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THE MISSOURI STATE BUILDING.

the Louisiana Purchase was the most important event in our whole history. It has a region greater by 3,000 square miles than the entire area of the Federal Union in 1803. The thirteen States and two Territories since carved out of the purchase contain the homes of over 17;000,000 prosperous people,-nearly one-fourth the population of the United States. This territory extended the boundaries of the United States to the Pacific Coast, thereby giving to the new Republic a continental domain from ocean to ocean, and making it impossible for any other nation to obtain a dangerous foothold upon the continent. It also secured for us the great Mississippi River and its tributaries.

THE THIRD GREAT AMERICAN EXPOSITION.

It will be the third great American exposition, for, up to the present time, we have had no truly American exhibitions except the Philadelphia Centennial, held in 1876, and the

Chicago World's Fair, held in 1893. There have been so many local exhibitions held in the last few years that many people are coming to look with disfavor upon enterprises of this kind. But the exhibition at St. Louis will rise above all local features, and will assume a dignity and character that must commend itself to the people of this country and of the whole world. It is certain that there will be assembled at St. Louis a greater and more varied exhibit from all parts of the world than has ever heretofore been brought together.

THE SITE OF THE EXPOSITION.

The site of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition will make possible a grander spectacle in architectural and scenic effects than even the Chicago Exposition of 1903. The grounds will embrace about 1,200 acres. The principal buildings, including the Government building and the foreign buildings, are located on the west half of Forest Reserve Park, a beautifully diversified piece of woodland. Ten of the most distinguished architects in the country have been working on the general design. The large architectural plan is severely classic, with modern adaptation.

DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF THE EXPOSITION.

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rope, and hauled down ingloriously by a windlass; but here, for the first time, fleets of soaring yachts will beat the air with untrammeled wings. There will be an airship tournament, with a prize of $100,000 for the winner, and other prizes, aggregating $100,000 more, for less successful competitors. An enormous number of candidates and varieties of flying machines have responded to the invitation. The two great schools of aëronauts,--the advocates of the aëroplane, and of the dirigible balloon,-will be represented by their most distinguished leaders, Sir Hiram Maxim and M. Santos-Dumont."

Another feature of the St. Louis fair will be the emphasis placed on processes of manufacture, rather than finished products. "In other words, instead of being a collection of showcases, it will be an industrial city in actual operation."

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THE LATEST TYPE OF HOE PRESS.

are the perfected conceptions of the three Robert Hoes.

It

This marvelous piece of mechanism uses up 120 miles of white paper every hour it runs. prints, cuts, pastes, folds, counts, and delivers 180,000 eight-page newspapers an hour-3,000 a minute, 50 a second. Even this machine, baffling to the imagination, does not, in Mr. Hoe's belief, reach the limit of progress in this mechanical field. He thinks a new chapter in the history of printing is beginning, in the application of the rapid rotary system to bookwork and other fine printing. There will be rapid progress, too, in color printing; although his presses already give as many as eleven separate impressions or colors on a single copy of a paper, and can be made to produce magazine forms,-delivered, folded, cut, and automatically wire-stitched,-with all the pages printed in color or half-tones.

The first Robert Hoe came to New York from England in 1803, when he was eighteen years old. In a little shop in Maiden Lane he began building hand presses, and, in the course of a score of years, became an important press builder. Then the iron age reached the printing press, and, from that time on, its evolution was rapid. The first Robert Hoe, and his two sons, made one invention after the other in improving their presses, and some of their machines made in the first half of the last century are actually in use in small job offices to-day.

The present Robert Hoe was born in 1839, and identified himself, as soon as he was old enough to work, with the great industry of his

family. For forty years he has devoted himself to the improvement of printing presses, and his name is as familiar in every town where English is spoken as in New York City.

When Mr. Hoe gets an idea that something should 'be done by machinery which has hitherto been done by hand, he has one of his sixty draughtsmen outline on paper the first part of his conception, and this is turned over to a specialist in the factory to develop. The next part is then taken up in the same way, and so on. If any difficulties arise, a general conclave of experts is held until the problem is solved. Then the idea is patented, and becomes a part

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of the Hoe printing press. The Hoe printing press works in New York cover some fifteen acres of floor space, and there is another establishment in London of nearly half this size.

ENGLAND'S GREATEST SURGEON.

EVERY one is interested in the career and

life of the man who saved King Edward's life so recently. In the Woman at Home for October, Sarah A. Tooley praises the great surgeon, and indeed it would be hard to write of him without launching into praise. Sir Frederick Treves is one of the youngest great surgeons, and he is one of the best beloved by his colleagues, his students, and his patients. All who have been under the care of Sir Frederick, or who have met him in every-day life, will endorse all the writer has said in her article.

"He lives a simple life of hard work, rising at 5 o'clock in the morning and usually retiring about 10. His recreations are principally of the aquatic kind. He is an expert swimmer, can manage almost any kind of water craft, and holds a pilot's certificate. He is an enthusiast for boat sailing and sea-fishing, and is never happier and more at home than on a yacht. The King had in him an ideal medical attendant, who could enter fully into his Majesty's anxiety to escape from Buckingham Palace to the sea breezes of the Solent. Yachting is Sir Frederick's own remedy for jaded nerves. Philanthropics connected with the deep-sea fishermen find a very warm advocate in Sir Frederick, as also the children's country-holiday scheme, and he has advanced both causes by public speeches on various occasions. For close upon thirty years has Sir Frederick been familiar with the life of East London, and few know better than he the somber shadows of pain and distress which darken its people. Hospital wards are full of the tragedies of human life, and no one has a more compassionate heart for the suffering poor than the great surgeon who has ministered to them.

"He was born at Dorchester, in 1853, and is consequently in the very prime of his manhood. He received his education at the Merchant Tailors' School, and having decided to become a doctor, pursued his studies at the London Hospital. He was a young man of life and energy, fond of sports of all kinds, and particularly of boating and sailing. Although brilliantly clever, there is a rumor that young Treves was fonder of pleasure than work in his early student days. Suddenly, however, he began to take things more seriously, and gave undoubted evidence of future greatness. At twenty-eight he was ap

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wonderful success, there having been only two deaths among his patients.

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At the outbreak of the South African War Sir Frederick volunteered for service, and was appointed consulting surgeon to the field forces in Natal, leaving his beloved work at the London Hospital and his consulting practice in Wimpole Street to administer to Tommy on the battlefield. He was with the main column from Colenso to Ladysmith, and did a great amount of splendid surgery, and also found time to set down some observations of the scenes around him in his Tale of a Field Hospital,' which, for delicate humor and pathos, descriptive. power, and for tender sympathy with the wounded soldier, has no equal in the literature which the war called forth.

"Sir Frederick Treves is probably the most

popular surgeon of the day, and belongs to the generation of practitioners who are carrying to such wonderful perfection the advanced surgery of the internal abdominal organs which has been rendered possible by Lord Lister's antiseptic treatment. He, like the veteran surgeon, has worked with persistent enthusiasm to gain extended knowledge in his art, and stands unrivalled in the class of surgery which the King's case required. The one ambition of every budding young surgeon is to see Treves operate, and the corridors of the London Hospital are thronged with eager faces at every such opportunity. . . . He has had enough hero-worship and success to spoil him, but knows too much of the possibilities of increased knowledge to be unduly affected by adulation on account of present achievements."

LIEUTENANT PEARY'S ARCTIC WORK.

LIEUTENANT

PEARY'S recent return from his last Arctic campaign has occasioned a renewal of interest in his achieve. ments in the far North. His official reportdated Sydney, September 7,-is an exceedingly modest statement, covering his work during the past year. It appears in the National Geographic Magazine for October, followed by a brief summary of Lieutenant Peary's explorations during the past twelve years, which runs as follows:

"The results of his long labors in the far North are most important. He has proved Greenland an island, and mapped its northern coast line; he has defined and mapped the islands to the north of Greenland, known as the Greenland Archipelago; he has shown that an ice-covered Arctic ocean probably extends from the Greenland Archipelago to the North Pole; he has accurately defined the lands opposite the northwestern coast of Greenland— Grant Land, Grinnell Land, and Ellesmereland ; he has reached the most northerly known-land in the world; he has gained the most northerly point yet reached on the Western Hemisphere, 85° 17'; he has studied the Eskimo as only one can who has lived with them for years; he has added much to our knowledge of Arctic fauna and flora, of the musk ox, the Arctic hare, and the deer; the notes he has made during the past years will benefit meteorology and geology all these are some of Lieutenant Peary's achievements during the twelve years he has so valiantly battled in the far North. But, above all, Mr. Peary has given the world a notable example of a brave and modest man who, in spite of broken limbs and most terrible physical suffering and financial discouragements, has unflinchingly

forced to a successful end that which he had decided to accomplish.

"To Mrs. Peary, the able seconder of her husband's plans, and to Mr. H. L. Bridgman, the efficient secretary of the Peary Arctic Club. and the loyal members of that club, much credit is due."

THE DANGERS OF THE ALPS.

IT is stated on good authority that the Alpine death-roll is not so serious as is commonly imagined. Mr. Harold Spender, writing on this subject in the Pall Mall Magazine, says that the causes of accident are far more often rashness, such as trusting to luck that a possible avalanche will not overwhelm you, snowstorms, and even lightning.

"The stock generalizations about guideless climbing are quite beside the mark, and this practice is now confined, in Switzerland, to a small number of men who are for the most part better than any guides. The best guides themselves are no more infallible than any other skilled mountaineer, while the worst are very much more dangerous than none at all."

The three most serious catastrophes this year were all due to the weather, a snowstorm, an avalanche, and lightning. The parties had plenty interesting detailed accounts of Alpine accidents, of guides. Mr. Spender gives a number of very

from which the only conclusion is that a little more care, a little more prudence, would have avoided all, or nearly all. A Swiss doctor at Berne has made a full list of all Alpine accidents, from 1890-1901:

In all, the deaths numbered 305, of whom 218 were tourists, 73 guides, and 14 porters. Taking these fig ures of nationalities, we get the following result :

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THE FRENCH COAL MINES. RENCH workmen have been quite as active, if not as persistent, of late, in their efforts for progress as their American brethren. The coal miners, in particular, are now engrossing a large share of the public attention on account of the trouble in the Loire mining region. The dominant idea gleaned from M. Benoit's "Coal Mines" in the Revue des Deux Mondes is the great dissimilarity existing between French and American mining methods and conditions, and the difficulty of making a serious comparison between them.

The rule in regard to wages is that men actually engaged in the tunneling of passages and the coal digging are paid by the piece (the piece. being either the quantity of coal extracted, or the meter of advancement made in the tunneled gallery), and that those employed for the repairing are paid by the day, as a general thing, though they are paid by the piece if the work is regular and of considerable duration. On the whole, in the determination of the wages, a wide margin is left for the 'will, intelligence, and industry of the individual miner; no uniform price being given indifferently to all as purchaseprice of a certain amount of brute force. fines imposed are rather heavy in proportion to the wages; but the heaviest ones only apply to cases where the common safety of the underground workmen is concerned; and the profit of all fines invariably goes to the aid-fund for the disabled and superannuated.

The

No miner can be discharged without a fifteen days' notice unless he insult his superiors, or forcibly interfere with his comrades. The first exception may seem much too vague and allow too much scope for arbitrary dealings; but, as the engineer only has power to discharge, the miner is safeguarded against the anger or hastiness of subordinate officials.

M. Benoist's investigations have led him to a favorable conclusion as to the way in which the fines and severer penalties are administered. He tells an anecdote about a miner who had been transferred as a punishment to a less productive and more arduous vein: "I happened to meet him after his return, and he spoke of his exile as of Siberia; but, with the confiding candor which is one of the characteristics of his class when not influenced by the politician, he gaily told us he had been convicted for theft. 'You didn't steal, did you?' asked the engineer who accompanied me. His whole face twinkling with mirth, the man slyly replied, Oh, certainly I didn't!' Such perfect resignation is surely a sign that the justice is without injustice, and even the severity not excessive."

"Comparing past wages with present, though statistical comparisons are as misleading historically as geographically, in time as in space,—the increase is certain; and in this, as in the reduction of the working hours, and in the mitigation of hardships, there is a material betterment of the miner's condition. . . It must be conceded, however, that (although the average wages in the coal mines are not bad, as compared with other industries), from diverse causes-some exterior and beyond his control, others intimate and personal-the average miner is generally on the debit rather than the credit side. And this is true, notwithstanding the gratuitous allowance of coal; the possibilities of additional revenue from small accessory occupations; and the opportunities for economy afforded in many districts for those who wish to profit by them. Yet the very great majority, if not all of the miners, have debts, or, at most, have saved nothing."

This dismal outlook is perceptibly brightened by the citing of incidents like the following. When questioned as to his daily earnings, a miner answered, "About seven francs." And, while complaining that because of his large family he could not take a holiday, he did not seem discontented with the pay in itself; his good-natured grumblings were directed against life rather than against his trade.

But

"Why the miner generally saves nothing, on the contrary getting into debt, whether it is the pay which is too small for the living which is too dear, or whether it is he who is incapable of adjusting his living to his pay,—is the social and moral question combined for the miner. social facts, even when one is prudent or presumptuous enough to limit their application to a single domain, are of such great abundance, richness, and complicity, that it is beyond our power to embrace them as a whole-to grasp and to present the ensemble. Let us be contented with this makeshift. As regards labor in the coal mines, we can conclude that the work is divided there into a quantity of professional categories, or specialties, entailing as many dif ferent treatments and conditions; that miners above fifty-five years of age are rare, and that the working population is migratory; the working hours are shorter than in other similar industries, and the hardships less than in the mines of former times; and moreover, that these working hours are shorter and the pay better in the great mines than in the medium or small ones; and that the scale of wages cannot be considered as low, in any event, having doubled, and more than tripled, since the end of the eighteenth century.'

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