468 The National Geographic Magazine 



ous points along the distance of 250 

 miles over which the fire extended." 



The cable to connect Sitka and Seat- 

 tle has been made and is now at San 

 Francisco. It will be laid in the early 

 spring of 1904. The cable was author- 

 ized by Congress March 3, 1903. Since 

 that date the entire cable, 1,300 miles 

 long, has been manufactured near New 

 York, transported around Cape Horn, 

 and delivered in perfect condition at 

 San Francisco after its voyage of 16,000 

 miles ; the complicated machinery to 

 handle the cable and the delicate instru- 

 ments necessary to operate it have been 

 planned by the Signal Corps, made to 

 order in Great Britain, and delivered in 

 San Francisco, and the route from Se- 

 attle to Sitka has been surveyed by 



Capt. J. F. Pratt, of the Coast and Geo- 

 detic Survey steamer Patterson, through 

 the courtesy of Supt. OttoH. Tittmann, 

 of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. This 

 is a remarkable record of achievement 

 in seven months, March to September, 

 inclusive. 



The gradual transfer of the military 

 telegraph and cable lines in the Philip- 

 pines to the insular government was 

 begun during the year. It is estimated 

 that if a fee of two cents a word had 

 been charged for all official messages 

 the receipts of the lines would have 

 been $1,500,000. The cost of construc- 

 tion and maintenance was less than 

 $500,000, so that there was a net saving 

 to the government of over one million 

 dollars. 



GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 



The Island of Formosa- Past and Pres- 

 ent. History, People, Resources, and 

 Commercial Prospects ; Tea, Cam- 

 phor, Sugar, Gold, Coal, Sulphur, 

 Economical Plants, and Other Pro- 

 ductions. By James W. Davidson, 

 F. R. G. S., consul of the United 

 States for Formosa. With two new 

 maps, frontispiece in color, one hun- 

 dred and sixt3'-eight illustrations 

 from photographs, and colored repro- 

 ductions of two Chinese posters. Im- 

 perial 8vo. Pp. 720. New York : 

 The Macmillau Company. 1903. 

 Mr Davidson, U. S. Consul to For- 

 mosa since 1895, has written a very 

 comprehensive description of Formosa, 

 past and present. His narrative his- 

 tory of the islanders, of their struggles 

 against the Chinese, the Tartars, the 

 Dutch, and the pirates, and of their 

 frequent rebellions and continual bat- 

 tling against the aborigines in the moun- 

 tains, makes interesting reading. His 

 chapters on the various industries of 

 Formosa are specially valuable. The 



island is extraordinarily fertile; it has 

 vast camphor forests, an unlimited sup- 

 ptyof coal, gold mines, salt, petroleum, 

 sulphur, and other deposits, and many 

 plants of economic value — indigo, fiber, 

 and paper plants, and man}* others. 

 Perhaps the most notable chapter of the 

 volume is that describing his visit to 

 Botel Tobago Island. 



Botel Tobago (Kotosho ) Island is a 

 dependency of Formosa, and some 35 

 miles from the south Formosan coast. 

 The island is only some 30 miles in 

 circumference, and consists of a single 

 long hill, on the shores of which the 

 savages live. To the ethnologist, the 

 inhabitants of this little land are, per- 

 haps, the most interesting of all the sav- 

 ages in Japan's new colony, and doubt- 

 less there are few tribes in the whole 

 East who live in such a primitive man- 

 ner and who have had so little communi- 

 cation with the outside world as the 

 Botel Tobago savages. An occasional 

 Chinese junk stops off the island to ex- 

 change wares, but otherwise the island 



