Periodical Literature 395 



instruction in surveying and timber estimating. Upon reportini:; 

 n fire they are expected to tell : The kind of material in com- 

 bustion ; the approximate area of destruction ; the probable area 

 of destruction; the establishment of lighting lines; the means for 

 fighting: water, sand or earth, flails, brush or water-soaked sacks 

 or blankets, fire-lanes, etc. 



Lectures upon forestry subjects, given by members of the 

 forestry department to school children in all parts of the State, 

 are part of the system which is working so well in ]\Tichigan. 



A summary of the results accomplished by these boy scouts is 

 interesting and is evidence of the enthusiasm which is put into 

 the work. Over 900 small fires were reported to the fire wardens 

 in 36 months, and 206 fires, at least two of which were large 

 enough to have been handled by experienced adult fire-fighters, 

 were extinguished, with little loss to property. These figures do 

 not include incipient fires. One watchful lad alone put out 100 

 such fires in one summer. Another, a scout captain, ran 7 miles 

 at 4 o'clock in the morning to report a fire, and thus was the 

 means of saving a town from destruction. 



Before the inauguration of the scout movement, the State 

 had approximated $1,000,000 as the annual fire loss. In 1911 the 

 property damage from forest fires amounted to $3,746,000 ; in 

 1912 to $67,000; in 1913 to $23,000; and in 1914, when dry 

 conditions presupposed many fires and made necessary greater 

 watchfulness and care, the loss did not reach over $154,000. 



North Woods, May, 1915, pp. 10-14. 



MENSURATION, FINANCE AND MANAGEMENT 



Guttenberg considers with Kubelka the 

 Volume formquotient method of Schiffel as the 



Determination most satisfactory method of determining 

 and tree volumes, avoiding the necessity of fell- 



Dendrometer ing sample trees. But it presupposes the 

 use of an instrument, with which to meas- 

 ure indirectly the diameters high up the tree with sufiicient ac- 

 curacy and simplicity. In regard to the latter requirement the 

 existing dendrometers are deficient; moreover, they are ex- 



