beginning on August 4, the Eastern states suffered from extremely hot weather, the visitation being the longest and most destructive of the kind in their history. The records of the United States weather bureau in New York city show that the general average of temperature had never before been approached in any August during twentysix years. The following table shows the temperature readings during continuance of the hot wave:

The list of fatalities from prostration was unprecedented. During the week ended August 15, as shown by the report of Dr. R. S. Tracy, register of vital statistics, there were 1,810 deaths in the city, of which 552 were of children under five years, and 651 were due to sunstroke. The daily record was as follows:

It is estimated that as many as 1,500 horses also perished, those on the street-car lines suffering most severely.

Active efforts were made by the municipal authorities in both New York and Brooklyn to relieve the distress. The hours of laborers on public works were shortened; the parks were thrown open at night to those who might wish to sleep there; many of the streets were systematically flushed with water from the hydrants; and immense quantities of ice were purchased and distributed to the poor through the agency of the police.

In New York the humidity of the atmosphere rose to 93 per cent of full saturation, and the average humidity taken at 8 A. M. and 8 P. M. was 73 per cent. This, com

bined with the fact that the people were unaccustomed to endure so long-continued a strain, was probably the chief cause of the long list of fatalities. In sections, as, for example, Arizona, where the atmosphere is extremely dry, facilitating rapid evaporation of perspiration and thereby bringing instant and cooling relief to the overheated system, a temperature of 110 or 115 degrees is not uncommonly endured with immunity to danger.

Singularly enough this year had also already brought heat waves of unprecedented power and duration to Europe and Australia (p. 223). This is probably more than a coincidence, but science has yet to seek its explanation. Transcontinental Bicycle Relay.-The greatest feat of the kind ever attempted was the cross-continent bicycle relay race organized by the San Francisco (Cal.) Examiner and the New York Journal, aided by the cooperation of the war and postoffice departments and the railroad systems extending along the route traversed.

On August 25, at noon, a war message from the commandant at the Presidio, a military post at San Francisco, together with a postoffice dispatch, was intrusted to the relay, for transmission to General Ruger, in command at Governor's Island, N. Y. The route of 3,400 miles had been divided into 220 relays, averaging about 15 miles in length. Two riders covered each section to provide against delay in case of disabling accident to one. The Stearns Company of Syracuse, N. Y., furnished 400 wheels for the race.

On September 7 the race ended in the successful delivery of the package at New York: time consumed, 13 days 29 minutes 4 1-5 seconds; average speed, about 11 miles an hour. Next day the package was conveyed across the harbor to Governor's Island by a unique relay of two water cyclists.

A Negro Poet.-In Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the critics tell us, the African race has for the first time produced a poet of real artistic genius and true sympathy with the ideals and traditions of his people. He is said to be a full-blooded negro, born of slave parents; and until recently had been working as an elevator boy in Dayton, Ohio. His poems, which are mostly written in the dialect of his people, had appeared at times in magazines; but it is now announced that they will shortly be published in a volume to which Mr. W. D. Howells has written an introduction. Of Mr. Dunbar's work, Mr. Howells speaks as follows:

"What struck me in reading Mr. Dunbar's poetry was what had already struck his friends in Ohio and Indiana, in Kentucky and Illinois. They had felt as I felt, that, however gifted his race had

proven itself in music, in oratory, in several other arts, here was the first instance of an American negro who had evinced innate literature. In my criticism of his book I had alleged Dumas in France, and had forgotten to allege the far greater Pushkin in Russia; but these were both mulattoes, who might have been supposed to derive their qualities from white blood vastly more artistic than ours, and who were the creatures of an environment more favorable to their literary development. So far as I could remember, Paul Dunbar was the only man of pure African blood and American civilization to feel the negro life æsthetically and express it lyrically. It seemed to me that this had come to its most modern consciousness in him, and that his brilliant and unique achievement was to have studied the American negro objectively, and to have represented him as he found him to be, with humor, with sympathy, and yet with what the reader must instinctively feel to be entire truthfulness. I said that a race which had come to this effect in any member of it had attained civilization in him; and I permitted myself the imaginative prophecy that the hostilities and the prejudices which had so long constrained his race were destined to vanish in the arts; that these were to be the final proof that God had made of one blood all nations of men. I thought his merits positive and not comparative; and I held that if his black poems had been written by a white man I should not have found them less admirable. I accepted them as an evidence of the essential unity of the human race, which does not think or feel black in one and white in another, but humanly in all."

Miscellaneous.-On Wednesday, July 22, the centennial of the founding of the city of Cleveland, O., was celebrated with enthusiasm and appropriate ceremony. The occasion was marked by a gift to the people of Cleveland, from Mr. John D. Rockefeller, of 276 acres of land for park purposes, valued at about $600,000. The press of the city and of other sections of the country took occasion to review at length the interesting history of the development of Cleveland, which, in rapid growth of population, in mercantile and industrial enterprise, and in all other evidences of healthy and vigorous life, stands in the front rank among the great centres of population which dot the American commonwealth.

On August 11 the centennial of the evacuation of Fort Niagara by the British troops was celebrated at the old fort grounds with appropriate ceremonies, including the reading of a patriotic poem by Joseph O'Connor, editor of the Buffalo Enquirer, an historical address by Frank H. Severance, editor of the Buffalo Illustrated Express, and an address by Lieutenant-Governor Saxton.

On July 21 the farm of John Brown, which was the home of the hero during the last ten years of his life, and on which he lies buried, near Lake Placid, N. Y., was formally accepted by the state of New York, to which the property had recently been deeded by the John Brown

Association. The occasion was also marked by the unveiling of a monument erected by the association, and the raising of a United States flag presented by State Excise Commissioner Lyman.

On August the American Line steamer St. Louis lowered the record from Southampton, Eng., to New York to 6 days 2 hours 24 minutes; but this record was lowered nearly two hours by her sister ship, the St. Paul, on August 14, which completed the western passage of 3,046.1 miles in 6 days 31 minutes, with an average speed of 21.08 knots an hour.

The remarkable feat of rowing across the Atlantic ocean was successfully accomplished by two Scandinavian. sailors named Frank Harbo and George Samuelson, who started from New York city June 6, in the rowboat Fox, and on August 1 had, without serious mishap, reached the Scilly Islands off the European coast, on their way to Havre, France.

The For is a clinker-built cedar boat, with oak timbers; is 18 feet 4 inches long and 5 feet wide; weight, 200 lbs. She has airtight compartments, and water tanks at each end. Neither masts nor sails were on board. The men pulled two pairs of oars during the day, and at night kept watches of 34 hours' interval, one man pulling while the other slept.

On September 20 the feat of swimming across the Golden Gate, at San Francisco, Cal., from shore to shore -a feat said never before to have been accomplished-was successfully performed by Charles Cavill. Owing to the strong ebb tide it took the swimmer one hour and fifteen minutes to cover the distance, which is only about one mile and a-quarter measured straight across.

A new factor in the transcontinental freight situation is the establishment, by Flint & Co., of the Pacific Clipper Line-to ply around the Horn between New York and San Francisco as often as traffic will justify.

The largest merchant steamer now afloat is the twinscrew steamer Pennsylvania of the Hamburg-American Steamship Company, launched at the Harland & Wolff shipyard, Belfast, Ireland, September 10.

The new vessel has 20,000 tons' carrying capacity. She is 558 feet long, 62 feet beam, 42 feet deep; and is designed to make an average speed of 14 knots an hour, and will also carry a limited number of passengers.

Late in September it was announced that the University of Chicago had received from Mrs. Julia Bradley of Peoria, Ill., about $2,200,000 on condition of establishing at Peoria an institution affiliated with the university.

The branch institution, it is said, will be known as the Bradley Polytechnic Institute, a portion of whose directors will be connected with the University of Chicago.

Some excitement was caused in mercantile circles in New York city, August 26, by the failure of the large department store of Hilton, Hughes & Co., successors to the business founded by the late A. T. Stewart.

CANADA.

Few accomplished changes in regard to any of the issues lately causing political commotion in the Dominion, have been recorded in the brief period that has elapsed since the formation of a liberal ministry under Hon. Wilfred Laurier in mid-July (p. 407). It is too soon to look for any. The great economic revolution of which the liberal party proclaims itself the herald, is a task which cannot be approached hastily. Beyond preliminary discussion and investigation, no action in the way of tariff reform is to be taken, at least until the winter session of parliament. And, as regards a settlement of the Manitoba school question, while it is known that negotiations between provincial and federal authorities have been continued, no authentic statement can yet be made outside of official circles as to their progress, or as to the extent of the obstacles found in the way of a fulfilment of the liberal hope of a speedy settle

ment.

The Liberal Policy. With the single exception of the school question in Manitoba, the policy of the liberal party in detail has been before the public since the Ottawa convention of June, 1893 (Vol. 3, p. 313). At that time the school question was sub judice, and neither M. Laurier nor those who framed the party's declaration of principles then adopted committed themselves to any definite statement of policy regarding it; nor has the party yet done so. But in regard to every other vital issue of Canadian politics, the attitude of the liberal leaders is clear; and, though the Manitoba school issue was undoubtedly the principal determining factor in the recent elections, M. Laurier and his colleagues regard the vote of June 23 as a mandate to them to carry out the program formulated in 1893 "in the shortest possible time. Speaking at St. John's, Que., on July 25, in behalf of M. Tarte, minister of public works, who sought election in the liberal stronghold of St. John's-Iberville, M. Laurier explained at some length the intentions of the government.