of packages. This is a scheme (intended, of course, to cover the whole country) which is sure to be vigorously opposed, mainly on the ground that it would help the great department stores in the cities to destroy the business of the country merchants.

There is no intention to discuss here the pros and cons of the argument. But there is something undeniably wrong about the present state of affairs, under which (to cite an illustrative case) an individual entering the postoffice in Chicago with two parcels, each weighing four pounds, is obliged to pay sixty-four cents to send one of them to New York, while for the other package, which is addressed to somebody in a foreign and distant land, he has to pay only forty-eight cents, for the reason that the rates to foreign countries is only twelve cents a pound.

Should the packages weigh four and a half pounds each, the one addressed to the friend in New York would have to be refused by the postmaster, under the regulations, while the one addressed to the foreign land would be promptly forwarded to its destination. It is reasonable to ask whether we ought to stand for a policy which compels our own people to pay four cents a pound more on parcels addressed to persons living in the United States-even then permitting them to send only four pounds-than on packages addressed to persons living in any one of twenty-two foreign countries-which packages may weigh up to eleven pounds.

In European countries there is no express business such as that with which we are familiar. The carrying of parcels is the work of the mails, and laws forbid competition by private concerns. There is no question of the fact that a similar arrangement was orig

inally contemplated by the government of the United States. Indeed, in 1848 Congress to secure full control of the mails as provided for in the constitution, passed a bill, which became a law, making it unlawful for any private express to carry for hire over any postroad, or from any town or place to any other town or place between which the mail was regularly carried, "any letter or packet."

This law is still on the statute books. For a number of years it was enforced, but since then it has been neglected, and the government no longer claims a monopoly in such matters, except in respect to letters, and this monopoly of course it maintains in the strictest manner. Thus it comes about that the profitable short-haul package business is all handled by the express companies just as entirely too frequently all such "plums" are controlled in the United States, while the long haul is left for the Postoffice

PARCELS.

Department to handle at a loss. The weight of the average merchandise parcel sent through the mails is five and a half ounces, and the average distance it travels is 687 miles.

An eight-pound parcel, by reason of its weight, cannot be sent by mail from New York to Boise, Idaho. But a pack age of that weight can be forwarded by post to Boise from Berlin, from Vienna, from Rome, from London, or from any other place in Europe, for ninety-six cents. The man in New York is obliged to pay $2.20 to send his eight-pound package to Boise by express-that is to say, more than twice as much. Why, it may be asked, should the foreigner get a preferred rate while our unfortunate countrymen are charged a rate that might very well be considered almost prohibitive? Will Americans never get over the habit of tolerating legislation in favor of certain private business interests?

Under the rules of the Universal Postal Union, each country keeps the postage it collects from its own citizens. No country is allowed to make a rate above the maximum fixed by the

Union, but any country may reduce its foreign rate to as low a point as it sees fit; that is a matter for itself alone to decide, regardless of all other nations, and international courtesy requires that the prepaid parcel from abroad shall be delivered free in the country of the addressee. This is the reason why it costs only two cents to send a letter from New Zealand to the United States, while the reply must pay five cents. There are other similar illustrations with reference to the transmission of letter mail.

It is owing to the same cause that one can send a package weighing four and a half pounds from Brussels to Chicago for thirty-five cents, while it costs sixty cents to mail a parcel of the same weight from Chicago to Brussels. It costs only thirty-nine cents to send a seven-pound package from Rome to Detroit, while the postage demanded to carry the same package back from Detroit to Rome is eightyfour cents. It costs $1.32 to forward eleven pounds by mail from Baltimore to Berlin, but the same parcel can be shipped back from Berlin to Baltimore

A

VAST stretch of desolate waste-miles upon miles of sullen bog, not even attractive as affording a habitat or a refuge for wild life. Yet beneath the surface of this silent morass lies untold latent power energy wealth. The swamp is a peat bog and there are nearly eight million acres of such landscape in the United States underlain with peat to an average depth of nine feet.

But what of peat? A substance to which we may be compelled some day to resort for a fuel, as they do in Ireland, where wood for burning is prohibitive in cost, coal is beyond the common folk and petroleum and gas, of course, available only for the rich. If this is the idea, a statement of the manifold virtues and capabilities of peat will be somewhat astonishing. The Irish hand method of digging and drying out peat for domestic fuel is not, it is true, a matter over which to show marked enthusiasm; but in connection with modern invention and engineering, peat re

sources assume a

different aspect. Experiments of the United States Geological Survey have confirmed foreign tests showing peat to be even superior to many good bituminous coals for operating the gas engine, that coming powergiant of modern industry. More recent work has shown that where peat contains slightly over over one

per cent of nitrogen the value of the ammonia obtained as a by-product, will more than pay the expense of extracting the gas, leaving the latter as a clear profit. Many American peats run two and some above three per cent of nitrogen. To burn. in the good old Irish way, peat must be carefully dried, but in improved gas producers peat with forty per cent of water can be used with success. This greatly simplifies and cheapens the necessary preparation.

The states containing the greatest amount of peat available for use are the New England States, New York, New Jersey, parts of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the eastern Dakotas. Many of these states have no coal and in them peat is destined in a large measure to take its place. Peat, as a matter of fact, is a sort of incipient coal. Left a few million more years and it would in reality become coal; but in the wise dispensation of Providence it seems more than a coincidence that in no portion of the United States is there any considerable overlapping of the peaty areas into the workable coal fields.

Professor Fernald, of the Geological Survey, in charge of gas-producer tests, returned some time ago from a European trip of investigation where he looked into the uses of peat and found the