KANSAS. 



ZEELY MOTOR, THE. 407 



now fully Ij650,000. In 1880 Kansas had only 3,104 

 miles of railwav within her borders; on the 1st of 

 March last the State Board of Railroad Assessors re- 

 ported 6,208 miles for taxation, and from 600 to 800 

 miles will be added to this aggregate before the close 

 of the year. 



In 1880 the assessed value of all the real and per- 

 sonal property of the State aggregated only $160,891,- 

 689 ; on the 1st of March, 1886, the total was $277,- 

 575,363 ; and for the present fiscal year the returns thus 

 far received indicate a total of $300,000,000. In 1880 

 there were 5,313 school-houses, 2,514 churches, and 

 347 newspapers in Kansas. There are now fully 8,500 

 school-houses, 3,500 churches, and 700 newspapers. 

 In 1880 only fifty- five towns and cities had popula- 

 tions in excess o"f 1,000 each in 1887 more than 200 

 towns have each over 1,000 inhabitants, fully twenty- 

 five have each over 5,000, and four have each over 

 20,000. In 1880 only 8,868,000 acres were planted in 

 crops ; this year the area planted exceeds 16,000,000 

 acres. In 1880 the value of the farm products of 

 Kansas was only $84,521,000 ; for 1886 their value 

 was over 8264,000,000. For the fiscal year 1880 the 

 percentage of State taxation was 51 mills ; for the 

 present hscal year the total percentage levied for all 

 State purposes is only 41 mills. 



During the past two years and a half I have organ- 

 ized seventeen counties in the western section of the 

 State, and census takers have been appointed for four 

 other counties, leaving only two counties remaining 

 to be organized. The cities and towns of Kansas, 

 with hardly an exception, have kept pace in growth 

 and prosperity with this marvelous development of 

 the State. Many of them have doubled their popula- 

 tion during the past year. And it is a remarkable fact 

 that several cities and towns languished or stood still 

 until they abolished their saloons, and from that date 

 until the present time their growth and prosperity have 

 equaled and in some instances surpassed that of other 

 places with equal natural advantages. 



Two cases decided by the United States Su- 

 preme Court in December of this year form 

 important landmarks in the history of Kansas 

 prohibition, sustaining, as they do, the right of 

 the State to suppress absolutely the -manufact- 

 ure of intoxicating liquors within its limits. 

 These two cases were Muegler vs. the State of 

 Kansas, and the State of Kansas vs. Zeibold 

 and others, the latter being an appeal from the 

 United States Circuit Court, where Judge 

 Brewer had decided against the contention of 

 the State. The higher court overruled this de- 

 cision, and sustained the validity of the Kansas 

 law at all points. 



Education. The following is a summary of 

 the work of the public schools for the year 

 ending May 31, 1887 : 



Number of school-districts 8,164 



Population between 5 and 21 years of age 521,091 



Number of pupils enrolled 889,341 



Number of teachers 10.501 



Average salary of male teachers per month $40 00 



Average salary of female teachers per month $32 96 



Average length of school-year in weeks 23 



Estimated value of school property, including 



buildings and grounds $7,776,746 



Number of school buildinsrs 7,751 



Number of school-houses built in year ending May 



31, 187 812 



The above does not include Sheridan, Wal- 

 lace, Rush, and Meade counties, from which no 

 report is made. The total cost of maintaining 

 the public schools during the year was $4,- 

 065,466, against $3,849,017 for the previous 

 year, an increase proportionate to the great 

 growth of the State during the year. 



Live-Stock. The following table exhibits the 

 number of head of live-stock assessed in the 

 State, compared with the returns for 1886 : 



The State Capitol. Considerable progress was 

 made during the year toward the completion 

 of this structure. Up to the end of the year 

 $329,766 had been spent upon the central 

 building, and $313,155 upon the west wing. 

 The east wing is substantially complete. The 

 special tax imposed by the Legislature will en- 

 able the work to be forwarded according to 

 the original plans. 



KEELY MOTOR, THE. John Worrall Keely, 

 who claims to have discovered a new etheric 

 force, was born in Philadelphia Sept. 3, 1837, 

 of parents who died in his infancy, and has 

 lived and worked ever since in that city. He 

 had attended the common schools of Philadel- 

 phia for one or two terms before he was 

 twelve; after that time he had to support him- 

 self, learned the carpenters trade, and worked 

 at it. As an inventor, Keely has been the sub- 

 ject of more controversy than any scientific 

 claimant of the century. He has been ridiculed, 

 perhaps, more than either Galileo or Fulton, 

 while the believers in his alleged discovery of 

 anew force, which he has been so far unable 

 to manage satisfactorily, think the result of his 

 thirty years of study and manipulation has 

 been a discovery greater than Galileo's celestial 

 system or Fulton's steamboat. He says that 

 from his earliest years he was drawn to the 

 study of sound as related to force, and that he 

 began his first systematic investigation when 

 hardly ten years of age, making his first en- 

 couraging discovery at thirteen. As a child he 

 observed how windows were often agitated by 

 the heavy tones of an organ, and this led him 

 to suspend glass dishes, and watch for any ef- 

 fect that might be produced by chords he was 

 able to secure by the combination of different 

 tones. He soon found that certain chords in- 

 variably resulted in the forcible agitation of ob- 

 jects at a distance. His earliest mechanism for 

 noting the uniform force of sound-vibrations 

 was a steel bar set full of pins of various 

 lengths ; while his first " resonator " or " inten- 

 sifier " consisted of a shingle screwed to two 

 hollow wooden tubes. The first engine was a 

 simple ring of steel, with 300 pins set into it, 

 and this first wheel ran in an open box, into 

 and through which an observer was free to look 

 while the wheel was in motion. For more 

 than sixteen years Keely pursued his investiga- 

 tions in the effort to work oat his discovery, 

 using the two elements water and air in con- 

 nection with sound-vibrations as the media in 

 which to operate his new force. He began 

 with the simplest possible form of vibrator in 

 a shingle screwed to two hollow wooden tubes, 



