794 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 727 



silviculture and products, each equipped with 

 men of special training for the work of their 

 office. The office of operation will be charged 

 with responsibility for the protection of 

 national forests, for the building of roads, 

 trails and other permanent improvements upon 

 them for the organization of the force on 

 national forests, and with the supervision of 

 all business relating to the special use of 

 national forest resources. The office of silvi- 

 culture will have supervision of the free use 

 and sale of timber from national forests, 

 forest planting upon them, and will conduct 

 forest studies on national forests as well as in 

 cooperation with private ovmers in the dis- 

 trict. The office of grazing will supervise 

 grazing business in the district, except for the 

 actual fixing of allowances, periods and rates, 

 and will make studies looking to the improve- 

 ment of the forage crop on national forests. 

 The office of products wiU make both inde- 

 pendently and in cooperation with private 

 owners, studies leading to a raore profitable use 

 of timber on and off national forests within 

 the district and to their preservative treat- 

 ment. From the district foresters down, the 

 personnel of the district offices is made up of 

 men picked for their proved capacity, for their 

 thorough training, and for their experience in 

 the west. Most of them are men who not only 

 have worked in the west after they entered in 

 the service, but who lived in the west before 

 they took up the government forest work. 

 Many of them are men who formerly were 

 employed on the national forests and have been 

 promoted to larger responsibilities as a result 

 of their high efficiency. 



The decline in price of ingot platinum on 

 the New York market from $38 per troy ounce 

 on January 1, 1907, to $25 per ounce on De- 

 cember 31 of the same year, was accompanied 

 by a notable decrease in production of fine 

 platinum — from 1,439 ounces, valued at $45,- 

 189, in 1-906, to 357 ounces, valued at $10,589, 

 in 1907. Of the total output in the later year, 

 300 ounces came from Butte, Del Norte, Hum- 

 boldt, Placer, Plumas, Trinity and Sacra- 

 mento counties, in California, and 57 ounces 

 from Coos, Curry and Josephine counties, in 



Oregon. In an advance chapter from " Min- 

 eral Resources of the United States, Calendar 

 Year 1907," on the production of platinum in 

 1907, David T. Day, of the United States 

 Geological Survey, says : " The decline in 

 price in the United States increased the feel- 

 ing of insecurity on the part of the platinum 

 miners as to the value they would secure from 

 their material and rendered the search for 

 platinum less active." The total value of 

 platinum metals imported and entered for 

 consumption in the United States in 1907 is 

 given as $2,684,642— a decrease of $1,104,117 

 as compared with the value of the imports in 

 1906. Continued interest is shown in the 

 project for developing the platinum localities 

 in the department of Cauca, Colombia, but 

 development work has not yet reached the 

 point of commercial production. Contracts 

 for practically the entire supply of platinum 

 in Russia have been made for a number of 

 years ahead, and fluctuations in prices have 

 no significance in regard to the total annual 

 output. 



Up to the present time Chinese weights and 

 measures have been distinguished by their ex- 

 traordinary diversity. In nearly every prov- 

 ince different standards have obtained, and 

 even in some towns carpenters, surveyors and 

 tailors use measures differing from one 

 another by quite an appreciable amount. A 

 new system has now been introduced, which 

 according to the London Times, is defined in 

 terms of the metric system, and the various 

 units are as follows. The new unit of length 

 is the " tchi " ; it is defined as exactly 32 cen- 

 timeters. The capacity table has, as its unit, 

 the " to," which is equal to 10.355 liters ; while 

 the unit of weight is the "lian," of 37.301 

 grams. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 An unconditional gift of $50,000 to the 

 endowment fund of the University of Virginia 

 has been made by Col. Oliver H. Payne, of 

 New York. 



A GIFT of $50,000 from Mr. Frederick W. 

 Vanderbilt, of New York City, for the pur- 

 chase of additional property for the enlarge- 



