ner, and these, with the exception of a space at the top, are completely covered with sheets of canvas laced together.

Inside the tent, suspended by wires from each pole, is slung a wire grating eighteen inches above the ground, and on this the firewood is placed, so that ere long a merry blaze is started; and the swinging fire, fed with air from every direction, soon makes the tent interior warm and cozy, even though it may be zero weather outside.

The smoke escapes through the aperture at the top of the tent. In order to prevent any draught entering, and to increase the warmth of the interior, the deep snow is heaped up outside the tent and pressed against the sides.

Just before the icy, northern dawn the men are called forth with bugles, and it is well worth seeing when a whole regiment of men stoop to fasten on their ski. The thing is done in a moment, and the men lined up as if by magic waiting for orders. Sometimes, if the maneuvers are very near Christiania, one may see a large party of men suddenly shoulder their strange and apparently cumbersome footgear and march down to the palace over a hard road, on which it would not be possible to use the ski to advantage.

As is the case with the Alpine troops of Italy, France, and Switzerland, there are sham battles between the armies of the snows. A whole country-side may be attacked and defended, and often enough heavy field guns are brought into action, on which occasion deep tracks must be dug out of the snow to allow of the guns being placed in position. The gunners are directed in

action by an officer, who may be watching the operations almost up to his middle in snow.

Parties of sharpshooters go gliding here and there over the treacherous snow-crust; and the weird, unearthly-looking, silent landscape is suddenly torn, as it were, by the sharp volleying of musketry and the roar of field guns. It is an inspiring sight to see one side trying to maneuver for a better position than the enemy's, and the officers do not spare themselves, but work, if possible, even harder than the men.

One may often see a party of officers at lunch or dinner out in the open air in the deep snow,

troops are engaged in cross-country maneuvers, it is doubtful whether they will do more than five miles an hour. Of course, in races, scouting competitions, and the like some of the best infantrymen, lightly clad and under special conditions of snow and weather, have done as much as eight and one-half and nine miles an hour. The record long-distance military ski-runner is a Lapp, who, at Sokkmokk, in Sweden, did 137 miles in 21 hours 22 minutes, or an average of about 6 miles an hour.

Last year, a detachment of the Norwegian Guards accomplished a march of 125 miles on

ski in 7 days, an average of 17 miles a day through very difficult snow. This must be considered a very good performance, considering that they carried canvas for the tents, as well as sleeping-bags and a full supply of provisions. Moreover, the country was exceedingly difficult, and caused the men to glide up hill and down dale, ascending more than once a mountain height over 4,000 feet above sea level.

In 1903, 115 officers and men of the Swedish Norbotten Regiment, after six days' exhausting maneuvers on ski, made a forced march home of over forty-three miles in twenty hours, although

the men were extremely tired, and the snow was in a wretched condition. The great advantage of the ski, of course, is that great bodies of infantry are able

to move across а snow

buried country where those not so provided would be entirely helpless and compelled to remain idle.

Of late years ski have been put to another and very curious military use in both Sweden and Norway; for in cases where it has been found desirable for scouting parties of ski-ers to make high speed, horses

the men along. This "ski-driving," as it is called, is only practicable, however, on roadways beaten down, or else on very compact snow with a solid crust. Otherwise the horse cannot pass, or is greatly impeded. Under favorable conditions, however, two, four, or six scouts will glide along with curious effect behind a galloping horse, going ten miles an hour.

Much amusement was created in Christiania, last season, when the " daughter of a regiment," -the little daughter of an infantry colonel, followed the troops upon ski, drawn merrily along by her own pet bulldog.

Much difficulty is experienced in Norway and Sweden in the matter of transport and the carry. ing of field guns and wheeled vehicles across snowclad ground. It seems that no satisfactory solution of this problem has yet been found, although it is a serious military matter, for infantry on ski cannot be supported by artillery unless kept in close touch with the highways. Nor can food, clothing, or ammunition be dispatched to troops in remote regions, except in small quantities.

At present field artillery is transported bodily on sledges, so as to follow the army on ski; and the doctors, with their assistants, accompany the regiments with "first aid" necessaries, and ambulance sleds mounted on ski runners. It is a curious sight during the maneuvers to see prostrate "wounded " men being hauled swiftly over the frozen wastes to the nearest military post or camp.

The medical officers who haul these ambulance sleds are furnished with snowshoes instead of ski, for it has been found that these enable them to drag the sled more evenly and with less risk to the sick or wounded. It should be borne in mind that while ski, for speed and comfort, are the superior of the two, they are in certain conditions more awkward to manage and give less reliable foothold and grip on the surface than snowshoes. Mounted on these latter, the ambulance men can haul the wounded up the steepest slopes without any risk of the sled and its helpless burden breaking away and slipping down a precipitous incline.

IN

N one of the old States of the Union there is a curious conjunction of long-settled con'ditions with wilderness and frontier. Maine was one of the earliest regions to attract immigration from the older parts of New England. The movement set in shortly after the Revolutionary War. Maine was then a Massachusetts province. But in recent years it has had a name for emigration rather than immigration. Three hundred thousand natives of Maine are said to be living in other parts of the United States. Nevertheless, something has offset this tendency. Maine lost population in the decade from 1860 to 1870, doubtless an effect of the Civil War. Since then the State, as a whole, has steadily grown. In the new West we see the wilderness developing, rich virgin lands coming under cultivation, busy new cities humming with industry. In this old New England State we have the same phenomena. It is the fruit of railway enterprise; the building of new lines into the waste places; the development of natural resources, agriculture, timber-supply, water-power, the creation of industries where Nature calls for them because the chief raw material is at hand.

Maine's magnificent wilderness,-woods and

rivers, hills, lakes, and clear-running streams,is a great natural playground for the country at large. But these things mean more than play, -they mean great industrial possibilities under modern conditions. More than five thousand rivers and streams, with more than fifteen hundred lakes for their reservoirs, stand for vast possibilities in the way of power.

THE POTATOES OF AROOSTOOK.

In this long-settled State there is still in its northern part something like four thousand square miles almost unimproved and uninhabited, -more than two million five hundred and sixty thousand acres unutilized. This is called the most extensive virgin field for development on the Atlantic slope. Fifteen years ago, north of a line drawn something like midway across the State from west to east by the Maine Central and the Canadian Pacific systems, only thirty or forty miles of railway had been built. A great part of this territory is in Aroostook County. It had already been shown that the agricultural possibilities here were great, for soil and climate made it one of the best potato-growing regions in the world. But capitalists were incredulous as to a primitive wilderness in the

near-by East. At last local. capital had the courage to build the Bangor & Aroostook Railway. It paid handsomely from the start. It is now the most important independent railway system in New England. It has two trunk lines extending to the Canadian frontier, and numerous major and minor branches reaching out for the traffic offered at advantageous points, nearly five hundred miles of railway built through a new country as alive, wideawake, and full of energy as any hustling Western region. Over ten million bushels of potatoes were shipped in 1904. The great Aroostook potato fields are

ing expanses of dark verdure often extend as far as the eye can reach, a strange spectacle in a region where one instinctively looks for unbroken forest. Aroostook farmers are rich, -their houses, often architecturally tasteful, like first-class suburban homes, have all the modern conveniences, including electric lights.

MAINE'S TIMBER RESOURCES.

Lumber is here a traffic resource even greater than the potato. Diversé lumber industries are springing up everywhere. The building of the railway increased average land values 250 per cent. Timber lately worthless is proving of value. For example,-two calamitous fires devastated. vast tracts many years ago. The conifers were exterminated, and the land grew up to birch, despised, though magnificent in size. But spools are made from birch, and a great business in converting the timber into spool-bars has developed. These are exported by the steamer-load to be worked up in Scotland for the great thread mills. Rock-maple, once merely good firewood, is now in great demand for last-blocks.

The rivers and streams, and even the brooks, are practically railway branches in the Maine wilderness. Upon them float the logs for lumber-making or for wood-pulp. Wood-pulp and paper represent the greatest modern industrial development in Maine. The chief raw material

is close at hand; the spruce and poplar logs are floated down the water courses to the very gates of the mills. These transportation routes also

supply the water-power. In its colossal scale this industry illustrates the economies possible under huge operations. Investments of millions are demanded before one of these great concerns can start work. Under one direction are the manufacturing operations and all the various. subsidiary activities, the control and regulation of streams for water-power and the transportation of logs; great masonry dams for power purposes, and other dams to raise the level of the lakes that, serving as reservoirs, prevent a power famine in dry months; the ownership of the forests to assure a source of raw material.

WOOD-PULP AND FORESTRY.

There is a common impression that the woodpulp industry is one of the greatest menaces to our forests. This is widely believed to be devastating the woodlands to meet the insatiable demand for paper. The contrary is actually the case. Among the best guarantees for the perpetuity of the forests are the enlightened policies adopted in recent times by this industry. A leading paper manufacturer said to the writer :

We would be veritable fools if we went to work and destroyed the very fountain-head of our industry. We have invested millions in our plant of substantial buildings, costly machinery, big dams, and turbines. If we should destroy our source of supply our plant would be worthless. After a few years we should have to abandon it and move elsewhere for another supply. This would bankrupt us. So from the very start we make our calculations to assure permanence. Our mill needs a tremendous water-supply, both for power purposes