On the Pacific Coast the Standard and the Union of California are spending vast sums putting in cement oil depots at all the larger ports. Puget Sound is to be a veritable oil stronghold, a gigantic storehouse. At a dozen different places reservoirs big enough to store oceans of oil are going in. Our coast defense garrisons are liberal users of oil to operate their power plants. At Port Townsend, Washington, the Standard has acquired ground and is building its second largest depot on the Sound in the vicinity of four artillery forts. There is one colossal tank for crude oil and several smaller ones for by-products, all surrounded by a concrete wall. This depot is along the water front with only one street intervening between it and the

water.

A reinforced concrete pier one thousand feet long will be constructed out into the bay to accommodate oceangoing tankers and barges. It is rumored that the Union is now striving to acquire holdings at this same point to put in an oil depot. The entire Olympic Peninsula back of Port Townsend is one vast oil well. Unlike the California oil, which has an asphalt base, the Olympic borings show oil having a fine paraffin base. Several small companies are now forming to

RAILWAY DISTRIBUTING STATION NEAR SEATTLE Tank cars are filled in much the same way that a loco motive takes water.

exploit this undeveloped field, and the Standard has shown foresight in selecting Port Townsend as a site for a distributing center.

A battle royal, with millions as missiles, seems imminent between the Rothschilds and Rockefeller at Richmond Beach, near Seattle. The Rothschilds control the European properties, and it has been rumored that they have bought the Union of California for fifty millions. Two years ago the Standard realized that Richmond Beach was a most advantageous point for a central depot. There occident rail meets orient sail. To the astonishment of the American Company it was found that the Rothschilds had already acquired the best property there. That fact, however, did not scare off the mighty Standard. It went to work buying up all the land surrounding the Rothschild site-a Yankee sort of a trick. The result is, the massive concrete reservoirs of both interests stand facing each other like two formidable gladiators. A frail fence is all that separates the antagonists.

The Standard can now store several hundred thousand barrels at Richmond, and, although this capacity is greater than that of the competing depot, it will be doubled shortly. The Standard is also building a big depot at San Francisco, but the one at Richmond Beach will be the largest on the coast. Here big battleships and commercial giants may come alongside the tanks and drink their fill of oil, while at the back runs a transcontinental railroad.

The Rothschild interest brings its gasoline from Sumatra, Russia, India, and Borneo. It requires three shiploads to fill the tanks at Richmond, the first battleground chosen by the invaders. Whether the oncoming scrimmage will extend eastward is not yet announced. That, no doubt, will depend largely upon the success of the conflict just begun in the Northwest.

The American companies, notably the Standard and the Union-if the latter really is American-are feverishly adding ships to their tanker and barge fleets. No finer, better equipped vessels ply the sea than the Standard's big steel tankers, and they carry thousands of barrels of oil in a cargo. These ships are moving

up and down the west coast almost daily with big, four-masted, elaborately furnished, steel barges in tow.

An oil salesman not long since said that "the Pacific Coast eats oil." Perhaps he got his idea from the after-dinner remark made by Mr. Harris, in which that gentleman said that the coast has more than its share of "motors", which, it may be well to explain, is British for gas engine. Of course, the salesman intended to imply that oil on the Pacific Coast disappears with the rapidity of food. That is quite true; it bespeaks the omnipotence of oil.

It is thought that one of the richest oil fields in the world exists in the vicinity of the Panama Canal. The fields lie along the Gulf of Darien. A German first found the fields, but he did not rush home to tell the Kaiser about them, for the emperor thinks the State should own and operate oil fields. The discoverer developed a spring where the oil percolated through the earth's surface, and he has been bringing into Panama City an exceptionally fine quality of high-gravity oil. Americans who have become interested in the discoveries are now taking up the matter of exploitation with leading oil financiers in this country.

Because of the opening of the canal a short time hence, and the new marts of trade it will develop, and because of the fact that new oil fields are being found almost every day along the western coast, the American companies, large and small, to say nothing of the British concern which is hauling two-million-gallon cargoes over this way, are making haste to meet the growing consumption.

The British concern is entering the gasoline trade only just now. That is because there is a shortage of this product here at home. Inasmuch as a fixed amount of nearly all oil products results from the refining of petroleum, the demand for gasoline is naturally taxing our producers. Therefore, refined kerosene compared to gasoline is a drug on the market. This condition was reversed before the coming of gas engines in boats, automobiles, and aeroplanes. Before that, gasoline had a hard time to find a buyer. But out of all this evolution comes crude oil to drive the engines of the world and to do man's will.

PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION

HEREWITH is reproduced the ground

or block plan of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Starting at the left of the illustration at Van Ness Avenue, which marks the extreme eastern limit of the grounds, is the entrance to the concessions district which lies partly behind Fort Mason. The towering domes and spires of the district will be visible. in part from San Francisco Bay. The concessions district is seen to be divided east and west by an irregular boulevard, the Street of Concessions, which will connect with the main boulevards and avenues of the exposition. On the water front, opposite Machinery Hall, will be noted the exposition ferry slips, shipping yards, and railway docks. Next comes Machinery Hall, the largest single structure in the exposition, 122 feet high, 367.8 feet wide, and 967.8 feet long.

The next group of eight buildings is, as will be noted, divided from north to south by three huge interior courts, the central court being the Grand Court of Honor, the Court of the Sun and Stars. Before the group of eight buildings is an esplanade 300 feet wide, indented by a great yacht harbor directly in front of the Palace of Horticulture; nearest the hills of San Francisco, and paralleling the esplanade, is a tropical garden in which are set Festival Hall, the Palace of Horticulture, and other huge structures.

NO statue in the United States suggests more of the romance and passion which rule the human race than the finely executed figure of James W. Marshall at Coloma, California. But who was James Marshall? He was the man who, in 1848, started the stream on the Pacific Coast which was to pour a billion and a half dollars of California gold alone into the channels of trade in the United States. Sixty-five years ago, while repair work was being done on the race of Sutters Mill, near Coloma, Marshall found the first nugget of gold. The news spread like wildfire even in that era of poor communication, and the next year followed the great rush of the "Forty-Niners", whose

ex

ploits have become classic in mining history. These hardy argonauts first panned the free gold along the present stream beds, but gradually they traced the precious metal to the old, dry, prehistoric river beds on the summits of the ridges, and finally to the quartz veins, the primary source of all the gold in California.

weak, drink to the thirsty, and food to the hungry. It is the Cereus Marginatus, a variety of cactus which flourishes in Mexico and parts of the United States. It is commonly planted as a hedge to guard the fields from the ravages of marauding animals.

Each shaft of the plant is a miniature reservoir of water, making this cactus the salvation of

many a spent traveler in the arid wastes in which it grows. From this and other varieties of the cactus also comes the well known piote bean or mescal button from which the "fire water" of the Mexican peon is distilled.

In remote times these plants had a part in religious ceremonies.

CACTUS FENCE AS FOUND IN MEXICO

WHERE the tide flows thickest on

old Broadway in New York, stands the open church yard of St. Paul's, with its shady trees, plots of green grass and ancient tomb-stones. In the summer time it is a bit of the real country set down in the dusty heart of the town. To this grassy spot day after day come scores of young women employed in the surrounding office buildings to eat their lunches under the trees and enjoy a few minutes contact with Mother Nature. The authorities of the church are wise enough not to object and the young women are

careful to do nothing to

mar the place.

There are few pleasanter sights in New York than that of these blooming young girls laughing and chatting under the shadow of the tombs of the ancient Knickerbockers. They serve to link the activity of a busy metropolis with the stolidity of an old trading post, and give a picturesque touch to the old churchyard.

LUNCH HOUR IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD

A COSTLY LIGHTNING BOLT

THIS remarkable photograph of a

chain of lightning was recently taken at Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It is the work of the wife of the superintendent of a power company and was obtained on the instant when the bolt struck the plant, causing a damage of forty thousand dollars and plunging the city of Victoria into darkness. For a period of eight hours the Woman braved the elements, procuring photographs that electrical engineers and scientists claim are the most remarkable ever obtained during an electrical storm.