96 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



of construction, all the canals, all the telegraph and telephone 

 lines in the United States. This sum of seven hundred million dollars 

 exceeds the gross income of all the railroads and transportation 

 companies in the United States. It is an interest ranking first in 

 importance, even in dollars and cents; and certainly, if for no other 

 reason than the wealth there is in it, the subject demands the atten- 

 tion of the Government sufficient to enforce protection, preservation 

 and perpetuation. 



At the present time little or nothing is being done to protect and 

 preserve the remaining forests of the public domain. All existing 

 laws are but mockeries to the frauds, thefts and fires that are 

 annually destroying more than one hundred million dollars' worth 

 of this national wealth. The loss by fire alone in 1880 amounted 

 to over twenty-five million dollars. The amount stolen annually 

 in California, Oregon, Nevada and Washington Territory can not 

 be estimated. A fraction of the twenty-five agents the Government 

 has attempted to spread over four million square miles to catch the 

 thieves, put out the fires and act as Government witnesses — a few 

 of these faithful agents followed some of the organized bandits, and 

 counted stumps until the value of the lumber taken amounted to 

 thirty-six million dollars; and which represented perhaps only a 

 small part of the total amount stolen by these and other gangs 

 during the period named. 



Thus, with an appropriation for protection and other purposes 

 of seventy-five thousand dollars, and limited amount of agents, the 

 Government has been sleeping quietly, while fraud, robbery and 

 fire have been sweeping down the national wealth before the very 

 eyes of the feeble and inefficient authorities. The recent fire in 

 Montana is reported having consumed an area of timber of one 

 hundred square miles, worth millions of dollars. And from the Cin- 

 cinnati Enquirer, as late as last Saturday, September 28, 1889, we 

 clipped the following : " Once more the forests of the far West are 

 fiercely aflame. The annual loss from these conflagrations is too 

 vast for figures to represent. It is a loss not in money only, but 

 it ruins whole sections of country beyond the power of generations 

 to repair. And yet there is no visible remedy." 



" And yet," says that influential and progressive paper, " there is 

 ?io visible remedy.'" There is a visible remedy. Let the people 

 demand it now. 



It may seem expensive to maintain an army of officers and 



