THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



191 



enormous damage they do, the bureau 

 hopes to induce more effective legis- 

 lation in suppressing them. 



Investigation has shown that, in an 

 average year, 60 human lives are lost 

 in forest fires, $25,000,000 worth of 

 real property is destroyed, 10,274,089 

 acres of timber land are burned over, 

 and young forest growth worth, at the 

 lowest estimate, $75,000,000, is killed. 

 A special canvass of the country by 

 the Department of Agriculture in 1891 

 discovered 12,000,000 acres of timber 

 land destroyed by fire. These figures 

 are mere estimates, which fall far 

 short of showing in full the damage 

 done. No account at all is taken of the 

 loss to the country due to the impov- 

 erishment of the soil by fire, to the 

 ruin of water courses, and the drying- 

 up of springs. Even the amount of 

 timber burned is very imperfectly cal- 

 culated, and the actual quantity 

 destroyed is far in excess of that ac- 

 counted for. Forest fires in this coun- 

 try have grown so common that only 

 those are reported that are of such 

 magnitude as to threaten large com- 

 munities. The lumbering industry in 

 remote sections of the country may be 

 ruined and people forced to flee for 

 their lives without a mention of the 

 disaster beyond the places near where 

 it occurred. 



The fires that burnt this year in 

 Washington and Oregon were uncom- 

 mon only in the number of lives lost. 

 The burning of logging and mining 

 camps and farm buildings, the loss to 

 the country in the destruction of tim- 

 "ber and young tree growth, is of yearly 

 occurrence. Every fall, not only in 

 Washington, Oregon, Colorado and 

 Wyoming, but up and down the Pacific 

 coast and all over the Rocky Mountain 

 country fires burn great holes in the 

 forests and destroy the national wealth. 

 The air of the mountains over hundreds 

 of miles is pungent with the smoke of 

 conflagration, and navigation on Puget 

 "Sound has often been impeded by 



smoke. The following comment by Dr. 

 Henry Gannett, of the U. S. Geological 

 Survey, should convey a fair idea of 

 the damage done in the state of Wash- 

 ington : " In less than a generation 

 two fifths of the standing timber has 

 been destroyed in one of the richest 

 timber regions on the continent, and of 

 the destruction more than half has 

 been caused by fire. Assuming that the 

 timber would, if standing, have the 

 value of 75 cents per thousand feet, 

 not less than $30,000,000 worth has 

 gone lip in smoke, a dead loss to the 

 people of the state." 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS. 



Ogden Nicholas Rood, since 1863 

 professor of physics in Columbia Uni- 

 versity, one of the most eminent Amer- 

 ican men of science, died on November 

 12, in his seventy-second year. We 

 hope to publish subsequently some ac- 

 count of Professor Rood's life and 

 work. 



Some years ago Mr. Hodgkins left 

 his fortune to the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution to be used for the increase and 

 diffusion of more exact knowledge in 

 regard to the nature and properties of 

 atmospheric air in connection with 

 the welfare of man, the endowment 

 amounting to about $250,000. Part of 

 the fund has been used to establish a 

 Hodgkins gold medal, which in 1899 

 was awarded to Lord Rayleigh and 

 Professor Ramsay for their discovery 

 of argon. A second award of the medal 

 has now been made to Professor J. J. 

 Thomson, of the University of Cam- 

 bridge, for his investigations on the 

 conductivity of gases, especially the 

 gases that compose the atmospheric air. 

 An engraving from this medal, made 

 by M. Chaplain, is here given. Pro- 

 fessor Thomson has just been appointed 

 the first lecturer at Yale University 

 on the foundation established with a 

 bequest of $85,000 from Benjamin 

 Silliman. 



The degree of LL.D. was conferred 

 on Dr. Alexander Graham Bell at St. 



