Valuation of Railway Operating Property 439 



under the supervision of Prof. Henry C. 

 Adams, statistician to that Commission. 

 The first part of the bulletin, discussing 

 the main results of the investigation, was 

 written by Professor Adams. The sec- 

 ond part, or "Supplement," consists of 

 a series of papers by experts considering 

 "Various Aspects of the Question of 

 Railway Valuation." 



The commercial value of railway oper- 

 ating property in the United States, com- 

 puted for the year 1904, was $11,244,- 

 852,000. The apportionment of this 

 value among the various states and ter- 

 ritories of the Union (foreign posses- 

 sions excluded) may be seen from the 

 table on the preceding page. 



The above valuation does not include 

 the value of Pullman cars or private 

 cars. The physical value of this equip- 

 ment, that is to say, its value independ- 

 ent of the commercial use to which it is 

 put, is estimated as follows : 



Pullman cars $51,000,000 



Private cars 72,000,000 



The total number of Pullman cars 

 " available for the business of the com- 

 pany" on July 31, 1904, was as follows: 



Standard cars with sleeping accommo- 

 dations 2,903 



Ordinary, or tourist, cars with sleeping 



accommodations 547 



Parlor cars 464 



Composite, dining, and other cars 85 



Total 3,999 



By commercial value is meant the 

 market value. The two chief factors 

 determining the market value of railway 

 property are the expectation of income 

 arising from the use of the property 

 and the strategic significance of the 

 property. 



The value submitted was determined 

 not with a view to discovering a proper 

 purchase price for the railways of the 

 United States, nor as a basis for taxing 

 these railway properties, but as one step 

 in ascertaining for the Census Bureau 

 the total wealth of the United States. 



Whether or not the value ($11,244,- 

 852,000) above submitted represents the 

 value upon which the railways of the 

 United States might properly be taxed 

 depends upon whether the state under- 

 takes to tax the roads at their full com- 

 mercial value, including the values of 

 both tangible and intangible property, 

 or whether it seeks to confine its taxa- 

 tion to the value of the tangible property 

 alone. In the former case the value 

 submitted is believed to be substantially 

 correct so far as it concerns the operat- 

 ing properties of the railways ; in the 

 latter case it is too high. 



The results of the investigation re- 

 ported in this bulletin have been care- 

 fully tested, and it is believed that the 

 methods employed conform closely to 

 those followed in the business world. 



THE ZIEGLER POLAR EXPEDITION 



THE loss of their ship, with most of 

 their stores and equipment, al- 

 most at the beginning of their Arctic 

 campaign, was mainly responsible for 

 the modest achievements of the Ziegler 

 Polar Expedition of 1 903-1 905. The 

 party did not get farther north than 

 82 0 13', which is some degrees south of 

 Abruzzi's record, but they did consider- 

 able surveying and conducted scientific 

 observations of value. On the arrival 

 of the expedition in Norway, Command- 

 er Fiala issued the following statement : 

 ' ' Our rescue was most timely. By my 

 order the America wintered in Teplitz 

 Bay, where early in the winter of 1903-4 

 the ship was crushed in the ice and be- 

 came a total loss, together with big 

 quantities of coal and provisions. 



' ' Supplies of stores left at Franz Josef 

 Land by various relief parties saved us 

 very serious privations. Three attempts 

 to reach a high latitude failed. The 

 scientific work, however, as planned, 

 was successfully carried out by Mr Wm. 

 J. Peters, qf the United States Geologi- 

 cal Survey. 



" Our rescue was due to the splendid 



