THE SCIENTIST. 
175 
club and twelve members, . to be 
known as the Missouri River Im- 
provement Committee. The purpose 
of this committee is to devise and 
encourage an extensive improvement 
of the Missouri Kiver, especially 
between Kansas City and St. Louis. 
They have already issued circulars 
containing relative freight rates 
where navigation is a competitive 
and otherwise, also, accompanying, 
an address of Mr. S. H. Yonge, divi- 
sion engineer in charge of the Mis- 
souri River's improvements which 
are now in progress. 
There can be no doubt as to the 
advisability of improving this great, 
almost natural, steamboat means of 
communication between distant 
points, as every merchant or indi- 
vidual who ships goods and pays a 
freightage will testify, and it must 
not be assumed that benefits stop 
here as all in both near and distant 
points would feel more or less the 
advantages of the result of the final 
completion of this great enterprise. 
The Missouri River is one of the 
great rivers of the United States; its 
fertile valley has made it unexcelled 
in a commercial way and it is a 
deplorable condition in which the 
millions who are interested are 
placed to have so near a natural 
water course capable of the best 
navigable facilities and still be so 
inadequately provided for, so far as 
economical transportation is con- 
cerned. 
It is to be hoped that The Com- 
mercial Club will be aided by all in 
this movement and finally succeed 
in its effort to provide this needed 
improvement. 
The amount estimated for doing 
the work is twenty million dollars, or 
fifty-two thousand dollars per mile, 
which is recommended in appropri- 
ations of not less than two million 
dollars annually; this should proba- 
bly be made not less than four 
million dollars annually, as it would 
then, at the minimum rate, require 
five years to finish the work. 
Book Reviews. 
The ClimitaKquan for December 
has several illustrated articles and the por- 
traits of a number of prominent men and 
women. The following is the table of con- 
tents : The Battles of Princeton and Tren- 
ton, by John Clark Ridpath; Domestic and 
Social Life of the Colonists, III., by Ed- 
ward Everett Hale: States made from Col- 
onies, by Dr. James Albert Woodburn; The 
Colonial Shire, by Albert Bushnell Hart, 
Ph. I). ; The History of Political Parties in 
America, HI., by P\ W. Hewes; Sunday 
Readings, Selected by Bishop Vincent; 
Physical Life, III., by Milton J. Greenman, 
PhB. ; National Agencies for Scientific 
Research (The Weather Bureau), by Major 
J. W. Powell, Ph.D., LL.D.; The Parasitic 
Enemies of Cultivated Plants, by B. T. 
Galloway; The Scottish Language, by Rev. 
Wm. Wye Smith; Good Manners for Young 
People, by Theodore Temple; Modern 
Treatment for Insanity, by C. R. Hammer- 
ton; Moral and Social Reforms in Congress, 
by George Harold Walker; Fur-Seal and 
the Seal Islands, by Sheldon Jackson, D.D. ; 
Charles Stewart Parnell, by Ralph D. St. 
John: A Trip up the Nile, by Armand de 
Potter; Lelia Robinson Sawtelle, by Mary 
A. Greene, LL B.; The Homes of Poverty, 
by Emily Huntington Miller: Prepared 
