London represent an investment of $10,000,000.

Industrial and Commercial.

The Pennsylvania Railroad is planning to set out this spring more than one million trees. This will make a total of 3,430,000 trees which have been planted in the last three years to provide for some of the company's future requirements in timber and cross-ties. Of the trees that are to be set out this spring, 893,000 are red oak, 40,000 Scotch pine, 20,000 locust, 14,000 hardy catalpa, 14,000 pin oak, 5,000 European larch, 30,000 chestnut, 3,000 yellow poplar, 2,000 black walnut, and 1,000 white pine. The policy of encouraging reforestation on the part of the public has been pursued actively this spring. Some 151,000 trees have been furnished, practically at cost, to private corporations and individuals. In addition, 8,000 hedge plants have been supplied to private individuals, and 7,000 are to be set out to ornament boundary lines along the company's right of way. A special effort has been directed this season to growing ornamental shrubbery for use on the lawns around stations and unoccupied spaces along the roadway.

At the close of the fiscal year 1908, the total number of miles of railway lines in the United States was 230,000, as compared with 136,883 in 1888 and 184,648 in 1898. The net capitalization is $13,000,007,012, an increase of 39.8 per cent over the figures of 1898. The gross earnings for 1908 of $2,448,835,000 were nearly double those of 1898. Ten years ago the total number of passengers carried one mile was about 13.3 billions. In ten years' time, this has increased over 120 per cent, reaching a total of 29.5 billions. The number of tons of freight carried one mile in 1898 was over 114,000,000,000; last year it was over 122,000,000,000. Ten years ago the total number of locomotives was 36,234, and now there are 57,156. The number of passenger cars has increased from 35,595 to 44,623; freight cars from 1,248,826 to 2,130,110; employees from 874,558 to 1,451,000.

The owners of the Canadian Northern system of railways in Canada are planning to build about five hundred miles of new road this summer into the wheat-field regions. It has been rumored in Boston that they have had engineers looking over the field with a view to building three hundred miles of road between Montreal and Boston, at a cost of $15,000,000, in order to give their system an eastern outlet.

It is estimated that the strawberry crop of Delaware this season will yield a return of at least $750,000 on a basis of 3½ cents a quart.