THE government's search for valuable

food-stuffs pays. Macaroni wheat, imported from Prussia at a cost of $10,CC0 annually, yields $10,000,000. Sorghum was brought from China in 1864 at a cost of $2,000. The nation's source of income from that crop is $40,000,000 annually.

THE "HE spotlessly pure marbles of the

island of Paros, Greece, are mined by an English company. Many of the celebrated statues left us by the ancient world were sculptured from the marbles of the Parian mines. The green marbles of Tinos and the red of Mani are likewise controlled by foreign capital.

A

RECENT report of the government
Census Bureau shows that the esti-

mated quantity of merchantable timber

tresses are only about one-third as heavy and two-thirds as costly as those of the same size made of hair. They are said to be thoroughly springy, yet firm and durable, and especially sanitary, the material being comparatively non-absorbent. A pillow, for example, measuring 19 by 26 inches, weights only one pound, or one-third the weight of a feather pillow of the same size.

UNDER the personal influence of the Kaiser, a company has been organized in the German capital for the purpose of making a systematic investigation of aërial navigation. The capital at the company's disposal is practically unlimited. Engineers, steel manufacturers, and naval officers comprise some of the directors.

lumbermen is 215,000,000,000 feet. California, Oregon and Washington possess 78,000,000,000 feet of this, and the Southern States 62,000,000,000 feet.

LIQUID air instead of powder, for car

tridges, is the latest French novelty. These cartridges must be fired within five minutes after their preparation, however, as the liquid air evaporates rapidly. They are, therefore, of no value commercially.

TREES that will grow in sandhills and

without irrigation, are the latest discovery of the government Bureau of Forestry. In the course of half a century forests are expected to cover the waste regions of the West.

ALONG the Florida Coast, a new in

dustry has sprung up-the making of mattresses, pillows, etc., of sponge. The sponge material is cleansed of all foreign matter by a scrubbing process in large tanks of water, then run through wringers, and the drying continued by subjecting it to a cold-air blast. It is then shredded by machinery, and sterilized, and rendered odorless by chemical treatment. The sponge mat

Bombay Province, India, which produces a cotton said to be greatly superior in quality to the American product. Until recently the only use made of this cotton was in the manufacture of wicks for lamps in Hindu temples and in the stuffing of beds and pillows.