workroom, the silverware on the table, your gun, your bicycle or automobile, your piano and piano-player, besides many such simple articles as kitchen hardware, axes, nails, knives and forks, needles, pins, and chains-all can be traced directly to Connecticut, as well as the letter-box on the corner, the typewriter in use in the office, the ship in the harbor, and the railroad train in which you ride to business. Should you find anything which does not seem to bear the stamp of Connecticut, upon investigation you will probably discover that the machinery for making it, or for the first shaping of raw material, came from that state.

WORDEN SMITH of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has invented a steel diving cage which is a marvel. He A Steel was recently successful in Diving Cage locating the British steel ship Andelana, which turned turtle and sank in fifty fathoms five years ago.

Mr. Smith descended in his cage, and found the Andelana lying on her side and partly covered with mud. Owing to the great depth, several attempts to raise the vessel have failed, divers finding it almost impossible to work there, and one diver having lost his life. Smith's feat was the wonder of marine circles. There is room enough for two men to work inside the diving cage. It has small windows of heavy glass; and on the outside are arm-like contrivances in the shape of grappling hooks and bars, which are manipulated by the men inside.

MANY PEOPLE consider Russia as a country of barbarians, clinging to ancient superstitions which admit A New of no innovations or im"Peril" provements in general conditions. The fallacy of such an idea, in spite of the recognized tendency to political and commercial conservatism, is shown graphically by the actual developments along all industrial lines. That tremendous undertaking, the TransSiberian Railway, is known, at least by name, to everybody; but few appreciate its full significance as a factor in future industrial developments in the Far East. The activity in electrical construction also points a finger of warning to other nations that they may expect to find in the vast dominions that acknowledge the rule of the Czar a formidable competitor for the world's commercial and industrial supremacy.

In St. Petersburg and Moscow, the two most important cities of the Empire, the increase in consumption of electrical current during the last year was remarkable, and, although most of the electrical plants are owned by foreign capitalists, it is stipulated, in the majority of contracts, that all material must be of Russian manufacture. In St. Petersburg, the capital city, the total output of current for 1901 was 4,829 K. W.; this, in 1902, was increased to 5,055 K. W., consumed by 2,383 subscribers, as against 2,063 subscribers for the year before. In K. W.-hours the increase was from 6,400,000 to 6,810,000, an increase of about 7 per cent. In Moscow an increase of 25 per cent in the output of current was shown. the figures being 6,075 K. W. in 1901, and 7,074 K. W. in 1902, while the subscribers increased from 2,038 to 2,629 during the year. At the same time great improvements in installation were made. This points to a rapid development of mechanical skill in both the manu

facture and the operation of electrical machinery. It is impossible that this increased efficiency should be caused entirely by foreign talent, and the only conclusion that can be drawn is that technical education is becoming an important feature of this noticeable activity. The Russian Government is to be asked by the municipal authorities of Odessa for permission to change the entire system of street railways from horse propulsion to electric. The municipal government of St. Petersburg also has recently been considering a proposition to install electric motive power on all the street railways where the horse is now used. The plans for this change have already been approved by the Minister of the Interior. It is expected that the lines will be extended to Sosnooka, where the new Polytechnic Institute is situated. At least 500 motor cars are to be provided, which will probably be supplied by the Westinghouse Company. All construction work, however, is to be carried on by Russian workmen, and all material used in the changes is to be manufactured within the Empire. As at Odessa, there is to be no interruption of operations on the present lines of street cars. This points to a condition of skill in management that compares favorably with the best American practice. In New York and Washington, when the change was made to electric power, there was no delay in traffic; but it must be remembered that a cable system had been in operation before and that there was no changing of rails and no digging of conduits to be done.

An electric railway is proposed between Warsaw and Lodz, to be built or Russian material. Mr. Drosdof, an electrical engineer of Chicago, is now looking after the plans and making out the specifications. There are few obstacles in construction, as the ground is almost level and it will be possible to build a practically straight line between the two cities.

These various street-railway projects show that Russia is far from backward in the application of the latest technical experience, and have a deep significance as showing that other nations will have to look to their laurels. Inventive genius, it is true, has yet to shine among the Muscovites, but the demonstrated adaptability of the race may be considered a forerunner of original work.

this purified condition it is delivered to the works, where it is again crushed, sized, and inspected.

The ore thus prepared is charged, with proper carbon fuel, into patent furnaces of different types specially constructed for the different stages of the process. In the last stage the charge is subjected to a heat sufficiently intense to vaporize the lead contents, with enough air to oxidize it into a basic sulphate of lead.

Powerful suction fans carry the vapors of volatilization through a long series of sheetiron pipes or flues, up around and through "goose necks," the oxidation being completed during the progress, until the cooled and condensed white vapors of lead oxysulphate are finally collected in condensers which allow the gases of combustion to escape through their meshes. These condensers or collectors are in the form of long bags, hung perpendicularly in a large building, known as the "bag house."

Sublimed white lead is chemically a basic sulphate of lead. Analysis shows it to contain both the sulphate and the monoxide of lead; but the two substances are united into a single chemical compound, inseparable by the ordinary methods of analysis. It is claimed to be an article "permanent in substance and unchangeable in color;" an article that is "unaffected by organic acid, by sulphurous or other gases," and is "non-poisonous."

ONE OF THE LARGEST ADVERTISING FIRMS in the country says of the imitations of its products, Manufacture of "They lack the peculiar Japanese Paper and remarkable qualities of the genuine." There are few things to which this statement could more prop

IN A TEA GARDEN, CEYLON. A TYPICAL HILLSIDE SCENE IN THE "PEARL OF THE INDIES."

erly apply than to Japanese paper. Natural conditions prevent its perfect preparation elsewhere than in Japan; and in the attempts to use shorter, cheaper methods, much of the quality for which Japanese paper is best known is lost.

The native method is to soak and beat the tissue much as the ancient Egyptians soaked and beat flax in preparing linen. In this way the cells are neither cut nor destroyed, as is the case in the use of machinery. The fibers are first softened in water, and then beaten with mallets made for the purpose. These mallets are grooved longitudinally, presenting a corrugated surface which, while separating the fibers, tends at the same time to change the relative position of each particle of pulp.

There are several plants furnishing fiber for paper manufacture, but the kodzo is a typical one. The sprouts each year are stripped, and are cut into threefoot lengths. By soaking a number of days in water, preferably water which is continually changing, the bark of the sprouts is softened; it is then boiled in water containing wood-ashes, or lye. The pounding is next carried on, until, with the aid of more water, the material becomes a thick, pulpy mass. After a thorough treatment, this pulp is mixed with a cement made of roots, and is rubbed into sheets.

A sieve of bamboo fibers is used for this purpose, the pulp being removed from the wetted mass, drained, and partly dried. By flattening out on a plank and rolling, sheets are formed, which, when thoroughly dried in the sun, can easily be removed.

To the Japanese this paper is well-nigh indispensable. It is used largely for windows, giving a light somewhat similar to that of ground glass, but more highly diffused, softer, and more restful. In the arts it finds many uses, such as the foundation for "cypress gold," that beautiful thread which gives the ancient silks and brocades their unsurpassed richness. Sheets of Japanese paper are covered with gold leaf on one side, and then cut into narrow strips. These are wound about a thread of silk or linen, with the gold face out, and produce a thread having the luster and lasting qualities of pure gold, proportionate to the quality of the gold leaf used.

The wonderful drawings of Hokusai and his companions would never have been preserved for us, had it not been for the lasting qualities of the paper which they used. Japanese paper has an absorptive quality impossible to obtain in other fibers. It thus enables a free use of the brush and permits of a fineness of line hardly attainable on ordinary paper. Indeed, the use of the brush in Japan

THE CULTURE OF TEA is Ceylon's one great industry; and a visit to the fields, crowded with native pickTea Culture ers, with their queer wickin Ceylon er baskets, is well worth the tourist's while. When the baskets are filled or the field is picked clean of young leaves, the tea pickers turn in their crop to be weighed and credited to them, and by a good day's work these women make as much as eight or ten cents a day.

The tea leaves are carried to the factory, a two-story building with a tall stovepipe and many windows. Any large leaf or twig is sorted out, the leaves are spread on tiers of shelves or trays on the upper floor and left to wilt over night. Twelve or eighteen hours are required to wilt the leaf until it can be put in the roller that the cells of the leaves may be broken, and the tannic juices freed, ready to be eliminated by the next process of fermenting. The moist, withered leaves, which have been rolled and crushed into no semblance of a green leaf, are spread again on trays and covered in the higher temperature until by fermentation they have turned to a bright reddish copper color.

This Ceylon black tea has an advantage

over Chinese black tea, which it aimed to supplant and has so largely supplanted in English markets, in that it is touched by the hand of the tea picker only in the field. Every other process is by automatic machines. In China the tea is rolled by hand, fermented in a corner of each small tea farmer's house, and brought to market in any sort of paper bags and old boxes, to be sorted and sifted and refired by the European exporters.

The Chinese names for the different grades of tea are maintained in Ceylon, and from the silvery, unopened leaf bud or "pekoe," the quality descends to "orange pekoe," the just opened yellow leaf, to "Souchong" and "Congou," as the third and fourth leaves on the twig are known.

The most flavor is contained in the silvery pekoe or bud and in the young orange pekoe leaf; and when these are sifted and sorted out by themselves, they make a tea of an incredible value like those few pounds of fine pekoe at the Chicago World's Fair valued at £35, or $175

Bank for Workingmen in Norway

THE CONSULAR REPORTS for February contain an interesting communication from United States Consul Bardel at Bamberg, Germany, in which he says that a state institution for loaning money, called the Norwegian Workingmen's Bank, was opened in Norway on October 1, 1903. The object of this bank is to better the condition of the working classes by granting them loans on easy terms, and thus enabling them to secure land and homes for themselves.

The law provides loans for the purchase of workingmen's homesteads-small portions of land of at least 14 acres and not more than 5 acres-which must either be cultivated or suitable for cultivation, and must not exceed the tax value of $804 for land and home or $536 for the land alone. Provision is also made for the erection, completion, or purchase of

Such

pied by not more than two families, with ground not larger in area than 1/4 acres and having a taxed valuation of $1,340 in cities and $804 in the country. loans may be obtained by needy Norwegian subjects, or by communities in the country for the purchase and cultivation of land to be divided up for workingmen's homesteads.

A working committee is to be appointed in each community, and its members are obliged to certify that in their judgment the applicant for the loan understands agriculture sufficiently to cultivate the land; otherwise the loan is to be withheld. The members of the committee are also expected to give advice to citizens wishing to make investments,

and they are to act as agents between the bank and the applicants for loans. The committees of the respective communities are made responsible for all loans to private individuals and also to associations. The loans must not exceed nine-tenths of the taxed valuation of the property. The interest charged for loans on land is 31⁄2 per cent, and on houses 4 per cent. The payment must be completed in forty-two years in the case of land loans, and in twenty-eight years in the case of house loans. The debt may be reduced in less time if the borrower desires; but if he lapses in his payments, the rest of the loan still due matures and may be collected by force. The plan will thus tend to promote thrift.

Success is the child of daring.

A lie travels by wire; the truth by mail. ¶ Yesterday's neglect is to-day's worry. The best prophet of the future is the .past.

The man who snores should be rapped in slumber.

¶ Circumstances do not make men, they discover them.

People who talk too much don't realize it until the next day.

¶ A promising young man is in great demand among his creditors.

To know others, study yourself; to know yourself, study others.

¶ Whenever you have to stop to think whether a thing is right or wrong, you may be pretty sure it is wrong.

¶ We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes that come to others.

The man who trusts to luck for his

happiness will be in luck when he gets it. ¶ There is no use working yourself to death in order to make a living.

Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury his faults. ¶ Some men are so stingy that they won't even laugh at their own expense.

Men who never had any advantages in youth are the quickest to take them when older.

It is surprising how much trouble some people can stand before it gets to them.

A man who repeats everything he hears, after a while doesn't hear anything worth repeating.