'3BQSS7' 



1U15. 



*^#' Ajiother " Wood EternaF Discovered 



The crp'**" people who coinwl. ]>ateDtc(l, mul copyriKlilcd the term 

 "vs ' ■-• ^al" for their product may linvo to rovisc their figure*, 

 in e of the latent claim for •pnicc. The Forest ProdueU 



LnburaioM : ■ " " WiH., hnK idenliflfd im j.priico a piece of wood 



which wan i- U out of n deposit of trrnvcl laid down in 



Wisconsin by uliicnTit diirinf; the froien iifio when tlic Lake Slate* 

 were buried under mountains of ice and ^now, as Oreonland is at 

 prMcnt. Oeoloijistd arc reported to have fij;iir(>d out that the spruce 

 tree from which the wood came grow 500,0(i0 years ago. Thus far, 

 there is no report that cypress has lasted that long and it even goes 

 ahead of the claims of the white pine people in New England. 



The fact tliat spruce wood remained sound half a million years is 

 intorostiiig but not unlH-liovnblo. Wooil in veins of coal of tlie Carbon- 

 iferous Age has been found in positions warranting the belief that 

 it is millions of years old; and while spruce is under review it 

 may be mentioned that some of the wood taken from coal deposits 

 near Cook's Inlet, Alaska, was pronounced spruce, and it must have 

 been much older than the Wisconsin specimen recently discovered. 



But after all, is it quite certain that the Wisconsin specimen is 

 .500,000 years oldt Possibly it is; and if competent geologists gave 

 that as their opinion after due investigation, the layman should bo 

 slow in gainsaying their conclusions. But if the proof of that great 

 age depends upon the sole fact that the wood was found among 

 the deposits of the ice age, a person should be pardoned for enter- 

 taining a few doubts. It would depend upon the place the spruce 

 wood occupied in the glacial drift, whether among the oldest or latest 

 of thesM? deposits. If it was in the oldest glacial deposit of that 

 region that the wood was buried, its age is nearer five million years 

 than half a million; but if buried in the most recent glacial drift in 

 Wisconsin, the age "'i'- mtv imuli ni":irer five tlioiis.ind years than five 

 hundred thousand. 



The so-called Glacial Age «as not a single period with a definite 

 beginning and ending; but a series of ice periods, following one 

 after another at longer or shorter intervals during nearly the whole 

 of geologic history. Cliarles Schuchert, in the latest Smithsonian 

 Annual Report, has shown that the earliest ice age in America pre- 

 ceded the latest by thousands of centuries, by the lowest estimate 

 that can be made from the evidence. 



Compared with the oldest ice invasion of the Wisconsin and Illinois 

 region, the latest closed only yesterday. Calculations based on the 

 cutting done by Niagara river, which had its origin in the last ice 

 jpoch, show the departure of the ice mar not have been more than 

 7,000 year ago. Other calculations, based on the rate at which 

 Lake Michigan has been invading the land between Chicago and 

 Manitowoc, Wis., since the government survey of 1835 and 1836, 

 place the close of the ice age here at less than 7,000 years ago. To 

 quote the exact figures, based on more than thirty averages, the time 

 was 4,700 years ago. This is figured out by noting the rate at 

 which the lake bluffs along the North Shore are being washed away, 

 and assuming that the rate has been the same since the lake reached 

 its present level. A strip of shore, averaging three and a third miles 

 wide, extending from Chicago northward one hundred and fifty miles, 

 has been washed away by the lake, since it has stood at its present 

 level (its level was several feet higher at an earlier age). It sank 

 to its present level, as is believed, when the mountains of ice finally 

 melted away and permitted the water of Lake Michigan to drain 

 away through the St. Lawrence river instead of through the Miss- 

 issippi as it formerly had done. Apparently that was not more 

 than five thousand years ago. A person who has seen the glaciated 

 regions of the Lake States, and noted the extremely recent ap- 

 pearance of the moraines, heaps, lakes, and swamps as they exist 

 today, can easily believe that the ice departed at least as lately as 

 five thousand years ago. 



Then, is the specimen of spruce wood necessarily half a million 

 years old because it was buried under a pile of gravel left behind 

 ^hen the glacial ice withdrew from the reg^ionT Possibly cypress still 



— 2»— 



hnx the advantage of spruce in ago; for cy|ireiui logs have been 

 found buried under river dc|>oiiita of soil near New Orleans, and 

 their mtimntcd age wu thirtythouRand yearn. But oven that falU 

 considerably below the eitimnted ago of the Pleistocene cyprcai tree 

 found standing erect in the arphnlt pit nt La lirae, California, whicR 

 wim guennfld off nt 350,000 yenr 



Gott Strafe Der Buyer! 



When you jirenent yourself to a certain kind of buyer, after you 

 have waited patiently for an hour of precious niinutcs, outside the 

 door, ho lookf nt you as though you were a Ix<per, scowls and greet* 

 you: "What, you hero again! Another half-hour gone to h ." 



Fifty years ago, the buyer was an important individual. Produc- 

 tion was an uncertain science. What it cost to produce goods was 

 more or less unknown. Standardization had not yet come in. 

 Prices for the same quolity goods varied in proportion to the in- 

 telligence of the men who miiiiufaetured them. 



Tho buyer was the Distributor's Safeguard. The price the manu- 

 facturer asked, and the price he would take, often-times differed 50 

 per cent, with another discount or two for quick cash! Barter wo* 

 in the air. Suspicion dominated all transaction*. The convincing 

 liar was a great fellow! 



Every manufacturer accused every other manufacturer of this 

 and that. One season the nuinufacturer "stuck" his customers 

 and enlarged his bank account. The next season his customers 

 "stuck" him, or refused to trade with him at all. Ruin lay down 

 with him at night and called him in the morning. It was a glorified 

 game of guess. 



On the ability of Mr. Buyer to beat the game, oftentimes de- 

 pended the success or failure of his firm. Primarily he wa* sup- 

 posed to know the goods — to be able to judge their quality and value. 

 Once certain in his own mind that a certain article cost the manu- 

 facturer $1 to produce, he would offer tho manufacturer's repre- 

 sentative 50 cents for it — and the fight was on! 



A boy with a fishy eye, a disagreeable manner, a distaste for 

 other boys' company — who would hang two cats across a clothesline, 

 rob birds' nests, steal examination papers at school, and sneak pen- 

 nies out of the baby's bank — was sure to grow up and become a suc- 

 cessful buyer — in eighteen hundred eighty. 



Bless the day, suspicion is gone. Manufacturers have formed asso- 

 ciations to tell each other what they know. "Trade secrets" are 

 exchanged on the golf links. Cost systems challenge perfection. The 

 quantity and quality of the producti^ of practically every manu- 

 facturer in the United States are known to the intellicont men in his 

 line. 



The fixed price is a fact. 



Business methods have been revolutionized — and in the buyer's 

 oflice you find a salesm.in; a man who is not buying goods, but who 

 is selecting goods to sell. He represents the sales department of his 

 firm. 



All of which leads up to the meek statement that a real "buyer" 

 in the year 1916 will treat every traveling representative of another 

 firm, perhaps larger than his own, as a friend who came a long dis- 

 tance to present for his consideration, another possible profit! 



The buyer who returns a card to a salesman with the curt message, 

 " I '11 not see you, ' ' is actually classifying himself with the dys- 

 peptics of 1880. He is sending away unheard a man who may help 

 him solve the problem that at present has his angora! 



.Always a buyer may listen to a salesman with profit — because 

 a look around will prove that the great men in every line of busi- 

 ness are salesmen. 



The salesman worthy of the name sells service firbt. The buyer 

 worthy of his job will meet every salesman who calls on him as one 

 of his own kind. He will treat hini as he himself would want to be 

 treated. Ho may limit the second, third call, but the first call ho 

 should give the salesman a show for his white alley. — ZTie Fra. 



