EDITORIAL AND GEXERAL. 



21 I 



carrots, beets, Swiss chard, parsley, and 

 tomatoes, the turnips and the carrots fol- 

 lowing the lettuce and the radishes. A 

 border of flowers ornaments both ends 

 of the lot. 



For the use of the ground during the 

 entire season, each child pays twenty- 

 five cents, at the rate of two cents a 

 week in cash, or an equivalent in vege- 

 tables to be devoted to certain charitable 

 purposes. This rent, small as it is in- 

 spires a feeling of ownership and has 

 an excellent effect. 



This season ( 1908) the garden opened 

 on the 15th of May, with twice as many 

 applicants as there were plats of ground. 

 Our lot is so small that we can have 

 only nineteen gardens in all, yet we have 

 a reserve space for flowers and for spec- 

 imens of such cereals as wheat, rye and 

 oats. The flowers are given to hospi- 

 tals and to other charitable organiza- 

 tions. 



Our expenses during the first year, 

 chiefly for tools, plowing and fertilizing, 

 were forty dollars. For this season they 

 have been only twentv dollars. 



An exhibition is held in the autumn 

 and prizes are given for attendance, for 

 general efficiency and for the best kept 

 garden. 



It is interesting and often amusing to 

 observe evidences of the children's char- 

 acter as shown by their gardens. To 

 the expert a glance reveals the impetu- 

 ous, the untidy, the careless ; while the 

 methodical, the neat and even the prim 

 and "old-maidish" are as plainly appar- 

 ent. 



There can no be doubt but that church 

 gardens are beneficial physically and 

 mentally, and that they may also be 

 made permanently valuable in a religious 

 way is a foregone conclusion. 



HUNTING EXTINCT ANIMALS IN 

 ALASKA. 



A zoological expedition to Alaska, 

 sent out last season by the Smithsonian 

 Institution, has brought back, besides in- 

 teresting information many osseous frag- 

 ments of extinct animals that once lived 

 there. The specimens show that over 

 the Alaskan fields at a period long before 



man arrived on earth, roamed mam- 

 moths, seyeral kinds of buffalo, musk- 

 oxen, sheep, moose, caribou, horses and 

 bears. Reavers also built their dams 

 ali mg the rivers. 



Ever since ( )tto von Kotzebue, nearly 

 a century ago, brought hack from Alaska 

 a few pieces of skulls and bones of 

 strange extinct beasts, men of science 

 have looked upon that region as a possi- 

 ble source of information concerning the 

 early ancestors of our northern Ameri- 

 can animals. Little systematic work was 

 done, however, until 1904, when the 

 Smithsonian Institution sent out its first 

 expedition, followed last season by a sec- 

 ond, which pursuing a certain itinerary, 

 was to search for the remains of extinct 

 vertebrate animals and to investigate the 

 causes leading to their extinction. 



The party was gone for about four 

 months, during which nearly the entire 

 length of the Yukon river was covered 

 and several of its tributaries partly ex- 

 plored. Close upon fourteen hundred 

 miles of the distance was covered by 

 canoe. During the whole time search 

 was made along the cliffs and in the 

 river bars as being the places most 

 likely to show relics of early beasts. 

 Mining camps were also visited for 

 possible traces of significant bones. 

 The rapids of the Yukon having 

 been passed, Fort Gibbon is reached, 

 below which lie the now well-known 

 "Palisades," called in that region the 

 "hone-yard," as from it have been dug 

 broken remnants of many early beasts. 



The party paddled on, however, in 

 search of larger game, and at the mouth 

 of the Nowitna river information gained 

 from an intelligent Indian, that he had 

 seen "big horns and other big bones" on 

 the river bars and had picked up the 

 "-hank hone of some large animal, lured 

 them into a side trip up the river. 



It is a picturesque region. "( )ften the 

 water has cut in under the bank," says 

 Mr. Gilmore, the leader of the party, 

 "which extends out over the stream like 

 a great shelf. The trees growing on 

 these undermined banks frequently lean 

 far over and dip their tops in the water 

 before being carried away. Large blocks 

 of the bank, covered with bushes and 

 trees, cave off into the streams, where 



