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Latin-American Commerce.-The statistics of the foreign commerce of the Latin-American republics show a remarkable contrast in the relative positions of Great Britain and the United States regarding such commerce. The United States buys much from Latin America, but sells comparatively little there. With regard to Great Britain, the reverse is true. The following table shows both the export and import trade of the United States and Great Britain with Latin America:

BRITISH AND AMERICAN TRADE WITH LATIN AMERICA.
Exports to Imports Exports to Imports
U. S. from U. S. G. B. from G. B.

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Total.

$140,239,421 $67,197,100 $85,151,061 $117,122,245

Book Production.-The following is an analytical table showing the number and kinds of books published in the United States during 1894 and 1895:

BOOK PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES.

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Unexplored Territory of the Earth.-The follow.

ing statistics regarding the portions of the earth still remaining unexplored, were presented by Mr. Logan Lobley before the recent Geographical Congress in London, Eng.:

"To-day, outside of the polar regions, all the seas have been explored, but this is far from being the case with the land. An immense extent is entirely unknown to us; another, still more considerable, has been only imperfectly explored; travellers have traversed it, commerce has exploited some of its products, but good maps of it do not exist. Finally, only the least part is well known, geodesy has covered it with a network of triangles, and the maps of it are complete even from a topographical standpoint. *

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"After the Arctic and Antarctic regions, which have remained inaccessible up to the present time, Africa is the part of the world that is least known to us, notwithstanding the admirable explorations made in this century, which are daily clearing up the map.

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"After Africa, Australia offers the vastest field to the investigations of explorers; we must remember that even its seacoast was not fully explored till 1843. Since that time, at the price of great suffering, it has been crossed from south to north; but no traveller has yet traversed it from east to west.

"In the two Americas, except the extreme northern and southern parts, the continent is known; nevertheless the whole central region of South America, though in great part explored for commercial purposes (for mines, wood, caoutchouc, etc.), is not exactly mapped.

To sum up, the yet unexplored parts of the globe cover an area of about 20,000,000 square miles, approximately divided thus:

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The St. Louis Cyclone.-An unparalleled series of cyclones and devastating storms ravaged numerous states in the Mississippi valley during the latter part of May. One of the fiercest cyclones ever known in the West brought great disaster upon the city of St. Louis, Mo., on the afternoon of May 27. It was the second time within the present generation that the city had been visited in the same way, the earlier instance being on March 8, 1872; but the recent storm surpassed all others in destruction of life and property, being comparable in that respect to no other disaster since the great Johnstown (Penn.) flood in 1889.

The only premonitory sign of the impending disaster was the oppressive heat which prevailed. It appears that two storms approached the city from different directions, which, on meeting, developed the cyclone. The full cyclonic effect was not felt at first, but was preceded by a violent wind storm, which burst upon the city about 5 P. M., and within ten minutes was sweeping over the whole city at the rate of eighty miles an hour. This was succeeded by a heavy deluge of rain, accompanied by vivid flashes of lightning, in the midst of which the cyclone developed in the southwestern suburbs, and cut a wide swath of destruction through the city. The darkness of midnight reigned. Crossing the Mississippi in the neighborhood of the Eads bridge, the upper works of which were badly wrecked, the cyclone laid low a large part of East St. Louis, and demolished a vast amount of shipping and also a long stretch of warehouse property that was standing on the river front. For a distance of at least five miles through the heart of the city, beginning at the Mississippi river and ending just beyond the fashionable region known as Compton Hill, there was not a square in which a house was not damaged. This remarkable path was from five blocks to three-quarters of a mile in width.

From St. Louis the tornado swept through Illinois and Indiana, and at the same time great damage was done by severe storms throughout Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa. While the greater part of the destruction was among the poorer quarters, where the houses were less strongly built, there was also considerable loss of the stronger buildings. The churches suffered heavily.

The property loss is estimated by architects and insurance experts at from $22,000,000 to $50,000,000 for St. Louis, and half as much for East St. Louis. The fatalities are estimated at about 388 in St. Louis and East St. Louis, with about 100 in the country districts ravaged by the storm. The injured in St. Louis were about 1,000; in East St. Louis, about 300.

A joint resolution was passed in congress and approved by the president, May 28, authorizing the secretary of war to loan tents and extend such other relief to sufferers as he might deem necessary. Miss Helen M. Gould subscribed $100,000 to a relief fund, and numerous other contributions poured in from various parts of the country.

Other Storms.-On April 25 a tornado in Clay county, Kan., killed eight and injured seventeen persons.-On May 15 Grayson and Denton counties, Texas, were ravaged by a tornado which destroyed a million dollars' worth of property and about 100 lives. The city of Sherman suffered most severely.-On May 16 and 17 terrific storms wrought destruction to life and property in various parts of Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Illinois, notably at Seneca and Frankfort, Kan.-On May 24 a tornado ravaged parts of Polk and Jasper counties, Iowa. About half the buildings in Valeria, a town of 600 people, were blown down, about fifteen persons being killed. At Bon Durant four were killed; at Santiago, three; at Mingo, two. On the evening of May 25 a tornado swept over portions of the counties of Oakland, Lapeer, and Macomb, in Michigan. Its path was half a mile wide and sixteen miles long. About forty persons were killed outright and as many injured, the

worst of the storm being felt at Ortonville, Oakwood, and Thomas.-On May 29 about twenty lives were lost as the result of a tornado accompanied by a cloudburst at Seneca, Mo.-Wyeth City, Marshal county, Ala., was wrecked by a tornado, June 9, with six fatalities.

Miscellaneous.-On May 4 a five-story brick structure on Walnut street, just south of Fifth, Cincinnati, O., collapsed, causing about fifteen deaths.

A similar disaster occurred in Buffalo, N. Y., May 21, when a portion of the Brown building, Seneca street, collapsed, killing four persons and injuring about a dozen. The supports of the building had been weakened in the course of operations for remodelling. A coroner's jury censured not only the owners of the building, Brown Bros., bankers, of New York city, besides their Buffalo agents and the contractor for the pending alterations, but censured also the city Bureau of Buildings for insufficient methods of care and inspection in regard to plans submitted for the work.

Eleven lives were lost by a boiler explosion on the towboat Harry Brown on the Mississippi about twenty-five miles below Vicksburg, on May 10.

The capsizing of the ferryboat Katherine at Cairo, Ill., May 26, caused eleven deaths by drowning.

On June 7 a loaded trolley car of the Nassau Electric Railway Company, Brooklyn, N. Y., ran away down the steep hill at 39th street. It left the tracks at 3d avenue, and was wrecked. One person was killed outright, and nearly a score more or less seriously injured. The accident is supposed to have been caused by two mischievous boys who pulled the trolley pole from the wire. Also the brake gave way at the critical moment.

One of the most terrible of mining disasters occurred June 28 at the Twin Shaft in Pittston, Penn., where a cavein imprisoned about 100 men beyond all probable hope of

rescue.

On June 29 the choirmaster and four of the choir boys of St. John's Episcopal church, Charlestown, Mass., were drowned in Lake Massapoag, near Sharon, Mass., through the accidental capsizing of their boat.

On April 29, for the second time, a large part of the business portion of Cripple Creek, Colo., was burned, the fire being presumably of incendiary origin. Loss, about $2,000,000, covered by insurance." Three deaths were

caused.

On June 11 over 100 horses were lost in the burning of.

the American Horse Exchange, New York city. Total loss, about $300,000.

Foreign:

At about midnight on June 16, the British steamer Drummond Castle, which sailed from Table Bay, Cape Colony, for London, Eng., May 28, with 143 passengers and a crew of 104 men, struck a reef near Ushant on the coast of France, and sank before any of the boats could be lowered. There was a slight fog at the time, and the vessel was a little out of her bearings. Two sailors and one passenger, who were picked up by fishermen some hours later, were the sole survivors.

The ship was an iron screw steamer of 2,352 tons' register; 365 feet long; built at Glasgow, Scotland, in 1881; and owned by D. Currie & Company of London.

About June 18 shocks of earthquake, accompanied by a tidal wave, wrought immense destruction of life and property in northern Japan. In twenty-four hours there are said to have been 150 shocks; and estimates of the number of people drowned by the tidal wave range from 10,000 to 30,000.

Earthquake shocks, followed by floods, destroyed Puerto Viejo, capital of the province of Manabi in Ecuador, May 7. Manta, on the coast, and other points also suffered severely. -An earthquake in the province of Arequipa, Peru, June 14, is also said to have caused great loss of life.

On June 30 sixty persons were drowned in the Red sea by the sinking of the Red Star steamer Rahmanich, which broke her shaft and drifted on a reef.

During a fire in an arsenal near Fort Moselle, in the vicinity of Metz, Lorraine, an explosion occurred June 30, killing about forty and injuring about 100 men.

For an account of the disaster in the Khodynski plain, Moscow, during the coronation festivities of the czar, see under "Russia" (p. 443).

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Science:

LITERATURE.

James Clerk Maxwell and Modern Physics. By R. T. Glazebrook, F. R. S. With a portrait. The Century Science series. 224 pp. Indexed. 12mo. $1.25. New York: Macmillan & Co.

The author worked under Professor Maxwell at Cambridge. The

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