August 14, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



203 



$1,000,000 derived from receipts from forest 

 reserves is available, whereas under the terms 

 of the act for 1907-8 subsequent receipts must 

 be turned into the treasury. The real in- 

 crease carried by the act is distributed through 

 the work of the entire department, but notably 

 larger sums are available for what may be 

 termed its administrative duties, such as the 

 management of the national forests, the pure 

 food and drug inspection, and the campaign 

 against the gipsy moth and cattle tick, as well 

 as for additional buildings and equipment on 

 the forest reserves and for the Weather 

 Bureau. 



In the matter of general legislation the act 

 perhaps contains no measures of the large im- 

 portance of the meat-inspection law or the 

 Nelson amendment, which have been such 

 notable features in previous years, although a 

 number of new lines are provided, and some 

 are of considerable importance. Among these 

 may be mentioned the inauguration of evapor- 

 ation investigations and of studies of the 

 prevalence and extent of tuberculosis among 

 dairy cattle, the establishment of a standard of 

 cotton grading, the inspection of foods in- 

 tended for export under certain conditions, 

 and the making of denatured alcohol in small 

 amounts under farm conditions. The sum of 

 $10,000 is appropriated for the testing of 

 plants as to their suitability for paper making, 

 and a like sum is available for an inquiry into 

 the destruction of forests by the production of 

 turpentine and resin and the sources and 

 methods of the industry, and for a report, in 

 cooperation with the Bureau of the Census, 

 upon the production of the naval stores in- 

 dustry. 



The president was directed to reserve not to 

 exceed 12,800 acres of the Plathead Indian 

 Reservation in Montana for a permanent 

 national bison range, for a herd of bison to be 

 presented by the American Bison Society, 

 $30,000 being appropriated for payment of 

 these lands and $40,000 for fencing and the 

 erection of buildings. An amendment divert- 

 ing $5,000 annually from the Morrill and 

 Nelson funds of Cornell University to the 

 Mount Tabor Industrial and Manual Train- 



ing School was adopted by the senate, but 

 eliminated in conference. 



Under the new appropriation act the 

 Weather Bureau receives $1,662,260, an in- 

 crease of $248,720, the latter chiefly for the 

 erection of additional buildings and the re- 

 pair and improvement of those now completed. 

 Of this amount $60,000 was appropriated for 

 the erection of a main- observatory build- 

 ing at Mount Weather, Va., to replace 

 that destroyed by fire October 23, 1907, 

 and for the erection of a central heating 

 and lighting plant, together with $15,000 for 

 the completion of a physical laboratory and 

 other buildings. The establishment of new 

 stations was authorized and $110,000 was ap- 

 propriated for sites and buildings, of which 

 $5,000 is to be used for the reestablishment 

 of the station at Pikes Peak. The work of 

 the bureau was increased in scope by the addi- 

 tion of investigations on evaporation. The 

 limit of the cost of maintenance of the bureau 

 printing ofiice was raised from $18,000 to 

 $30,000. 



The appropriation of the Bureau of Animal 

 Industry was increased $48,300, making a 

 total of $1,080,860, exclusive of the meat in- 

 spection which, as previously stated, is now 

 provided for by permanent law, and also of 

 the emergency appropriation for the eradica- 

 tion of the cattle tick in the south. The latter 

 appropriation was increased from $150,000 to 

 $250,000, of which $25,000 was made imme- 

 diately available. Specific authority was con- 

 ferred for the enforcement of the laws of 

 March 3, 1891, relative to the humane treat- 

 ment of cattle exported to foreign countries, 

 and of June 29, 1906, for the prevention of 

 cruelty to animals during interstate trans- 

 portation. The investigation of the preva- 

 lence and extent of tuberculosis among dairy 

 cattle in the United States was included in 

 the lines of work to be undertaken; while a 

 clause authorizing the expenditure of $5,000 

 for an investigation of hemorrhagic septi- 

 cemia, infectious cerebro-spinal meningitis, 

 and malignant catarrh and for the working 

 out, in cooperation with the Minnesota sta- 

 tion, of the problem of prevention by means 



