JUNE 8, 1905
PAGE 6
1 IN THE. 'WORLD,--"OF 'PROGRESS I
Xjho Nobraoko. IndopoiidcnC
' The component parts of the Galveston sea
wall are: Concrete used, 102,000 yards, or 150,000
tons, or 7,500 carloads; riprap, or broken stone,
to prevent the action of the water directly on
the sea wall, 100,000 tons, or 5,000 carloads; sand,
40,000 yards, or 50,000 tons, or ,500 carloads; ce
ment, 135,000 barrels, or 27,000 tons, or 1,350 car
loads; round piling 18,000 tons, or. 1,000 carloads; :
heet piling, 4,000,000 feet, or, 750 carloads; rein-,
forcing steel rods, 10 carloads. , Total number of
carloads, 18,000. This is equal to one carload of
40,000 pounds, or 20 tons, to every foot of com
pleted wall.'
Of the 57,621 emigrants who passed through
Bremen in" January, February and March on their
way to the United States 28,943 were Hungarians,
12,268 Austrians, 9,179 Russians, 2,495 Germans,
636 of other nationalities. "At the consular medi
ca inspectiop,;' write Consul H. W. Diederich, there
were "956 persons, among whom were no less
than 583 cases of trachoma, or 60.98 per cent of
all rejected cases. I deeply deplore the fact
that there seems to be no way of warning these
poor people to have their eyes examined before
they are booked for the steamer. In my opinion
the majority of those rejected could and should
have been told before they left their native coun
try that under the immigration laws they could
never hope to land in the United States."
of the standard west African gauge 3 feet 6
inches. It is anticipated that the cost of the line
would be about $10,000,000, but, with the precedent
of. the Uganda railway in memory, it would be
surprising to find the line actually built for any
thing like this sum. It. is probable that a grant--in-aid
for the construction of this line will shortly
be. asked for In the house of commons. . It is
understood that the colonial office at the moment
it , engaged in negotiations with the British em
pire Cotton . Growers' , association, . with the ob
ject of getting them to guarantee to spend ; at
least $3,000,000 cultivating cotton, in the neigh
borhood of this line as soon as It is built.
Paradoxical as it may, sound, the creditor,
classes of the United States are the people with
little credit The depositors in a bank, trust or
insurance company or building loan association
far outnumber the borrowers. In the savings
banks alone 7.305,443 depositors are creditors to
the amount of their deposits, $3,060,178,611. In
the 15,000 banks, loan and trust companies of the
United States the amounts due depositors aggre
gate over $12,000,000,000. All told there are over
10,000,000 depositors. The amount of money in
the United States is a little less than $3,000,000,-.
000, and the amount in circulation is only $32 per
capita. Even this includes national bank notes,
which are not legal tender money, but only evi
dence of the banks' indebtedness guaranteed by
United States bonds. Thus there is payable
either on demand or on short notice many times
as many dollars as there are dollars to pay them
with.
The English land monopolist is extending his
operations to North America. A syndicate has
been formed, including the earl of Verulem and
the earl of Lankerville. The land is in Wisconsin.
Alexander Grant, London, 35,000 acres In Kansas;
English Land company, 50,000 acres in Arkansas;
M." Elfenhauser, of Halifax, 600,000 acres in
West Virginia. Syndicate No. 1, 50,000 acres.
This is a Scotch concern, and its land is in
Florida. It is claimed that fully 20,000,000 acres
of American land are thus owned by great land
owners in England and Scotland. This does not
include the Holland syndicate, which owns 5,-000,-000
acres of grazing land in the western states,
nor the German syndicate, owning 2,000,000 acres
in various, states. '
..... William Lovel Finley, the new naturalist
photographer,, writes as follows in The Country
Calendar for June, . the new out-door magazine
published by the 'Review of Reviews Book com
pany: "When I first crawled in among the
bushes close to the nest, the little mother darted
at me and poised a foot from my nose, as if to
stare me out of countenance. "She looked me all
over from head to foot twice, then she seemed
convinced that I was harmless. She whirled and
sat on the nest-edge. The bantlings opened wide
their hungry mouths. She spread her tail like a
flicker, rnd braced herself against the nest-side.
She craned her neck, and drew her dagger-like
bill straight up above the nest. v She plunged it
down the baby's throat to the hilt, and started a
series of gestures that seemed fashioned to punc
ture him to the toes. Then she stabbed the other
toby until it made me shudder. It looked like
the murder of the infants. But they were not
mangled and bloody; they were getting a square
meal after: the usual humming-bird method of
regurgitation. They ran out their slender tongues
to lick the honey from their lips. How they liked
it! Then she settled down and ruffled up her
breast feathers to let her babies cuddle close to
her naked bosom. Occasionally, she reached un
der to caress them with whisperings of mother
growth during the next ten years is indicated.
The record of these companies shows that their
insurance In force, their assets and their in
comes have more than doubled each decade. In
1918, thenthere will be $2,500,000,000 in insurance
in force, half a billion in invested , securities and
$200,000,000 of annual income in a single company,
with two others running up closely. Such vast '
accumulations are regarded covetously V pro
rcoting financiers. They seek their control, and
there is danger , in that control , if secured. If in
the hands of a few, the possibilities will be sin
ister enough. Diffused or divided among many
companies, control for improper' purposes will be
made difficult. A halt should T)e called. And it
can be obtained by limiting the amount of insur
ance a company may write. All of these sug
gestions should be converted Into law by congress
and national supervision should supplement that
o? the stateBrooklyn Eagle. ;
The English colonial office is completing
preparations for building a railway line in Ni
geria to run for a distance of over 600 miles into
the interior, terminating at Kano, the commercial
centre of the interior of West Africa. It is hoped
that this line will stimulate the cotton-growing
industry in Nigeria, a country that has proved
itself very suitable for the culture of this plant.
The line is to start from Lagos, and will .reach
the Niger at Jebba, passing through the Yoruba
country. " It would connect the towns of Abeokuta,
Ibadan, Oshogbo, Illorin, and Baro, and would be
The United States is by far the largest of
all the civilized nations except Russia, which has
about 130,000,000 inhabitants. The German em
pire has 56,000,000, Austria-Hungary 47,000,000,
Japan 47,000,000, the United Kingdom 42,000,000,
France 38,000,000, Italy 32,000,000, and Spain 18,
000,000. China has 350,000,000, but she does not
count in a calculation of this sort. Owing to the
rapid growth of the United States, the English
language is now spoken by more persons than
use any other civilized tongue. ; Charles V. said
he spoke German to his horse, French to men,
Italian to his lady friend and Spanish to God. In
his days, three and a half centuries ago, Spain
was a land on which the sun never set, England
was only a small spot on the map, and the Eng
lish language held only a minor place in the civ
ilized tongues. Today 130,000,000 of people speak
English, 100,000,000 speak Russian (for not all
the people of the empire talk the national tongue)
75,000,000 use German, 70,000,000 employ Spanish
in eluding the inhabitants of the Latin-American
countries, and 40,000,000 speak French. Moreover,
the lead for English is rapidly lengthening. Near
ly two-thirds of all the people who speak the
English tongue are in the. United States. Leslie's
Weekly. . . - .
Perhaps the most sensational proposition is
that the insurance companies be limited to carry
ing insurance In - force to $1,000,000,000." This
suggestion is born of the conviction that the ac
cumulations by a few of the companies have be
come so vast that the power inherent in them,
concentrated , in the . hands of a few, will become
a menace to the republic. The , growth of, some
companies has been so great in the past ten
years that the two-billion mark is being rapidly
approached, if it has not already been reached
by one of them. Corresponding, if not greater,
Now that Rojestvensky's fleet has been wiped
out the navy department at Tokio sees nothing
to gain by concealing any of its naval "sses since
the war began. Except for three torpedo-boats
sunk in this last battle in the Korean Straits,
practically all losses are to, be charged to the
blockade of Port Arthur. Not a single large Japa
nese vessel has been destroyed; by Russian gun
fire. The Japanese losses total: Two. battle-ships,
the Hatsuse and Ytfshima, both sunk in May,,
1904; three protected cruisers, the Sei Yan, Yo
shino and Takasago; two small unprotected cruis
ers, the Miyako and Kaimon; two gunboats and
half a dozen torpedo-boats and destroyers. The
bsttle-ship Mikasa, which had been unofficially
reported foundered, was in the forefront of the
fighting off Tsu Island. With the Russian vessels
captured and fit for service after repairs the
Japanese navy today, is only a shade less formid
able than it was when the first gun of the war
was fired. Thirteen Russian battle-ships have
been sunk or captured. The Tsarevitch, crippled,
sought refuge last August at Kiaoehou. Seven
teen cruisers and ironclads and more than a score
' of torpedo boats and destroyers have been sunk
or put out of action. , Russia, not Spain, to use
Dooley's cruelly humorous words, now has Ue
greatest submarine navy in the world.
- The one source of power bestowed by nature
on the prairie farms of the country has hereto
fore proved largely unavailable because of the
danger involved to machinery in permitting wind
mills to run during heavy storms. For a new in
vention it is claimed it will transmit power not
exceeding a predetermined limit, no matter how
strong a wind is blowing. This new windmill has
two wind wheels, with sails oppositely inclined, so
they will run in opposite directions. -As the ve
locity of the wind increases the wind wheels are
tilted upward, thus modifying the force of the
wind on the sails. The shaft of the inner wind
wheel is hollow and revolves on the shaft of the
outer wheel, and the bracket in which the shafts
are mounted has a universal joint connection with
the windmill standard, an adjustable counter
weight balancing the weight of the wind wheels.
The shafts carry bevel gears at their inner ends,
that of the inner wind wheel engaging the upper
teeth of the power wheel, while the gear attached
to the shaft of the outer wind wheel engages the
lower teeth of the power wheel. Consequently, a
though the wind wheels turn in opposite direc
tions, they both act together in driving the power
shaft in the same direction. A blade, or sail lying
adjacent, to and below the level of the wind wheels
forms' the. vane of the mill, which occupies a
plane normally transverse to the direction of the
wind. As the strength of the wind increases the
wind wheels rise because of the pressure against
this vane and the wheels then rotate at an acute
angle to the direction of the wind. In this way
the force of the wind on the wheels is modified,
for any increase in velocity will be compensated
for by an increase in the angle between the axi
of the wheel and the direction of the wind. .
