three per cent of the cotton acreage of the whole country.

About two years ago the Department of Agriculture, after many unsuccessful experiments with various spraying fluids, with an ultimate view to exterminating the boll weevil, sent a representative to Guatemala to catch and bring back a colony of Guatemalan ants to turn against the pest which has cost the South so much loss. But this experiment likewise met with failure, the ants entirely disappearing within a few weeks after liberation. Whether they were made meat of by the voracious weevil or whether they took to the ground is not recorded. However, the scientists of the Department did not give up the fight, and now the Biological Survey of the Department has hit upon a new method of aiding the Southern cotton planter in his war against the pest.

The Survey has been steadily investigating the weevil in Texas for several years and finds that no fewer than thirtyeight species of birds feed upon the in

COTTON BOLL WITH TWO OF ITS FOUR LOCKS DESTROYED THROUGH PUNCTURES MADE BY MALE WEEVIL.

TWO WEEVILS FEEDING ON BUD.

sect. It is not claimed, however, that birds alone can check the spread of the pest, but it has been successfully demonstrated that they are an important help towards solving the puzzling problem.

Among the foremost of the useful allies against the boll weevil are common swallows. The food of these birds consists almost entirely of insects, and they are described by some scientists as "the light cavalry of the avian army." Specially adapted for flight, they have no rival in the art of capturing insects in midair, and it is to the fact that they take their prey on the wing that their peculiar value to the cotton grower is due. Other insectivorous birds adopt different methods when in pursuit of prey. Orioles alight on the cotton bolls and carefully inspect them for weevils. Blackbirds, wrens, and flycatchers contribute to the good work, each species in its own sphere, but when swallows are migrating over the great cotton fields they find weevils flying in the open and wage active war against them. As many as forty-seven weevils have been found in the craw of a single cliff swallow.

The idea of the Biological Survey is to increase the number of swallows in both North and South. The colonies nesting in the South will destroy a greater or less number of weevils during the summer; while in the fall, after the local birds have migrated, northern-pred birds, as they pass through the Southern states on their way to the tropics, will keep up the war.

K

N Egypt there has recently been completed an unusual irrigation project, an irrigation canal of steel. The land to be reclaimed is dry and parched, and is supposed to have received no water for the last 3,000 or 4,000 years. The The water of the Nile is discharged into the canal by a special plant. This consists of a set of powerful pumps, which lift the water through suction mains six feet eight inches in diameter and discharge it into riveted steel raising mains of the same diameter, which in their turn pour the water into a service reservoir. A large steel canal starts from this service reservoir and turns the stream into distributing earth canals or culverts, from which it flows upon the land.

The lift of the pumps is from fifty to sixty-seven feet, and the top of the reservoir wall is over 300 feet above sea level. The service reservoir is made of reinforced concrete. The canal, composed of riveted steel, has a total length of over a mile. It is built up of seven plates round the circumference, the plates

being connected together by one-half inch snaphead rivets, of which a total of 650,000 were used. External T-iron stiffeners are riveted on; there is also a top bracing of cross angles. To allow for expansion and contraction the canal was subdivided into a certain number of sections, connected together by masonry basins and packed expansion-joints.

For riveting, native workmen were engaged; over three months were spent in endeavoring to make them efficient in the use of pneumatic tools, but the idea had finally to be given up, and the work was finished by hand.

The method of leveling the canals was as follows: During the riveting of the plates, timber cradles were used to keep the bottom level, and props to prevent the sides from dropping out of shape. As each section was completed, together with the masonry basin by which it was connected to the next section, the canal was adjusted to its proper level by means of special jacks, which were placed along each side of the section, and before the jacks were removed earth was banked up on either side of the canal.

VERCHARGING by drivers of public hacks and cabs will soon be a thing of the past in London, Paris, Berlin and New York. This is being brought about by the introduction of an instrument called the taximeter. When attached to a vehicle, whether motor propelled or drawn by horses, the instrument automatically registers the fare to be paid. Unlike a street-car fare register, the taximeter is not operated by the driver, but is a mechanical computing

device. It is locked against any tampering by the driver, so that the passenger has the advantage of knowing that he is not being cheated to line the pocket of the jehu.

The taximeter was introduced in the horse cabs of Paris and Berlin a year or two ago, and such preference was shown by the public for the vehicles so equipped that other livery and motor cab companies were compelled in self-defense to adopt the instrument, which is now rapidly coming into general use in the European capitals. It was just intro