CURRENT LITERATURE 



365 



While Mr. Pinchot's departure is un- 

 doubtedly a loss to the Forest Service, 

 the structure in the building of which 

 he has been so largely responsible rests 

 on too solid a foundation to be seriously 

 disturbed. The need for a successor 

 who should be above all a technical for- 

 ester has become apparent. Prof. Henry 

 Solon Graves, director of the Yale 

 Forest School, has received the appoint- 

 ment to this position, and the nation 

 may well be congratulated upon the 

 choice. Professor Graves brings to the 

 work the benefit of wide experience in 

 forest practice in the United States, 



supplemented by European study. He 

 is thoroughly in sympathy with the sys- 

 tem built up by Mr. Pinchot, with 

 whom he has formerly served. Under 

 his administration and with the in- 

 creased appreciation of the necessity for 

 forest conservation which has grown 

 up, the future of forestry in the United 

 States is assured. The technical prob- 

 lems in need of solution are ntany, but 

 the impediments to their solution are 

 now largely removed or in process of 

 removal. Economics, not politics, will 

 determine the future of American 

 forestry. 



CURRENT LITERATURE 



REVIEWS 



American Inland Waterways: Their relation 

 to railway transportation and to the na- 

 tional welfare; their creation, restoration, 

 and maintenance. By Herbert Quick. 

 With eighty illustrations and a map, 

 pp. xx, 241. New York and London : 

 G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1909. Price, $3.50 



This handsomely typed and printed volume 

 surprised the reviewer by its unflagging in- 

 terest. The subject is treated with broad 

 grasp and clear insight, not with any pet 

 project in mind, but with a fine sense of 

 proportion and of the inter-relation of various 

 projects forming the whole of a true national 

 conservation policy. From the first chap- 

 ter on ''The Grand Strategy of Trade" to the 

 last on "The Battle of the Engineers," which 

 brings the book almost up to the minute, the 

 attention of the reader is held by the author's 

 rapid, well integrated array of facts and 

 arguments. 



The strategic relation of waterways and 

 trade, a comparison of the work done in 

 Europe with our own arrested development 

 on these lines, is the first point brought out, 

 and it is made with great force, empha- 

 sized by effective facts and examples. In his 

 chapter on "Bringing the Sea to the Farms," 

 Mr. Quick shows the significance of waterway 

 transportation to our rich agricultural inte- 

 rior, and treats especially the development of 

 the Mississippi River system of waterways. 

 In this connection he discusses quite frankly 

 the problem of turning the waters of the 

 Lakes Mississippiward. He recognizes the 

 vastness of the Mississippi project, its diffi- 



culty, and its cost, but he thinks this need 

 not stagger us since the end to be attained 

 is commensurate. 



The historic competition between the rail- 

 ways and the waterways is the subject of an 

 interesting chapter. The keynote to the argu- 

 ment on this phase of the subject is found in 

 the following sentences : "And yet the rail- 

 ways should not desire the extinction of 

 water-borne traffic. All over the world they 

 have extinguished it so far as possible, but 

 there is no basic reason for this antagonism. 

 Of surface, shortsighted reason there is 

 plenty. Waterways regulate and control 

 rates on competing railways, but at the same 

 time they powerfully promote the prosperity 

 of the very roads with which they compete. 

 Paradoxical as this may sound, to railway 

 men especially, the transportation specialist 

 (which the average railway man is not") 

 knows that this is true, and understands the 

 reason." 



In discussing the need of new railway 

 facilities to handle the business of the coun- 

 try, the author says we need from 75,000 to 

 120,000 miles of track, and so many new cars 

 and engines that there is not enough iron 

 in the country to meet these needs and, he 

 might have added, nor wood enough to tie 

 the tracks. 



There is a long and ably worked out chap- 

 ter on the neglected subject of terminals, 

 showing how much better this matter is han- 

 dled abroad, and how our railways in their 

 policy of suppressing water competition have 

 closed the gates by monopolizing the water- 

 fronts at strategic points. To quote again 



