EVENT AND COMMENT
An event which stands prominently before us is the Exposition to be held in St. Louis in the summer of 1903. Its double purpose is to portray civilization in its most advanced state and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase—the historic transaction whereby the United States purchased from France the territory lying between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.
The ground area of the proposed fair is nearly 1200 acres and the appropriation, raised by the united efforts of the city of St. Louis, the State of Missouri, and the national government, will reach thirty millions of dollars.
The principal departments are Education, Art, Manufacture, Machinery, Liberal Arts, Electricity, Transportation, Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, Mining and Metallurgy, Fish and Game, Anthropology, and Physical Culture. Each of these is to be represented by a building and the whole group will be arranged in a symmetrical fan-shaped figure.
Through the center of this, extending from what we might term the handle to the outer arc, will be a boulevard six hundred feet in width. Where this intersects the circumference, some sixty feet above the general level of the grounds, will be the Art Palace. It is to be a permanent building and will cost at least one million dollars.
As much as possible the exhibits will show the process of manufacture and development of the articles displayed. Raw materials also will occupy a prominent place. St. Louis is the commercial center of the Mississippi Valley—one of the world’s great areas of production.
The Louisiana Exposition as planned should be most convincing that the United States has well utilized the territory purchased in 1803.
Professor T. C. Mendenhall has recently suggested that the internal heat of the earth might be used as a source of power. In such an age we are bound to be a little cautious in pronouncing anything impossible. Experiments show that the temperature of the earth, as we descend into its depths, increases one degree for every sixty feet. At this rate it would be necessary to bore ten thousand feet to obtain the temperature necessary to convert water into steam.
Professor William Hallock, of Columbia University, has already a plan in mind. A few feet apart he would sink two parallel pipes into the earth to the distance required. Both of these would terminate in a subterranean reservoir which could be made by the explosion of dynamite cartridges.
Then through one of the pipes a supply of water would be introduced into the reservoir. Here, by the earth’s heat, it would be converted into steam, and in this form conducted, by the other pipe, to the surface, where it would be utilized.
Although the name Prince Henry has been in our ears for several weeks past, some of us may not know his relation in the royal family.
He is the second son of an emperor and the brother of the present Emperor of the German Empire. He is a descendant of the line of Prussian kings which included one of the world’s greatest generals, Frederick the Great.
On one side his grandfather, William I, of Prussia, was the first emperor of the modern German Empire. On the other, his grandmother was Queen Victoria of England. His wife is the granddaughter of the latter sovereign.
On March 10, the Hon. John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, tendered his resignation from office. Mr. Long has been in the Presidential Cabinet since 1897.
William H. Moody, who, like the former, hails from the State of Massachusetts, has been appointed as his successor.
Mr. Moody is forty-nine years old, a lawyer by profession, and has been a member of Congress for the past seven years. He will take up the duties of his office on May 1.
Bills are now before the House of Representatives for the admission to Statehood of our remaining Territories—New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory.
This movement was favored as far back as 1896.
The chief objection raised at present is, that most of the inhabitants are of Mexican and Indian descent and are unfit for the responsibility of citizenship.
In the bill on irrigation recently passed in the Senate, provisions were made for what is known as a Reclamation Fund. This is to be formed from the proceeds of the sales of public lands and will be devoted to the irrigation of the arid districts in the United States.
By means of such a movement it is proposed to reclaim and utilize a great area of land which has heretofore been worthless to agriculture.
By a night attack made on March 7, 1902, General Delarey, with a force of fifteen hundred Boers, captured, near Vryburg, several hundred British soldiers, all their supplies and four guns. Among the prisoners was General Methuen, the commander of the British.
Such a demonstration of reserve strength upon the part of the Boers should make the British Government cautious in declaring the war in South Africa to be at an end.
Mr. A. H. Verrill, of New Haven, Conn., has discovered a method in photography for reproducing all natural tints and colors. He terms it the autochromatic process. Its success is due to the paper used, which is five times as sensitive to red and yellow light as ordinary paper, and to the sharpness of the lenses. These latter were made under his own direction.