678 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



According to Circular No. 69 of the U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture, in 1915 some 40,000 fires burned over about 0,000,000 acres, 

 or 1.1 per cent of the total forest area, causing a damage of $7,000,000, 

 not counting loss of young growth, soil deterioration, and floods. 

 Twenty-six per cent of the number were of unknown origin. It is 

 interesting to note the difference of known causes east and west of 

 the Great Plains. In the West over 20 per cent are accredited to 

 lightning, the most frequent cause, while railroads were the most 

 frequent cause in the East (20.7 per cent), closely followed by brush 

 burning (19.1 per cent). Campers (18.2 per cent) and incendiary 

 (12 per cent) are the next most frequent in the West, which in the 

 East are responsible for only 6.2 and 5.5 per cent, respectively. The 

 loss in the National Forests is estimated at $353,389 on about 280,000 

 acres. The expenditures of the Federal and State governments in fire 

 control for the year amounted to $2,739,000, over two million of 

 which were spent by the Federal government, and $120,000 by private 

 protective associations. 



There promises to be a very extensive revival of wooden ship- 

 building in all parts of the country to meet quickly the pressure for 

 more bottoms in which to handle freight. Wooden vessels are favored 

 over steel because of the great difficulty in getting steel and because 

 of the greater speed and lower cost of construction of wooden vessels. 

 The type preferred appears to be vessels not to exceed 285 feet in 

 length, 46.5 foot beam, 26 foot depth, and 3,600 tons dead weight. 

 Vessels larger than this require expensive reinforcement. The vessels 

 will largely be sail-rigged, with a maximum auxiliary power of from 

 ],200 to 1,500 horsepower, provided by Diesel, or semi-Diesel, engines. 

 Such vessels would have a steaming radius of about 10,000 miles. 

 Their cost is estimated at about $100 per ton complete. Lumbermen 

 are greatly interested in the development of wooden ship-building 

 plans, since each vessel will require more than one million feet of 

 lumber in its construction, and hence a large market will be created 

 for ship-building timber. In discussing the suitability of Douglas fir 

 for ship-building purposes, one large operator on the Pacific Coast 

 has recently stated that "in log cut for ship timbers, we find that an 

 average of 30 per cent is available for this purpose, sometimes, how- 

 ever, running up to 50 and 60 per cent." Large numbers of such 

 vessels are now in course of construction on the Pacific Coast, Gulf 

 Coast, and Atlantic Coast. It is probable that a large part of the 50 



