944 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



North Carolina, South Carolina, and 

 Georgia, and along the Pacific coast. 



In Alaska no attempt has been made 

 to estimate either the acreage or tonnage 

 of peat. Professor Davis, the author of 

 several Geological Survey reports on 

 peat, states that the conditions through- 

 out the greater part of Alaska favor the 

 formation of peat, and he makes men- 

 tion of many beds in the southern part 

 of the Territory having a thickness of 

 15 or 20 feet. In the northern portion 

 he speaks of peat beds 8 and 10 feet, 

 and of others 30 and 40 feet deep which 

 have been exposed by natural agencies. 

 It seems evident, he says, that peat beds 

 of workable extent are to be found in 

 most parts of Alaska. 



As a fuel for the making of producer 

 gas, peat has an important place. In a 

 country so marvelously endowed with 

 wood, coal, petroleum, and natural gas, 



it has been assumed that peat has no 

 place as a fuel, except in the far-distant 

 future. However, inasmuch as trans- 

 portation charges enter largely into the 

 ultimate cost of fuels, and since peat is 

 found in regions remote from other fuel 

 supplies, it is coming to be recognized 

 that its utilization may mean the estab- 

 lishment of manufacturing industries in 

 many parts of the country at a distance 

 from coal centers. 



Like coal, peat varies in quality ; but, 

 of the tests made, some of it has been 

 found the equal and even the superior 

 of certain of the lignite coals, while in 

 the gas producer it has developed more 

 horse-power than the highest-grade coal 

 in steam plants, ton per ton. Its theo- 

 retical heating value is between that of 

 good wood and good coal. It carries 

 from five-eighths to five-ninths the calo- 

 rific value of the best bituminous coal. 



KBOO, A LIBERIAN GAME 

 By G. N. Collins 



OF THE multitude of intellectual 

 I games in vogue among civilized 

 people, chess and draughts can 

 alone be classed as games of pure skill, 

 entirely free from chance. These are 

 both supposed to have come to us from 

 southern Asia. 



A third game, equally free from chance, 

 and, like chess, affording unlimited op- 

 portunity for the exercise of mental 

 skill, is played over the whole of Africa 

 and southern Asia, and by the negroes 

 of the West Indies, but seems never to 

 have been taken up by European races. 



The game is most widely known by 

 its Syrian name, mancala. A form of 

 this, called kboo, or boo, is the only 

 game of skill played by the Golah people 

 of Liberia. Kboo is purely arithmetical, 

 and it seems remarkable that natives who 

 are unable to even give names to the 

 numerals above 30 can excel in the intri- 

 cate mental calculations of this game. 

 The same man who was able to plan and 



execute a long series of complicated 

 moves in this game would calculate the 

 price for whip-sawing lumber by meas- 

 uring only the width of the boards, disre- 

 garding their length. 



The game as played by the natives of 

 Liberia consists of a boat-shaped board 

 (see figure on page 945), with 12 cup- 

 shaped depressions arranged in two par- 

 allel rows of 6 each. The board in the 

 writer's possession is made of some 

 heavy dark wood, colored black and 

 highly polished. The counters, or "men," 

 are seeds of a leguminous plant, and are 

 about the size of small kidney-beans. 



The two players sit with the board 

 placed crosswise between them, one row 

 of holes being guarded by each player. 

 At the beginning of the game each hole 

 contains four seeds. To begin the play, 

 one of the players takes all the seeds 

 from any one of the holes on his side 

 and drops one in each of the succeeding 

 holes around the board, playing from 



