February 7, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



211 



In addition to daily studies of the physical 

 features from the train and by special excur- 

 sions, a great deal of attention was given to 

 the phases of economic and industrial develop- 

 ment, for it is recognized by all true geog- 

 raphers, and it is especially emphasized by the 

 geographers of Europe, that the science does 

 not come to its full fruition until it has taken 

 in, not only the lands, but the interests and 

 relations of those who live upon them. Every 

 one knows that a wide field for such study is 

 open to one who crosses our continent. 



Erom Buffalo the party visited the Lacka- 

 wanna steel plant and for an hour or more 

 were transported up and down among the 

 various buildings and furnaces upon flat cars 

 provided by the company. At Niagara one 

 afternoon was devoted to the power house and 

 the various industries, and the whole of the 

 following day given to the falls and the gorge, 

 with many stops and brief lectures from ex- 

 perts by the way. In Chicago the party in- 

 spected in squads, according to their choice, 

 the Stock Tards, the business methods of the 

 Sears, Eoebuck Company and the map-making 

 plant of the Eand-McNally Company. A 

 day was spent in the great open air iron pits 

 of Hibbing, Minnesota, where again the party 

 was transported by many miles of zig-zagging 

 in a train of open cars to all levels of this 

 greatest of iron mines. A characteristic stop 

 of forty minutes was made in sight of one of 

 the " bonanza " farms of North Dakota, where 

 various phases of North Dakota agriculture 

 were explained from the observation end by 

 experts of the state agricultural college, the 

 audience being assembled about the rear of 

 the train. The Europeans were vastly inter- 

 ested in many phases of western agriculture, 

 familiar to them by reading, but now seen for 

 the first time. They and the Americans as 

 well wondered at the extent to which dry 

 farming has encroached upon the range coun- 

 try in North Dakota, Montana, Washington 

 and other parts of the arid west. A notable 

 example of such successful dry farming was 

 seen in central Washington. The party 

 alighted at a little station called Almira, and 

 were met by twenty-five or thirty automobiles 



gathered from everywhere by the industry of 

 a railway official, the main object being to see 

 the Grand Coulee, some twenty-five or thirty 

 miles of dry caiion once occupied by the Co- 

 lumbia Eiver. On the way to this, however, 

 a dozen miles or more of rolling country were 

 passed, covered with splendid wheat fields, and 

 the harvest was in progress by means of the 

 combined reaping and threshing machines, 

 drawn by motors or by teams of twenty horses. 

 These crops were growing without irrigation 

 in a region of perhaps twelve or fourteen 

 inches of rainfall. In the Grand Coulee the 

 party were entertained at an outdoor lunch 

 on the ranch of a graduate of the University 

 of Michigan, and the party learned then, as 

 they learned many times in the west, that the 

 graduates of our greatest universities are 

 likely to be found wielding hard hands and 

 wearing a pair of overalls. The after-dinner 

 feature of this day was a good sample of 

 broncho " busting," by the trained cowboys of 

 the ranch. That particular day was finished 

 by a visit to an irrigated fruit farm, where 

 all the ladies of the region had apparently 

 gathered, and the foreigners got a new treat 

 in the shape of a hundred-foot table of sliced 

 watermelon. At Tacoma the tallest member 

 of the party, a Chicago professor, tried in 

 vain to measure with up-stretched arm the 

 diameter of a log which had been pulled up 

 out of the pond, and was put to the saw under 

 our eyes. 



A few links in the excursion were made by 

 trips over the water. At Toledo the party 

 was entertained on the upper floor of a sky- 

 scraper, then taken across the foot of Lake 

 Erie and up the Detroit River by boat. The 

 blue waters of Puget Sound and the environ- 

 ing slopes of virgin forests and noble cities 

 were likewise seen from the decks of a 

 steamer. On the Mississippi Eiver the party 

 spent a happy day sailing from Memphis one 

 hundred miles down the stream, watching the 

 sand bars, snag boats, the means taken to 

 protect the banks, the bordering forests, and 

 it must be said — the lone steamer or two on 

 waters that might carry the commerce of an 

 empire. An old-fashioned landing was made 



