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GLACIER frowns menacingly upon the town of Valdez, Alaska, threatening the safety of the buildings and inhabitants of that northern mining camp. The glacier sweeps down majestically between two mountain masses, and in summer discharges quantities of ice. from its two-mile face upon the vast flat open moraine where the goldseeking pioneers built the town of Valdez.

Although the ice stream is over three miles from the town, it has proved dangerous during the months of long sunshine. Great masses of ice often fall to the ground, releasing tons upon tons of water that had been held in ponds and pools in the glacier itself. The water, rushing unopposed towards the town, picks up tree trunks and boulders, and carries icebergs into the town. For years these floods have occurred, damaging the buildings and oftentimes sweeping them into the bay. In 1911 the flood carried 108 structures into the ocean.

This constant danger aroused the engineers of the United States war department to action. Lieut. Glen E. Edger

ton, a young officer who had been detailed to Alaska to assist in the work of building roads and trails, conceived the idea of building a dike to protect the town from the ravages of the glacier. The project was outlined by army engineers, an appropriation was made by

"AN ATTACK IN FORCE" REPULSED

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RAZING on the pastures of one of the greatest ranches of the Southwest is a herd of shaggy beeves. On the back of each is a great hump reminiscent of the buffalo that once found his way to that part of the national domain. In the barnyard of a great stock farm in Ontario, thousands of miles away, is another group that looks as if it might have sprung from the same stock.

These two herds are the contribution of the buffalo to the wealth of the American people. In them may lie the secret of cheap beef, for the "cattalo" is a hybrid that holds true to his ancestors, that does not know disease, that does

represents the solution of the problem of rising meat costs in this country, for it will enable the use of our lean prairie land for pasturing huge herds of the animals.

The idea of doing this has been in the minds of many men for almost a century.

But until now, most of the workers who have attacked the problem have met with defeat. The difference in physical makeup of the two species made success seem impossible. Calves from such a union were rarely born alive, and the men who tried to develop the new cross gave up when they met this obstacle. But Mossom Boyd, of Bobcaygeon, Ontario, Canada, persisted; and by careful selection of parents, he finally succeeded in raising thirty hybrids from pure-bred parents of the two different species. He bred these hybrids to purebred animals of each species, and he is now well along with his work of developing the established strain.

not fear the blizzard of the plains, that waxes fat and heavy on lean pastures, when the ordinary beef animal is starving.

This strange new animal-the cattalo -is the product of breeding together bison and cattle. The hybrid has all the good qualities of both-the beef qualities of cattle, and the weight, hardiness, and ability to live on scant pasturage so characteristic of the bison. Probably it

At the same time that Boyd was carrying on his experiments in Canada, Charles Goodnight, of Goodnight, Texas, was breeding polled Angus cattle in the

same way, and has developed a strain much like that produced in the North. Other experimenters have achieved some little success, and occasionally meat from this source has found its way into the packing houses; but these two men have gone farthest, and so may be said to be the real discoverers of the new animal.

The results in the three different stages of breeding in both

herds show great uniformity and stability. The hybrids-that is, the animals from the original cross-looked as much alike as a herd of Jerseys. Those from

Hereford cows had white faces but no other white; the polled Angus stock

was almost as black as the dams themselves. All these animals were larger than the bison and they had bigger chests and better hindquarters. The next step, the breeding of these hybrids. to both bison and cattle, produced two

different types, each following closely the sire. These were the three quarter buffaloes and the one-quarter buffaloes. From these the oneeighth hybrids were developed, and none having less than that proportion of blood from the bison was bred. The three-quarter buffaloes looked like the animal of the

plains; the one-eighth like domestic cattle. In the

last stage, the animal does

not much resemble the bison, but it has the desired characteristics.

After this third stage, the problem becomes one of selecting the best animals, preserving the buffalo and cattle. points, and choosing the animals which produce calves true to parents, for breeding purposes. This work is now going on. Boyd has been producing the best meat animal and Goodnight has been working with his animals in tick-infested territory, to develop immunity to various. diseases, and to develop a range animal which needs less care and pays better than ordinary stock.

Besides the hardiness and the increase in the proportion of meat to weight, the cattalo has further desirable characteristics. The hump of the buffalo is not a mass of fat. It is formed by neural spines and by the huge muscles which fill the angle between these spines and the ribs. This is the upper cut in a rib roast of beef, and Boyd reports that

some of those which he has had on his table have been nine inches deep. The meat is of clear fiber. The average animal cuts one hundred fifty pounds more than a beef animal.

In addition to the improved meat qualities, cattaloes have advantages in the live state. Less food, salt, and water are required by them than by cattle. When a weakened cow on the range in the winter time lies with its back down hill, it cannot rise, and starves to death; the cattalo gets up on his forefeet first just the opposite to the cow-and so is always able to rise. A herd of hybrids never drifts before a blizzard. Unlike the buffalo, the cattalo is docile.

All told, the cattalo is a worthy addition to the American pasture. The great buffalo ranges are gone, turned into grain fields; but there are still areas, which will barely support cattle, but will return a profit in the hybrid; and they form the place for the cattalo.