ence of this majestic river. It was supposed to wander aimlessly through a commercially impossible section, to precipitate its useless energy through Ozark fastnesses and go rippling on, after the fashion of rivers, to meet the greater waters of the Arkansas near its intermingling with the Mississippi.

But, finally, the railroads broke into the wilderness and the first settlers found, to their surprise, that these alluvial valleys, bought for a song, were as fertile as the celery lands of Michigan, as fine agricultural territory as any in the central belt. Its graceful foothills furnished orchard and pasturage.

Its

ENTRANCE ΤΟ LION HILL ZINC MINE SHAFT, NEAR BUFFALO CITY, ARK.

emerald mountains yielded oak, pine, walnut, cypress and cedar, and these ancestral forests comprised vast game preserves, still undespoiled of deer and wild turkeys. Into this hunter's and lumberman's paradise the prospector intruded, and rich profits attended his pursuit of

oil and gas, Fuller's earth, building stone, marble, onyx, coal, lead, zinc and manganese.

Arkansas rivals in quality Italy's marble. The most favored are the St. Joe and St. Clair varieties, so called from the localities where first found. "St. Joe" is pink, mottled with white, gray or pea green; "St. Clair" shades from light gray to chocolate. The pioneers of Newton County hauled a nine thousand pound block of mottled marble sixty miles, with oxen, and sent it by water to take its place in the Washington Monument.

It is estimated that about every ten miles a large stream flows into the White River. Consequently it is doubtless no idle boast that from one to ten acres in the White River Valley will afford a living for a family-more than a living, it would seem, since two crops of potatoes the same year are not unusual, and strawberries grown out of doors are marketed in November.

The White River, coquetting with sun roring the beauty of leaning, needle-like and shadow, lavishing fertility and mirpeaks, massive rainbow-hued boulders, and interlaced drapery of willow and chinaberry, had its own secrets. first discovered its plentitude of bass, Who

rainbow trout, jack salmon, buffalo redhorse, suckers, catfish, "large, firm-fleshed, fighting fellows," was surely not the sportsman; but it is a matter of history that in 1879 a young man from St. Louis, hunting and fishing in White County, picked up a small object which attracted his attention by its peculiar color and brilliancy, and which his negro guide informed him was common in that locality It proved to be a "truly" pearl His, and similar finds about that period, initiated pearling. Immediately there was "a Klondyke rush" It is calculated that two million dollars' worth of pearls have since been taken from Arkansas waters The little town of Newport is at the highest tension of pride and dignity incidental to the honor of being headquarters for its state's pearl buyers. Out of this industry grew one less alluring, more certain and substantial, the collection of mussel shells for button tories. After being examined for pearls, the shells are thrown into bin sheds, awaiting the purchaser, who pays six to ten dollars a ton for them.

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A deeper secret had the White River, guarded longer than its piscatorial and molluscan treasure, its fairy islands and its hiding places in the hills: a wonderful, submerged garden, its own artistic achievement. Above this entrancing garden there is no array of glass-bottomed boats, strident-tongued guides, and agile penny-divers, as at Catalina; but the elixir-breathing voyageur upon this charming river may feast his eyes upon its tasselated, many-colored pavement, its brown and gray Doric and Ionic columns,

its painted rosettes of rock, its waving ferns and grasses, its tangled mossy drift, its cosmopolitan fish haunts.

The valley of the lower White River contains clusters of low mounds, regular, evenly spaced, always near water or where water has been. These are accredited to the Mound Builders, and the supposition is strengthened by interjacent fragments of burned earthenware. Near Penter's Bluff, Arkansas, there is a relic field, yielding flint arrow-heads, hammer-heads, lance-points, barbarous implements, and hand-made stones the size of a canister, attributed to the expedition of De Soto after its valiant leader had been buried in the Mississippi,

Who wants a scenic trip at a nominal cost, let him make the day run from Carthage, Missouri, to Newport, Arkansas, two hundred and sixty-six kaleidoscopic miles. If he has threaded the Brenner Pass, he will be reminded of the engineering and mechanical skill which made that railroad, and this one, possible. For blasting, bridging, trestling, and artificial roadbed have conquered titanic natural obstacles. Instead of looking down, as he did from the Alpine line, into bottomless gorges, always he will see in the Ozarks the limpid, smiling the limpid, smiling White River, dimpling around its islands, and rippling over its shoals and tiny rapids and nibbling its jealous cliffs; farms flaunting luxurious promise, flocks.

and herds in lowland and upland; fruitful vales, and young cities terracing the heights; in the background rank after rank of mountains climbing over each other to meet the sun. He will see that disappearing mirage of primitive aristocracy, the cabin of the "hill billy;" he will see the forms of castles, battlements, ledges, causeways, galleries, stairways. His artistic appreciation will be quickened by the soft coloring of rock, water, and perspective; his mind and body will respond to the atmospheric tonic. Should it be raining, he will lend a pleased ear to the patter upon the pines, will breathe deeply of their fragrant balsam, and learn to love the spirit of the Ozarks, veiled in its drifting mists.

NGLAND is confident that this, her latest wrinkle in naval equipment, a torpedo motor boat, is going to revolutionize naval construction and destruction. She is going to attach three of them to the great battleship Dreadnought, and in battle they will be swung from the battleship's decks into the sea and hurled at the enemy with the speed of an express train. Mercury II, the first torpedo motor boat, is a little thing, comparatively, as any boat must necessarily be to be carried about. It is sixty feet long, a flat nine feet broad, weighs eight tons and draws only eighteen inches of water. But it is a vessel of wonderful powers, and is capable of traveling twenty-four knots an hour. Accommodations for crew are very limited, not much larger than on the ordinary motor pleasure boat of today.

If the torpedo motor boat does all that is claimed for it, it may not be long before such craft will be carried by every big battleship and cruiser afloat, just as innocent little naphtha launches are carried

now.

The career of Mercury II should interest all Americans greatly; for our country is now the third naval power of the world. Washington is said to be keeping a sharp eye on this little creation with a stern as ungainly as a scow's.