At a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries for Scotland, recently held in Edinburgh, George Macdonald, LL.D., F. S. A. Scot., gave a communication on "A Fresh Survey of the Roman Wall from Inveravon to Falkirk," explaining in his opening remarks that he had been engaged on this work for some years, aided by a grant from the Carnegie research fund. On the farm of Mumrills, midway between Falkirk and Inveravon, the site of a forgotten fort had been discovered and its approximate dimensions ascertained. From the bank of the Avon to Rosehall, in the heart of the town of Falkirk, the line of the wall had now been laid down with practical certainty, and it was so satisfactory that the results of the present inquiry were being adopted as an official record by the ordnance survey.

The second communication, by the director of the museum, described the excavations conducted by the society on Traprain Law, south of East Linton, in 1914. About one hundred feet square had been excavated, yielding harness mountings and other objects of bronze, quantities of hand-made pottery of native fabrication, and many pieces of Roman ware of late first-century date, also coins of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius, indicating an occupation into the Antonine period during the middle of the second century, were found, as well as molds of stone for ingots and segments of armlets of colored glass and jet. The relics have all been presented to the National Museum by A. J. Balfour of Whittingham, on whose property the hill is situated.

In denying a motion filed by the Kellogg Toasted Corn Flakes Company against the government's petition for an injuction to restrain the company from fixing the resale price of its product, the United States circuit court of appeals, in a decision just filed in the district court at Detroit, rules that the owner of a patented carton cannot dictate the selling price of the goods which the carton contains. The government's petition, filed in December, 1912, attacked the selling plan of the defendant company, stating that it specified the price which the jobber, the wholesaler, and the retailer should charge for its product. Arguments in the case were heard last July. In its motion to dismiss the government's petition, the Kellogg company contended that its ownership of a patent on the carton in which its product was marketed gave it the right to fix the price of the product.

In its decision the court of appeals says: "The general rule is well settled that a system of contracts between manufacturers, jobbers, and retailers by which the manufacturers attempt to control the price for all sales by all dealers at wholesale or retail, whether purchasers or sub-purchasers, eliminating all competition and fixing the amount which the consumer shall pay, amounts to restraint of trade and is invalid both at common law and so far as it affects interstate commerce under the Sherman antitrust act. It seems entirely clear that the defendant's selling plan here in question goes beyond any protection afforded by the patent on the carton, and is in its essential principles violative of the Sherman act."

A most important hearing on the proposal to require the railroads to report their operating expenses separately for freight and passenger traffic will be held by the interstate commerce commission on May 21. A possible order from the commission to this effect is opposed by the railroads on the ground of expense, and is supported by the railroad brotherhoods on the ground that it will furnish data essential to wage arbitration cases. It is stated that more than 60 per cent of the railroads already keep separate accounts of their freight and passenger traffic. By the establishment of a uniform requirement, however, it is pointed out that the truth about the annual outlay for labor in the freight and passenger services of the roads would be easily available, thus greatly facilitating arbitration proceedings. If the order is granted, it will probably require the roads merely to report separately their outlay for passenger and freight locomotive engineers and firemen. Passenger rate schedules and freight rate schedules would be affected alike.

The amount of telephone wire in use in the United States increased from almost 13,000,000 miles in 1907 to more than 20,000,000 in 1912, or by about 54 per cent, while the number of miles of commercial telegraph wire, including ocean cable, increased during the same period from more than 1,624,000 miles to nearly 1,882,000 miles, or by 15 per cent. The Bell Telephone system in 1912 controlled nearly 75 per cent of the total wire mileage, and over 58 per cent of the total telephones in use. It also controlled nearly 51 per cent of the public exchanges maintained by companies with annual incomes of five thousand dollars or over, and handled 661/2 per cent of the calls made over the lines of such companies. Wire mileage of the Bell system increased from 8,947,000 in 1907 to 15,133,000 in 1912, or by more than 69 per cent. During the same time the wire mileage of all other systems combined increased from 4,052,000 to 5,115,000, or by a little over 26 per cent.

The Pennsylvania Railroad has announced that it would go into the open market for twenty million dollars' worth of new material for cars and locomotives which it will build in its own shops. The invitation for bids indicates the first big buying movement by the Pennsylvania Railroad for more than a year. The company's present program includes the construction of one hundred and forty-four new locomotives, seventy-six of the standard type and sixty-eight shifting locomotives; one hundred and forty-six all steel passenger cars, and ten thousand freight cars. The locomotives will be built in the Altoona shops. Of the passenger cars ninety will be built by the lowest bidders, while the remaining fifty-six will be constructed by the company. Bids will be asked for 7,643 of the freight cars, which the company plans to have built by outside companies, and on materials for 2,102 freight cars to be built at the Altoona shops.

A big increase in the production of meat in the federal forest ranges this year is predicted by the bureau of forestry. The figures show that forests will furnish forage for 1,983,775 cattle and horses, 8,747,025 sheep and goats, and 64,640 swine. This is an increase over last year of 92,656 in the number of cattle and horses, but a decrease of 120,881 sheep and goats. The belief is expressed that the recent high price of beef has encouraged many farmers and former sheep men to go into cattle raising. It is estimated that the federal treasury will be enriched to the extent of about one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or an increase of two hundred thousand dollars over last year, by receipts from grazing permits.

Women attorneys of Chicago have organized the Public Defenders League for Girls, to defend girls brought into the morals court. Half of Chicago's sixty women attorneys have offered their services. The league has the indorsement of the judge of the morals court, Judge Arnold C. Heap. "Few of the women who come before me are supplied with legal counsel," he said. "I feel the organization has a place in this court."

William C. Van Antwerp, governor of the New York stock exchange, says: "American business activity is today built on more solid foundations than ever it was; its moral framework is based on character and the golden rule as never before. I firmly believe that the next ten years are to be the best years of our lives,—best because freest from greed and selfishness; best because fullest of moral and material profit."

The gates of lock 17, on the Warrior river, near Birmingham, Ala., were placed a few days ago, completing a twelve million dollar government project that provides a six-foot channel from Sanders ferry to Mobile, a distance of five hundred miles, and opens up to barge traffic vast lumber resources in northern Alabama.

The Western Union Telegraph Company's standard message rates between New York and San Francisco, and its cable rates from New York to points in England, have been pronounced by the interstate commerce commission as not unreasonable or unjustly discriminatory.

Another Louvain professor is coming to Harvard, announcement being made at the university that Professor de Wulf of the Belgian University will give a course during the first half-year on the history of scholastic philosophy. Professor de Wulf is one of the greatest of present-day medievalists.

President Blackton of the Vitagraph Company of America said that for 1913, two hundred and seventy-five million dollars was paid by the public for admission to motion picture-houses.

Mayor Blankenberg of Philadelphia has signed the resolution passed by the city council, authorizing the taking of the liberty bell to the Panama-Pacific exposition.

The coronation of the Emperor of Japan is officially fixed for Nov. 10 at Kyoto.