electric current's usefulness is extended to conveying trains up and down the mountain slopes.

From a point in upper Tumwater canyon the water is impounded, and conveyed to the power house by a steel pipeline. So great is the pressure of the water at the power house that an immense iron tank has been erected high in the air to serve as an alleviator for the control of the pressure.

Mr. Hill expects to extend the use of the current as rapidly as is practicable, and it is likely that the Northern Pacific's

Stampede tunnel in the Cascades will be provided with electricity. The Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound, the name of the Milwaukee's western extension, has also particularly favorable advantages along its line for the development of water power for operation of its trains, and power stations will eventually be provided at such frequent intervals that Milwaukee trains will be conveyed for many hundred miles through western Montana. the panhandle of Idaho, and Washington by means of that solver of so many problems-electricity.

WRETCHED little blood-sucking tick, only about an eighth of an inch long, is costing this country $40,000,000 a year. What is to be done about it?

That nothing, or at all events very little, should be done (as is the case at present) is quite absurd, inasmuch as the insect which causes all this mischief might be entirely exterminated by the adoption of a few simple measures.

Why not save the $40,000,000 a year? The answer is that the Federal government is doing its best, and that all that is needed to bring about this happy result is the earnest coöperation of the States in the infested belt. The way out of the trouble is shown by a recent scientific discovery in regard to the tick in question.

The tick is a disagreeable bug. If it did nothing worse than suck the blood of cattle, that would be bad enough. But, incidentally to the sucking process, it introduces into the blood of the animal a

virulent microbe, which feeds upon the red blood cells, destroying them, and thus producing the malady known as "tick fever," or "cattle fever."

The disease in question (sometimes called "Texas fever") is the great obstacle to cattle raising in the Southern States. It is also a constant and imminent menace to the same industry in the North-for which reason the government has been obliged to establish and maintain, for many years past, a barrier line, running clear across the country, from Virginia to California, which Southern cattle are not permitted to pass.

Now, this destructive cattle plague seems to be of quite ancient origin. It is supposed to have been introduced into America with cattle imported by the Spaniards during the early colonization of Mexico and the southern United States. But not until very recently was it suspected that the disease was spread by ticks-a discovery made by experts of own Bureau of Animal Industry, who have even identified the germ which they carry.

Our

Not only does the tick carry "cattle

fever," but it is the only agent whereby the malady is spread. If there were no ticks of this particular species, the disease would not exist. The prospect of stamping out the plague lies in the knowledge which has been gained in regard to the life history of the insect. To get rid of the "cattle

fever," it is merely necessary to exterminate the tick.

One reason why the matter is so interesting is that the means whereby the cattle plague is spread is strikingly similar to the method by which malaria is distributed among human beings. The Anopheles mosquito is a blood-sucking insect which, inci

dentally to biting, introduces into the blood a microscopic animal organism. that attacks the red blood cells, breaking them up. This is exactly what happens in the case of "tick fever"-the only difference being that another species of "protozoön" is concerned.

When the female tick is ready to lay her eggs, she lets go her hold on the bovine animal, and drops to the ground, where she seeks a hiding place under leaves or refuse, desiring to avoid the sun and various enemies, such as birds and ants. After providing for the continuation of her family, she soon dies. Her eggs, from 1,500 to 3,000 in

number, are light brown and waxy in appearance, each of them covered with a coating of sticky stuff, so that they adhere together in clusters.

Within a few days or weeks, depending upon the weather and the time of year, there are hatched from these eggs a multitude of "seed ticks," as they are called-six-legged, brownish, and so tiny as to be not easily seen with the naked eye. They crawl about on the ground, and in large numbers ascend to the tops of blades of grass, shrubs, weeds and even fenceposts, eagerly awaiting a chance to fasten upon some passing animal of the bovine kind.

So absolutely parasitic are they that their only hope of survival lies in the above-mentioned chancethough horses or mules will serve their purpose, if cattle are unreachable. While waiting, they neither eat anything nor grow. If they fail in their object, they eventually starve to death -though they are able to survive under such circumstances for three or four months, and sometimes longer. Whenever the vegetation in their neighborhood is disturbed, they exhibit great activity, extending their long legs upward in an earnest effort to grab something.

When they succeed inattaching themselves to the muchdesired victim, they take hold of the soft skin inside of the thighs and flanks, along the belly and brisket, around the root of the tail, or inside the forelegs. Then they begin to suck. At the end of a week they shed their skins, and appear with eight legs in place of the original six. When a second week has elapsed, the female, gorging herself with blood, begins to swell greatly; and, after a few more days, she drops off of the animal-ready to lay her eggs, and then to die, the life cycle of the insect being thus completed.

In the case of the malaria-carrying

mosquito, the germs of the disease are simply carried by the insect from a person sick with "chills and fever" to a healthy individual, the latter being thereby inoculated. This never happens, however, where "cattle fever" is concerned. The female tick transmits the germs through her eggs to her progeny, which thus obtain power to communicate the malady. In other words, the disease is not conveyed by the same tick that swallows the infected blood, but only through

FULL-GROWN TICK. Magnified.

the generation succeeding-a very curious phenomenon in nature.

Long ago it was found that, when Southern cattle were driven into Northern States, an invariable result was the death of all Northern cattle along the roads and on the pastures over which the Southern cattle had travelled. Also it appeared that Northern cattle taken into the South almost invariably died-the disease manifesting itself in the shape of high fever, accompanied by jaundice, enlargement of the liver, and progressive

emaciation.

The whole matter seemed to be a mystery. One puzzling point was the length

of time (30 to 90 days) which would always elapse before the appearance of the disease in Northern cattle after the passage of tick-bearing cattle through their country. It is now known, however, that this period is required to allow the female to drop off the infected animal and lay her eggs, and to give an opportunity for the hatching of the "seed ticks" and their transfer to the Northern cattle.

The only reason why the "fever tick" is not destructive in the North is that it cannot live through a cold winter. On the other hand, Northern cattle, being unaccustomed to the malady, are attacked by it in a malignant form, when they do get it, and usually die. This is what happens when Southern cattle are

low the quarantine line. This means a loss of about $1.50 on each beast, or

considerably more than $1,000,000 per annum. Incidentally, it lowers the valuation of all cattle in the infected territory, reducing the assets of the cattle-raising industry of that section for 4,500,000 beasts east of the Mississippi River, and 11,000,000 west of the Mississippi-a total shrinkage of more than $23,000,000, directly chargeable to the tick.

This, however, does not include decrease of flesh and lack of development of Southern cattle, owing to the tickwhich represents a loss of at least $23,000,000 more. The Bureau of Animal Industry estimates the shrinkage of milk

Losses by death of cattle from "tick fever" in the South amount to about $5,812,500 per annum. The expense to the government of enforcing the quarantine is $65,000 a year. Railroads have to pay about $29,000 annually for cleaning and disinfecting cars that carry Southern cattle, and to provide separate pens for them.

In addition, the fact must be taken into account that the Southern buyer of Northern pure-bred, high-bred cattle loses sixty per cent of them when they are not immunized (by a process presently to be described), and ten per cent when they are thus rendered relatively immune. Furthermore, the Southern cattle raiser is deprived by the tick of the advertisement he would otherwise be able to obtain, and the sales he could make, by exhibiting his stock in the show rings of the North. The insect bars him.

To sum up (according to the figures of the Bureau of Animal Industry), the tick is responsible for about $40,000,000 of annual loss to the people of the infested region-in addition to which it lowers the cattle assets of the South by $23,000,000. Huge as this damage bill is, it is much less than the great loss represented by the difference between the value of the cattle industry of the South today and its value as it would be if there were no ticks. If the latter were exterminated, the beneficial effect would be felt throughout the entire country, because the market of the Northern breeder would thereby become greatly extended.

All of these losses (say the experts) can be entirely wiped out by the adoption of simple measures, and at comparatively small cost. Any farm may be freed from ticks by keeping the animals clear of them for a single season-this being accomplished by picking or brushing them off, or by washing or spraying the beasts with some harmless disinfecting solution, such as a mixture of equal parts of cottonseed oil and crude petroleum. This preparation, applied with a sponge or brush two or three times weekly, will kill the old ticks, and will make the legs of the cattle so slippery that the "seed ticks" cannot crawl up.

One of the best methods is spraying with a pump-such a force pump as is used to spray fruit trees. Or the disin

fecting fluid may be placed in a barrel on a wagon, with a hose and an ordinary sprinkling nozzle attached, gravity furnishing the necessary force to the stream. The solution thus applied is allowed to flow over the skin of the animal, especially the legs and under parts of the body. If this treatment is continued through a season, the fields will be free from ticks the following year.

It should be remembered that the ticks are able to survive only by feeding on cattle, or (as a substitute) on horses or mules. Deprived of this opportunity. they starve to death in the course of a few months. Thus they may be entirely exterminated over a given area by keeping them off of the animals. Another method that has been adopted with great success is to pasture cattle alternately in different fields, separated by a tight board-fence. In the vacated pasture the ticks all die of starvation in a season. whereupon the animals are let into it