40 miles, with an extreme length north and south of perhaps 180 miles. It contains about 6,400 square miles, or more than 4,000,000 acres. It was created by a proclamation of February 14 of the present year. On its eastern edge is the Mount Whitney military reservation. Opposite, on its western edge, lie the General Grant National Park and the Sequoia National Park, with their magnificent scenery, while still further south, also on the western edge, is the Tule River Indian Reservation. All these bodies are indicated on the map.

(3) The San Bernardino Forest Reserve. As a glance at the map will show, this new reserve, which was created by proclamation of February 25, 1893, lies due east of the San Gabriel Reserve, and includes! a considerable part of the summit of the San Bernardino mountain range. Out of it flow streams that irrigate the valleys to the south and west, and that give life to the plains to the north and east. Its area as estimated by the General Land Office is 1,152 square miles, or 737,200 acres.

(4) The Trabuco Cañon Forest Reserve. This is a comparatively small area in Orange County, covering some seventy-eight square miles, or 50,000 acres. It was established on the same date as the San Bernardino Forest Reserve-namely, the 25th of last February. It lies on the summit of the Santa Ana Mountains, and is very important as a source of water supply. It needs no argument to prove that these great reserves, lying along the watersheds and mountain ranges of California, signify very much for the future of a State whose agricultural prosperity requires the irrigation of the low lands from the streams originating in the mountains. The steady flow of these streams throughout the dry season depends wholly upon the preservation of the great timber stretches in which they have their origins and their primary sourses.

THE FIVE NEW TIMBER RESERVES IN COLORADO.

Under this act of March, 1891, there have been established five timber reserves in the State of Colorado, one of which was proclaimed in October, 1891, and the other four at different times in the year 1892. The first of these was the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve, established by proclamation of October 16, 1891. It lies in Routt, Ria Blanco, Garfield and Eagle counties, and has an estimated area of 1,872 square miles, or about 1,200,000 acres. As a glance at the accompanying map will show, the White River Reserve is an almost square body some fifty miles long from north to south, and nearly forty miles wide from east to west, lying in the Northwestern part of Colorado. It occupies an extremely important position with reference to the origin of streams which flow in almost every possible direction.

Next in chronological order of the Colorado reserves comes the Pike's Peak Timber Land Reserve, in El Paso County, lying just west of Colorado Springs, and extending from north to south some thirty miles,

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with an average width of about ten miles. It makes what is virtually a geat national park of the region, which includes the adjoining Pike's Peak, the Manitou Park, and much of the most beautiful and famous scenery of the best-known portion of Colorado. Its area is some 288 square miles, or 184,000 acres. It was first opened on February 11, 1892, with a supplementary proclamation of March 18 of the same year. It is not so large by any means as some of the other reserves, but it is one of the most interesting of all, and its preservation as a national forest and park will always be accounted a most fortunate and creditable circumstance.

Next comes the Plum Creek Timber Land Reserve, in Douglas County. It is of almost exactly the same size as the Pike's Peak Reserve, its area being estimated at 280 square miles, or a little more than 179,000 acres. It was established by proclamation of June 23, 1892. The Plum Creek Reserve is an irregularlyshaped piece of land which adjoins the Pike's Peak

Reserve on the north and extends west to the Platte River, where it now adjoins the large South Platte Forest Reserve, which was created several months afterwards. The three are thus contiguous, as our map shows, and the uppermost point of the Plum River Reserve lies due south of the city of Denver at a distance of some eighteen miles.

Fourth must be mentioned the South Platte Forest Reserve, in Park, Jefferson, Summit and Chaffee counties. It swings about with the mountains in a curious sort of loop, and extends almost as far west as Leadville. Its establishment bears date of December 9, 1892, and its estimated area is 1,068 square miles, or about 683,500 acres. Out of it flow streams which feed the Arkansas, the Platte and other important rivers.

The last of the existing Colorado reserves is the Battlement Mesa Forest Reserve, which includes parts of Garfield, Mesa, Pitkin, Delta and Gunnison counties. It is the second in size of the Colorado reserves, having an area of 1,341 square miles, or 858,240 acres. It was established by proclamation of December 24, 1892. It is of very irregular shape, although like the other Colorado reserves it follows the lines of the Congressional surveys. It lies near the western bor

ders of Colorado, and is within some twenty miles of the White River Plateau Reserve. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, following the course of the Grand River, passes between the two reserves. The Battlement Mesa lies between the Grand River on the north and the Gunnison River on the south, many of the tributaries of both of these streams originating within the reserve, while the two rivers come together at Grand Junction, to the westward of the reservation.

IN OREGON, WASHINGTON AND WYOMING. Thus far one reserve has been established in Oregon, under the name of the Bull River Timber Land Reserve. It lies in Multnomah, Wasco and Clackmas counties. Its area is estimated at 222 square miles, or 142,000 acres. The proclamation establishing it was issued June 17, 1892. It is situated near the extreme north

line of Oregon, and is an irregularly shaped piece of land extending from Mount Hood almost to the shores of the Columbia river. Probably enough it may be thought wise hereafter to establish other forest reserves on the heavily timbered mountain slopes of Oregon. If this is to be done it is obvious that it should be accomplished without too great delay.

In the State of Washington, also, one area has been set aside under presidential proclamation of February 20, 1893,-a square tract which includes portions of Pierce, Kittitass, Lewis and Yakima counties. This is a large district, including 1,512 square miles, or 967,680 acres, and is known as the Pacific Forest Reserve. It is situated somewhat to the south and west of the center of the State, and has a high altitude, including mountains whose peaks are 7,500 feet above the sea. Within its area originate some of the important feeders of the Columbia River, as well as some of the streams which flow northward into Puget Sound.

In Wyoming, the provisions of this act of March, 1891, have been wisely used to extend the area of the Yellowstone National Park. The park proper contains nearly 5,000 square miles. The Yellowstone Park Timber Land Reserve adds to the extent of the park on the east and on the south. The additions were made by executive orders of March 30 and September 10, 1891, and there is thus annexed to the area originally set aside an additional 2,000 square miles approximately,— —or 1,936 square miles, to give the precise estimate of the land office. This is the area in which originate many of the streams which feed the network of rivers that ultimately form the great Missouri. The whole area is one of marvelous scenery and of an immense diversity of natural wonders and curiosities. The portions annexed to the Yellowstone Park bear a general resemblance in scenery and natural characteristics to the park itself.

RESERVES IN NEW MEXICO AND ARIZONA.

In New Mexico, by proclamation of January 11, 1892, there was established the Pecos River Forest COLORADO &

Reserve, which includes parts of Santa Fé, San Miguel, Rio Arriba and Taos counties. It is estimated by the Land Office to contain 486 square miles, or 311,000 acres. It lies well north of the geograpical centre of New Mexico, and would seem from some examination of the topography and climate of that great territory to be only the precursor of a series of national forest reserves which might well be established under the existing enactment.

Arizona also contains one of these new reservesviz., the Grand Cañon Forest Reserve, in Coconino County, which was established by executive proclamation on February 20 of the present year. This is one of the largest of the whole series, having an area of 2,893 square miles, or 1,851,520 acres. It is situated in the northern part of Arizona, and the Colorado River flows through it from east to west, a portion of the Grand Cañon of the Colorado being included within its limits. The portion of the reserve lying south of the Colorado River contains what is known as the Coconino Forest, while the upper portion includes a considerable part of the Buckskin or Kibab Plateau. It is a region of gigantic and impressive scenery, and may well be considered one of our greatest national parks-world famed as it is already for cañon and mountain scenery on a scale of unrivaled grandeur.

THE AFOGNAK RESERVE IN ALASKA.

The last to be mentioned-making fifteen in all-of these forest reserves established under the act of March 30, 1891, is the Afognak Forest and Fish Culture Reserve, in Alaska. This comprises Afognak Island and its adjacent bays and rocks and territorial waters, including among others the Sea Lion Rocks and Sea Otter Island. The reserve was established by proclamation of December 24, 1892. The Land Office has not yet issued a map showing the area of this reserve, and the precise extent of territory included has not yet been made publicly known. A special object of the reserve was to aid the work of the Fish Commission, certain clauses in the act of 1891 having been specially provided to meet this case. The Land Office at some future time will doubtless afford the public information that will be of much interest regarding this Alaska reserve.

This bare recapitulation of the areas already designated and reserved under the act of 1891 is suffi

cient to make plain the extreme importance of the results already secured. What course may be contemplated by the present administration in the further demarkation and establishment of national forest areas cannot yet be known. It is certainly to be hoped that an undertaking so splendidly begun may be carried still further. The prosperity not only of farmers, but also of towns and cities throughout the Western States and Territories is related so vitally to the maintenance of a perennial and sufficient flow of water from the mountain streams that it may be asserted almost as a mathematical axiom that the larger the upland stretches of forest that are preserved from destruction at the hands of the timber cutter, or by forest fires, the greater will be the wealth and prosperity in generations to come of those States of magnificent promise. It should have been explained that within these large reserves there exist here and there pieces of land which have already been granted to private owners and the title to which the government has not extinguished. It is, of course, desirable that public reservations should contain as few as possible of these privately-owned farms and claims and mines. Hence the importance of establishing as rapidly as possible such forest reservations as climatic and topographical conditions would show to be advantageous for the future welfare of the surrounding regions.

THOMAS A. EDISON.

HE excellent Cassier's Magazine has since March

A. Edison by Miss Antonia and Mr. W. K. L. Dickson, who are intimately associated with the great inventor's work at Orange, N. J. Mr. Edison pronounces this account of his life the best that has yet appeared, and we quote these reminiscences and observations.

THE EARLY PRIVATIONS OF EDISON.

This was the kind of régime which Edison was passing through at the age of 17: "Memphis, Tennessee, was his next move. Here the operators received $125 a month and rations, counterbalanced by the fact that they were under the most stringent military law. Edison's abilities either won respect or excited a rancorous envy, according to the class of individual with whom he had to deal, and in the present instance he was unfortunately thrown with a manager incapable of generous appreciation and jealous of rising talent. This liberal-minded gentleman was endeavoring to perfect a repeater of his own invention at the time of Edison's arrival, but his efforts had been hitherto fruitless. Edison, with characteristic energy, commenced experiments at once, which were crowned with success, and in consequence of which Louisville and New Orleans were connected, for the first time in the annals of telegraphy. This turn of events so enraged the manager that he brought a fictitious charge against his rival, which resulted in the latter's dismissal. This was a serious misfortune, and befell our hero at a time when he was ill prepared to be thrown on his own resources. Such portions of his salary as had not found their way home had long ago been transmuted into books and instruments, and his wardrobe was in the last stage of destitution. His health, too, was beginning to feel the strain of his sleepless nights and protracted labors, and altogether he was a better subject for motherly coddling than for the rude experience which lay before him. But the indomitable spirit within refused to yield to the forces arrayed against it, and this seventeen year old lad, feeble, penniless and sorehearted, actually conceived and carried out the plan of reaching the city of Louisville, walking one hundred miles, and obtaining free transportation for the remainder of the distance. At Nashville he was joined by a fellow operator, one William Foley, a lad of shady reputation but good heart, and together the two boys pursued their journey, arriving at their destination one bleak and cheerless morning, toward the beginning of winter. The church bells were clanging the hour of six, and the great city, with its ice-locked streets, seemed the external projection of the colder hearts within its gates. Nothing more desolate can be conceived than the figure of this slender, eager

eyed lad, stranded on the margin of this desert, faint with hunger and fatigue, paralyzed with cold, and disheartened with injustice and rough usage."

EDISON AND THE PHONOGRAPH.

The great inventor received an extremely small sum for his important quadruplex telegraph invention, and what did come to him was immediately spent on experiments with an octuplex instrument: "This," said Mr. Edison recently, "I never completed, having taken up what is called the acoustic telegraph, which led to the invention of the modern commercial telephone. Bell, Gray and I were experimenting with acoustic telegraphy. Bell patented an acoustic telegraph, which was subsequently found capable of transmitting articulate speech. While this was being exhibited at Philadelphia I devised a transmitter, in which carbon was employed to translate sound into electric waves, and Gray had filed a caveat wherein water was used to vary the electric current. Bell's instrument was taken up by Boston capitalists, while mine was adopted by the Western Union, and a fierce competition ensued, It was seen by the Bell people that their instrument was impracticable for commercial purposes without my transmitter, and pro contra by the Western Union, that without Bell's receiver, which they did not own, my instrument was not available without extensive litigation, so a consolidation of interests took place. I met the objections to the lack of a receiver by inventing one based upon a hitherto unknown phenomenon, but the negotiations had gone too far to admit of this being utilized, and aware of my tendency to spend everything in experimenting, I bargained that the sum paid should extend over a period of seventeen years in monthly payments, to which the company only too gladly acceded."

HE MAKES MISTAKES, TOO.

That even the greatest and wisest of us may cherish "wild-cat" schemes is evinced by this attempt of Edison's: "Electric railroading was amongst the earliest branches of locomotive science investigated by Mr. Edison, and in this, as into the dryest of his projects, his characteristic humor found play. On one occasion he conceived the brilliant idea of constructing what he termed a 'Mountain Climbing Electric Railroad for South America.' With these lofty aspirations in view, he built a track on a down-hill grade at an angle of forty degrees, using grippers to catch the rail and insure a modicum of safety. His experiments in this line received a check one day through the sudden breakage of the grippers, in consequence of which the car rushed down the hill with tremendous velocity, and, to use Edison's turn of phrase, well-nigh pitched the solitary passenger, a small and adventurous boy, 'over into the next county.""

MR. EDISON'S VIEWS ON EATING. The Magician of Orange believes that variety in eating is even more than the spice of life.

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Variety Edison remarked, 'is the secret of wise eating. The nations that eat the most kinds of food are the greatest nations.'

"These sapient observations were delivered in 1878 over a repast so ephemeral as to remind us of Ouida's impossible banquets, where the ethereal heroine toys with a pheasant, coquets with a chocolate éclair, or trifles with the rose-hued bubbles of rare wines in a way calculated to dishearten the most enthusiastic pupil of the romantic school. A wideeyed waiter, in obedience to the guest's instructions, brought a plate of strawberry shortcake, a dish of strawberries and cream and an apple dumpling, in conjunction with which the following themes were discussed:

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'Rice-eating nations never progress,' continued Edison, they never think or act anything but rice, rice, rice for ever. Look at the potato and black bread eaters of Ireland; though naturally bright, the Irish in Ireland are enervated by the uniformity of their food. Look at the semi-savages who inhabit the Black Forest. On the other hand, what is, take it all in all, the most highly enlightened nation, the most thrifty, graceful, cultured and accomplished? Why, France, of course, where the cuisine has infinite variety. When the Roman Empire was at its height the table was a marvel of diversity; they fed on nightingales' tongues, and on all sorts of dainty dishes.""

Mr. Edison as a Capitalist.

E. J. Edwards, the New York correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, has a capital interview with Edison in the new McClure's Magazine. The inventor tells of some of his capitalistic ventures-especially one on which he is engaged now-an ore separator which will get a much greater percentage of ore from the dirt and stones in which it is found; and with much less labor. Mr. Edison is going to apply this to the mineral deposits of the New Jersey mountains, where he owns much ore land.

Said he "Some of the New Jersey mountains contain practically inexhaustible stores of this magnetic ore, but it has been expensive to mine.

I was

able to secure mining options upon nearly all these properties, and then I began the campaign of developing an ore-concentrator which would make these deposits profitably available. This iron is unlike any other iron ore. It takes four tons of the ore to produce one ton of pure iron, and yet I saw, some years ago, that if some method of extracting this ore could be devised, and the mines controlled, an enormously profitable business would be developed, and yet a cheaper iron ore cheaper in its first cost-would be put upon the market. I worked very hard upon this problem, and in one sense successfully, for I have been able by my methods to extract this magnetic ore at comparatively small cost, and deliver from my mills pure iron bricklets. Yet I have not been satis

fied with the methods; and some months ago I decided to abandon the old methods and to undertake to do this work by an entirely new system. I had some ten important details to master before I could get a perfect machine, and I have already mastered eight of them. Only two remain to be solved, and when this work is complete, I shall have, I think, a plant and mining privileges which will outrank the incandescent lamp as a commercial venture, certainly so far as I am myself concerned. Whatever the profits are, I shall myself control them, as I have taken no capitalists in with me in this scheme."

Mr. Edison was asked if he was willing to be more explicit respecting this invention, but he declined to be, further than to say: "When the machinery is done as I expect to develop it, it will be capable of handling twenty thousand tons of ore a day with two shifts of men, five in a shift. That is to say, ten workmen, working twenty hours a day in the aggregate, will be able to take this ore, crush it, reduce the iron to cement-like proportions, extract it from the rock and earth, and make it into bricklets of pure iron, and do it so cheaply that it will command the market for magnetic ore."

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THE WORLD'S FAIR ELECTRICAL EXHIBITS. detailed description of the Electricity Building N the Chautauquan, William Igleheart gives a at the World's Fair, and of the electric lighting facilities and the various exhibits of inventions by which the telegraph, the telephone and the phonograph have been brought to their present state of perfection. Mr. Igleheart's opening sentence suggests the almost incredible magnitude of the electric lighting power. He says: Imagine the stupendous glare of electric lamps equal to eighteen million candles lighted and grouped within the area of a small city. Then add the bewildering blaze of search lights capable of casting a solid shaft of light through twenty miles of space. The single plant for incandescent lights is made up of 12 dynamos, each with a capacity of 10,000 lamps, each weighing 45,000 pounds, and each driven by a 1,000 horse-power engine at a speed of 200 revolutions per minute. The arc lights number 6,000, each with an illuminating power of 2,000 candles." One division of the department of electrical exhibits is devoted to the demonstration of the progress made in electrical science.

The original Morse telegraph apparatus will be installed in the section allotted to the Western Union Telegraph Company, and this will be surrounded with all manner of recent inventions and improvements in keys, sounders, batteries and all the devices for maintaining circuits. "The crowning feature of the telephone display will be the concert room, a very pretty Greek pavilion in Electricity Hall. The room will seat two hundred auditors, and will be connected with New York and Boston by longdistance instruments. It is expected to offer visitors to the Exposition daily concerts given by orchestras and soloists in New York and Boston." Mr. Igleheart