376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Act extended to the roads all the advantages which could be 

 legitimately derived from a pool ; and he very justly observed 

 that, when recklessness had reached its length, the railroad presi- 

 dents and bankers ordered their employe's to obey the law and 

 stop building useless railroads. 



Mr. John Newell, President of the Lake Shore, declared that 

 " for fifteen years they had fruitlessly sought a solution of the 

 difficulty " ; the cause of failure is not obscure, for railway pools, 

 like legislation, sought to annul the unfavorable conditions in- 

 duced by over-construction ; but moderating the evil effects sim- 

 ply resulted in the unchecked persistency of the cause ; hence new 

 roads were built, expecting to enjoy the artificial profits derived 

 through combination, and, if denied a connection with the pool, 

 the new roads entered the lists as freebooters and disturbers until 

 their claims were allowed. 



Since the Interstate Commerce Law is neither fully respected 

 nor enforced, what its effect will be is undetermined ; but as it 

 aims to lessen the evils due to excessive railroad-building, it will 

 tend to increase the energy of the original disturbing cause, and 

 will probably result in specializing the speculative constructor as 

 distinct from the operator of railroad properties ; and as the im- 

 pinging forces are intermittent in operation, it is at once suggest- 

 ive of the attempt to balance an egg upon its end. Railroad 

 managers would scale up rates by combination, the people would 

 scale them down by competition ; in either case the gain of the 

 one is predicated upon the loss of the other. 



In the normal adjustment of means to ends, of supply to nat- 

 ural demand, no such conflict appears, for the public could be 

 better served at lower cost, while the railroads could secure fair 

 profits from a larger traffic at lower rates. 



The strength of this position does not rest upon the fact that 

 " existing railroads have all they want," but on what Senator Blair 

 failed to comprehend, that the public are already provided with 

 more railroads than the traffic at reasonable rates can sustain; 

 hence no possible legislation can be invoked which can prevent 

 either a loss to the railroads or added burdens upon the people. 



The existence of evidences of the Glacial period in the Altai Mountains was 

 doubted by B. Van Ootta, who failed to find them. But Mr. E. Michaelis, in 

 1870, observed "undoubted traces of a mighty spreading of ancient glaciers" in 

 the southern part of the range, where there are now some large glaciers and 

 snow-covered ridges. Among them are deposits of bowlders, of various rocks, 

 confusedly mingled, the smaller ones well rounded and the larger ones more an- 

 gular, while the intervals between the stones are crammed with clay and sand. 

 The relation of these deposits to the neighboring defiles is in most cases incom- 

 prehensible. 



