out the heads and allowed the water to pass through. The bank of the river was cut deeper and deeper until the channel was actually below the ordinary bed of the Colorado.

An attempt was made to stem the tide by putting in a dam across the lower opening but this failed. Then a wing dam was run from the west bank of the river to an island, but this was unsuccessful and the water continued to flow through the channel until, by August 1, although the flow of the Colorado had declined, three-fourths of it found its way

river will not destroy them. A levee is to be constructed along the river above and below to protect against the overflow. Another levee is to be thrown up by Volcano Lake to prevent the excessive flow into New River.

As the water continued to rise and the flow to increase, and Salton Sink to fill up, great alarm was expressed because many thought that the river would event ually fill up the Sink to sea-level and destroy the best farming land of the Imperial Valley. This, however, would scarcely occur, even though nearly all the

water was turned out of the Colorado River, for, as evaporation is about eight feet per annum in the Colorado Valley, and the annual flow of the river does not exceed this evaporation, it is doubtful if the Salton Sink would rise high enough to cover the land.

The work of the development company, which would have forever prevented the overflow of the Colorado and have kept these waters in their natural channel, was within three weeks of completion when successive and unprecedented December rains in Arizona on the Gila water-shed raised the Colorado River thirty-one feet, the highest mark within fifteen years, and partially destroyed the works of the company. As a result, the flow into the Salton Sink was again increased. As soon as this flood subsided, the development company, still undaunted, through the plans of able engineers, began a new line of construction, which will be completed by June 1. If this is done before other large floods occur, it will forever stop the flow into the sink. In any event, all the damage that might occur has already been done, which amounts to this: the rise of the water in the Salton Sink overflowed the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad and caused the company to build a

new line on higher ground where it would

be above the possibility of overflow. The salt works of the Salton Sink were flooded and temporarily destroyed. The farms of the Imperial Valley were untouched, except that in a few instances those bordering on New River were partially dam

aged. The great canal system of the developing company was uninjured. Much damage, however, was done to the company's works along the Colorado River, and these are now being repaired.

The so-called Salton Sea, about which careless and irresponsible writers have exercised their imagination for more than a year, is a body of water about forty miles long with an average width of ten miles. The greatest depth is not over twenty-five feet. There is every reason to believe that within the next three months the work of the development company will be completed and that the floodwaters of this year will be kept out. However, if this does not occur, the June floods, if they reach the Salton Sink, will be the last water that ever flows into it. As the evaporation in the valley is eight feet per annum it is easy to see that within two, or possibly three, years' time the lake will have entirely disappeared. For, while the waste waters of the canal system flow toward the sink, the evaporation is sufficient to take it up as fast as it

comes.

Sanitary Improvements in the National Capital

By Clinton Rogers Woodruff

WASHINGTON is making commendable progress from a hygienic standpoint in obtaining pure air, pure water and food, and proper disposal of waste. The reclamation of the flats of the Potomac River and their conversion into a park have done much toward purifying

the air, and while the city is still menaced by the miasmatic flats of the Anacostia River, steps have been taken to reclaim them also, and legislation to that end is being urged.

The filtration plant which is now completed, and has been in operation for several months, has made a vast improvement in the drinking water, and the number of cases of typhoid fever has been largely reduced. In this connection, however, public attention is being directed to the great and growing necessity for national legislation for the prevention of the pollution of interstate streams. A committee of Washington's representative citizens, including the commissioners of the District, requested the President to recommend such legislation to Congress, and there is substantial reason to believe that he will comply with the request, and that before long legislation will be enacted to that end.

Through the efforts of an able health department the spread of contagious diseases has been materially reduced, and favorable results are looked for from the work of a committee of citizens who have been engaged for about two years in an endeavor to suppress tuberculosis.

Washington now has a very complete sewerage system, but the sewage is deposited on the river banks, only to be brought back by the tide and create a nuisance. To relieve the city of this menace a disposal plant, by which the waste. will be pumped about six miles down the stream, is being constructed and will be in operation within a year.

A movement of importance from a moral as well as a sanitary standpoint is that dealing with the slums. There is a committee of citizens endeavoring not only to cleanse the slums but to abolish them entirely. A bill is now pending in Congress providing for the removal of unsanitary buildings, which, if enacted, will tend greatly to improve conditions in this. regard.

Another effort to improve moral conditions is the one abolishing bookmaking. A bill has also just passed the House of Representatives providing for compulsory education and prohibiting child labor, and it is expected that it will become a law. The benefit of public playgrounds, which have been established several years, is

already apparent, and with the enlargement of their scope, greater results are expected. A law recently enacted establishes a juvenile court separating from the criminals such children as may be ar rested.

President Roosevelt has taken a deep interest in these forward movements and no small part of the recent improvements are due to his initiative.

The Canadian Invasion of Latin America By Douglas Hall

IN

[NVASIONS, of the commercial sort, have been much in the public eye of late. A few years ago it was the American invasion of Europe; to-day it is the American invasion of Canada. The United States has so long been in the receptive attitude, both for men and money, that it has been difficult to realize that the tide has turned, and that every year fifty thousand American farmers and approximately $30,000,000 of American capital are trekking into Canada. Stranger still is the parallel movement, at least so far as capital is concerned, from Canada outward. As though there were no resources in the Dominion left to develop, Canadian capitalists have for the past five or six years been seeking investments in Latin America, and have forestalled their usually more alert American cousins by occu pying the strategie positions there.

When Lincoln Hutchinson, special agent of the Department of Commerce and Labor, visited southern Brazil a few months ago, he reported that only one American enterprise of any moment existed in all that vast region, and that was in the hands of a Canadian company. The progressive South has been left almost entirely to European capital to develop. The plateau state of Sao Paulo, the most up to date perhaps of the Brazilian states, with all its rich opportunities, its healthful climate, its fertile soil, its enormous water powers, and its three-quarter million of European immigrants, had not been touched by North American capital till some six years ago, when a Canadian concern awoke to the situation. An exclusive street-car franchise for forty years was secured from the city of Sao Paulo, and, later, a perpetual franchise for electric light and power distribution. Ten

Inspired by this success, the same set of Canadian capitalists has recently invaded Rio de Janeiro with an exactly similar proposition. Twenty-five million dollars are being expended in acquiring and equipping with electricity the existing street-car lines, building others, buying out the gas company, and bringing electric power to the capital from a branch of the Parahyba River, over forty miles distant. The great drawback to South American manufacturing industry has been the lack of cheap fuel, but apparently Brazil, like northern Italy, is destined to find an efficient substitute in cheap water power. Nor will this be the only advantage the capital will reap from this Canadian enterprise; the extension of the street-car system will relieve the unhealthy congestion on the flat lands by spreading the population on the surrounding hillsides, and thus do much to make the city as healthful as it is beautiful.

Farther north, the island of Trinidad has been the objective of a concerted Canadian movement, shared in both by the government and by private capitalists. A steamship service between Canada and Port of Spain has been opened up, and a Canadian bank established in that city; the rich mineral oil resources are being exploited by a Canadian syndicate, and the electric light and street car system of the capital, Port of Spain, have been acquired by a Canadian company. Perhaps in this connection mention might be made of the share taken in the development of Cuba by the Cuba company of which Sir William Van Horne is the head and moving spirit, for American-born Sir William is as thoroughly Canadian as Canadianborn James J. Hill is thoroughly Ameri

can.

In Mexico the situation is somewhat different. American capital has been poured into our sister republic for many

years, until, according to government estimates, it now totals half a billion dollars. Compared with this tremendous inflow, Canadian investments are comparatively slight in amount, but strategically of much importance. Montreal and Toronto capitalists have recently secured control of the three rival electric light and power companies which between them had a monopoly of the light and power business of the capital; one was built by a German company, another by a French syndicate and the third was owned in England. The new owners have secured from the government a franchise for the development of the water power of the Necaxo and Tenango rivers, and its transmission to the city of Mexico or anywhere else in the country desired. Over seventy thousand horse-power will be developed, half of it available this spring. The transmission lines to Mexico, ninety miles away from the water power, are now completed, and the company will shortly be able to avail itself of this electric power instead of the steam plants previously employed, and to sell the surplus power for industrial purposes. The same set of capitalists is now arranging to take over the street-car system of the Mexican capital.

The Canadian government has not been behindhand in aiding this invasion. Every effort is being made to cultivate closer trade relations with Latin America. The advances have met with a welcome not devoid, perhaps, of political significance. Uneasy at the overshadowing power of the United States, and more suspicious of that vague and flexible policy called the Monroe Doctrine than grateful for its condescending protection, our neighbors to the south feel safer in cultivating commercial relations with Canada than with the United States.

Mexico, for example, recently sent representatives to Ottawa to advocate the establishment of better steamship connection. As a result of the negotiations the two governments have agreed to contribute $50,000 each as a subsidy for two steamship lines, to ply between Canadian and Mexican ports, one on the Atlantic and one on the Pacific. It is confidently expected that the establishment of these lines will result in transferring to Canada much of the trade hitherto in American hands. Whether all expectations in this

and other quarters will be realized or not, clearly the volume of Canadian-Latin American interrelations has reached such proportions as to warrant the careful attention of the American business world as well as of the government at Washington.

English Scholarships for American
Girls

FEW

By E. Douglass Sheilds

EW proposals have fallen on such fruitful soil or taken form so rapidly as has that providing scholarships to take American women for two years to an English university. One year ago, the Hon. Mrs. Bertrand Russell, daughter of Mrs. Pearsall Smith, a well-known American. worker in the cause of temperance and various philanthropies, read a paper before the Society of American Women in London, in which she advocated the plan of bringing over a few women graduates and giving them a year's study at one of the English universities.

It happened that Madame Thayer, who presides over the Education Committee of the Society, had been for some time specially interested in this matter. It is her opinion that while there are undoubtedly some respects in which the English graduates could benefit from a post-graduate course at an American college, there are also others in which American women would find an English university most helpful. This she holds would lie especially in the attainment of a broader and less personal outlook, more mental poise and calmer nerves. Two years ago, on reading that there was a higher percentage of illiteracy in Georgia than in any other state, she wrote to the principal of one of its colleges offering, if funds could be raised to send a young woman teacher to London for further training, to receive her into her home for her first working year free of cost. Her letter received no reply.

The suggestion made by Mrs. Bertrand Russell still further strengthened Madame Thayer's opinion, and she elaborated a scheme similar to that of the Rhodes' Scholarships for men. This she laid before the Education Committee of the Society of American Women in London. They approved it and at the society's anniversary luncheon, at which most of the distinguished American women writers

resident in London were present, the scheme was definitely announced. It is proposed that the women of the United States should raise funds sufficient to endow ninety-two perpetual scholarships at English universities. This would allow of cach state sending two students to England. Mrs. Webster Glyne, president of the society, further announced that the society having a membership of only 150 and none of them millionaires, would not of course be able to do a great deal in the matter of providing funds, but they are taking over the responsibility of providing for the one student from the District of Columbia.

The plan has been laid before the General Federation of Women's Clubs in the United States, and was discussed at their annual conference held this year at St. Paul, May 30-June 6. The sum required will be large, but the American women in London feel confident that even should the General Federation, which represents five hundred thousand women, not take the matter up it will be carried through in some other way.

Representatives of colleges on both sides of the water have already expressed their approval of the plan. Miss Constance Jones, of Girton, Cambridge, England, said that she could think of no pleasanter and more lasting way by which the two countries, England and America, could become acquainted than by means of college experience and friendships among its women. In the women's colleges at Cambridge they have already had some experience of the delightful character of American students, while some Girton girls have attended American universities. A letter was read at the English society's luncheon from Miss Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, who wrote approving heartily of giving American girls something corresponding to the Rhodes' Scholarships.

Should the scheme be carried through, and it may be noted that in the minds of the American women who have started it, there is no "if" in the matter, the students will be made honorary members of the Society of American Women in London, and as it has members in different cities, including the university towns, it has already the nuclei for affiliated centers that would naturally take a special interest in them.