miles of land telegraph and 107 miles of wireless. These lines are now being rapidly extended, and the systems comprise elements not elsewhere combined, the submarine, land and wireless sections being worked as a component and harmonious whole. Extensive wireless installations in Alaska are being made with a view to ultimately furnishing a complete chain of wireless stations from Safety Harbor to the mainland of the United States. In entering upon this plan the Signal Corps of the Army has cooperated with the navy in its projected plans. Money has been appropriated for the construction of a station at Fort Gibbon, which will serve to connect the existing wireless stations at Safety and St. Michael with the proposed naval station at Valdez, and thence UNITED STATES SIGNAL TELEGRAPH AND CABLE SYSTEM IN ALASKA. The black line from Fairbanks to Circle indicates proposed wireless. in and about Alaska. These lines are all under the control of the army Signal Corps. The military cable and telegraph system from Seattle to Alaska consists of 2,534 miles of submarine cable, 1,403 THE FIRST UNITED STATES TELEGRAPH OFFICE, MULATO, ALASKA. BARGE IN USE BY TELEGRAPH CORPS AT FORT GIBBON, ALASKA. via the proposed station at Sitka to Tatoosh Island, off the entrance of Puget Sound, and to San Francisco. This will ultimately give a complete chain of wireless stations, supplementing the land line and cable system from Norton Sound to the United States. To supplement this system and to reach other important points in eastern Alaska, the Signal Corps has now in process of installation two wireless stations, one at Fairbanks and the other at Circle City. These stations are about 140 miles apart and are designed to have a radius of action of about 250 miles. The instrumental equipment for these two stations has all been installed and will be in working order shortly. The power to be used is derived from a gasoline engine-driven dynamo of one kilowatt capacity. The antennæ are suspended by means of steel towers 175 feet high. These towers were shipped in small sections and assembled on the ground. Special provision was made to insulate the bases of the towers by means of creosoted timbers, which are housed to protect the bases from moisture. The establishment of these new LOADING SLEDS DRAWN BY REINDEER, AT FORT MICHAEL, WITH MATERIAL TO BE USED FOR SIGNAL STATIONS IN THE INTERIOR. permanent wireless telegraph stations should enable communication to be maintained, if desired, with boats on the Yukon river as well as smaller outlying stations and camps, wherever they may be, using portable field wireless outfits. The enlisted men of the Signal Corps of the army and of the line on duty in Alaska have continually to undergo hardships in the maintenance of the telegraph THE COMING OF WINTER MAKES THE TELEGRAPH DOUBLY WELCOME AND VALUABLE. Scene at Fort Michael. lines. During last winter they had especially hard times, many of them being cut off for periods of from six to eight months from all contact with civilization, with the temperature ranging many degrees below zero. A number of men were severely frozen, and during the breaking up of the ice in the river in the late spring, which washed away over a hundred miles of line, the men worked in the bitter cold water sometimes for days in order to restore communication. A certificate of merit was awarded by the President to one of the enlisted men of the Corps for cour age and intelligence displayed in rescuing three comrades with badly frozen feet. The Alaskan Cable and Telegraph System is under the direction of the Chief Signal Officer, Department of the Columbia at Seattle, Washington. For the convenience of administration and supply this system is divided into four sections, with three officers of the Signal Corps conducting these administrative functions. The first and second sections inIclude the lines between Valdez, Boundary, and to near the Goodpaster river. The third section embraces the extensive and difficult country along the Tanana and down the Yukon to Kaltag. The fourth section lies west of Kaltag. The Government's commercial receipts for messages sent over its system in Canada for the last fiscal year amounted to something over $220,000. The lines are being increasingly used for business while for military purposes they will soon be of the greatest possible value. THE NETWORK OF CABLES OF THE WIRELESS SYSTEM TO FARM FOR BASKET WILLOWS BY RENÉ BACHE O add willows, for the making of baskets, to the list of agricultural products of the country, is the purpose of a new move by Uncle Sam's forestry service. A small plantation at Arlington, across the Potomac from the city of Washington, has been established for the growing of a number of different species of basket willows; and considerable quantities of the osier rods thus produced have been made up into most excellent baskets by manufacturers in Baltimore. Baltimore is a somewhat important center for the manufacture of fine baskets, the raw material for which is almost wholly supplied by willow-growers in the vicinity. One might say the same thing of Richmond, where there is COURTESY U. S. BUREAU OF FORESTRY. THE WILLOWS CUT AND TIED INTO BUNDLES. a great basket-making establishment which raises its own osiers; and another such town is York, Pa., which is in the midst of a willow-growing district. These cities, with plentiful supplies of osiers near at hand, are able to ship high-grade baskets all over the country. The problem is to improve the market for these high-grade baskets, and, by reducing the cost of willow-production, to compete with the cheaper baskets imported from abroad. In order to accomplish this object, it is necessary that scientific methods of osier culture shall be introduced-such methods as are already practiced widely in France and Germany. Incidentally it is important that the inferior varieties of willows now commonly grown in the United States shall be replaced by superior kinds. One of the purposes of the experimental plantation at Arlington, indeed, has been to ascertain just what species of osiers were most suitable. The culture of basket willows was first introduced into the United States in the forties by German immigrants, in western New York and Pennsylvania. Having tried the wild native willows and found them unsatisfactory, they imported cuttings of European species and planted them. But they knew nothing of scientific methods of willow farming, and at the present time, save in a few localities in Maryland, Pennsylvania. and Virginia, the industry in this country is pursued on the crudest imaginable plan. This is especially true in western New York, |