NOTES AND COMMENTS 943 



and plaster, 2.'J2,\ glass, 1.09; smithing coal, 7.90; ladders, 2.31; bee 

 supplies, 0.75 ; general average, 2.65. For one year this retailer's costs 

 for town delivery was one-third and unloading two-thirds of the dray- 

 age bills for that year. — American Lumberman, x\pril 28, 19 17. 



The lumber cut of British Columbia for 1916 was 870 million feet 

 compared with 583 million feet in 1915; the output of the coast mills 

 for 1916 was 600 million feet compared with 428 million feet in 191 5, 

 and the output of the interior mills for 19 16 was 270 million feet com- 

 pared with 155 million feet in 191 5. 



Since all wood products cannot be counted strictly as manufactured 

 products, the figures compiled in the postal census made by the Cana- 

 dian government last year show that the Dominion forests led in the 

 value of the output of purely manufactured goods, timber and lumber 

 showing a value of $123,000,000 and paper and printing $74,000,000; 

 total, $197,000,000, while textiles are valued at $144,000,000, iron and 

 steel products at $119,000,000, leather and its finished products at 

 $71,000,000, and liquors and beverages at $35,000,000. 



The value of the paper exported from Canada in 1916 was $23,510,- 

 410 and of pulp and pulpwood $24,210,911, as against $18,452,708 and 

 $I5.443»527 respectively in 1915. 



Stumpage prices in Switzerland in the spring of 1917 for spruce ran 

 from 20 to 30 cents a cubic foot. White pine ran up to 40 cents. This 

 may be figured equivalent to $25 per thousand feet for the lowest and 

 $45 for the highest figure. Fuelwood has risen in price enormously, 

 especially at the end of winter, namely, $2 to $3 per ster, the price per 

 ster being around $5 in the woods; that means $18 per cord. 



According to S. J. Record, the tanners and dyers of the United States 

 use annually about $25,000,000 worth of vegetable tan materials, of 

 which nearly one-third is imported. 



Surveyors will be interested in a new instrument, the Ross meridio- 

 grap/i, by which in five minutes without any computations the true 

 north can be established in the day time by merely measuring with the 

 transit the altitude of the sun. It is manufacturing in two types, for 



