Project Gutenberg's Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899 Volume LV Author: Various Editor: William Jay Youmans Release Date: March 11, 2014 [EBook #45115] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, JUNE 1899 *** Produced by Judith Wirawan, Greg Bergquist and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Established by Edward L. Youmans APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY EDITED BY WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS VOL. LV MAY TO OCTOBER, 1899 NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1899 Copyright, 1899, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. THOMAS EGLESTON. APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. JUNE, 1899. NEW METHOD OF ESTIMATING THE AGE OF NIAGARA FALLS. By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT. Both the interest and the importance of the subject make it worth while to follow out every clew that may lead to the approximate determination of the age of Niagara Falls. During this past season, in connection with some work done for the New York Central Railroad upon their branch line which runs along the eastern face of the gorge from Bloody Run to Lewiston, I fortunately came into possession of data from which an estimate of the age of the falls can be made entirely independent of those which have heretofore been current. The bearing and importance of the new data can best be seen after a brief résumé of the efforts heretofore made to solve this important problem. Fig. 1.—Looking north from below the Whirlpool, showing the electric road at the bottom of the east side of the gorge, and the steam road descending the face about halfway to the top. In 1841 Sir Charles Lyell and the late Prof. James Hall visited the falls together; but, having no means of determining the rate of recession, except from the indefinite reports of residents and guides, they could place no great confidence in the "guess," made by Sir Charles Lyell, that it could not be more than one foot a year. As the length of the gorge from Lewiston up is about seven miles, the time required for its erosion at this rate would be thirty-five thousand years. The great authority and popularity of Lyell led the general public to put more confidence in this estimate than the distinguished authors themselves did. Mr. Bakewell, another eminent English geologist, at about the same time estimated the rate of the recession as threefold greater than Lyell and Hall had done, which would reduce the time to about eleven thousand years. But, to prepare the way for a more definite settlement of the question, the New York Geological Survey, under Professor Hall's direction, had a careful trigonometric survey of the Horseshoe Fall made in 1842, erecting monuments at the points at which their angles were taken, so that, after a sufficient lapse of time, the actual rate of recession could be more accurately determined. In 1886 Mr. Woodward, of the United States Geological Survey, made a new survey, and found that the actual amount of recession in the center of the Horseshoe Fall had proceeded at an average rate of about five feet per annum. The subject was thoroughly discussed by Drs. Pohlman and Gilbert, at the Buffalo meeting of the American Association in 1886, when it was proved, to the satisfaction of every one, that, if the supply of water had been constant throughout its history, the whole work of eroding the gorge from Lewiston to the Falls would have been accomplished, at the present rate of recession, in about seven thousand years. But the question was immediately raised, Has the supply of water in Niagara River been constant? It was my privilege, in the autumn of 1892 (see Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, vol. iv, pp. 421-427), to bring forth the first positive evidence that the water pouring over Niagara had for a time been diverted, having been turned through Lake Nipissing down the valley of the Mattawa into the Ottawa River, following nearly the line of Champlain's old trail and of the present Canadian Pacific Railroad. The correctness of this inference has been abundantly confirmed by subsequent investigations of Mr. F. B. Taylor and Dr. Robert Bell.[A] The occasion of this diversion of the drainage of the Great Lakes from the Niagara through the Ottawa Valley was the well-known northerly subsidence of the land in Canada at the close of the Glacial period. When the ice melted off from the lower part of the Ottawa Valley the land stood five hundred feet lower than it does now, but the extent of this subsidence diminished both to the south and the west, making it difficult to estimate just how great it was at the Nipissing outlet. A subsidence of one hundred feet at that point, however, would now divert the waters into the Ottawa River. That it actually was so diverted is shown both by converging high-level shore lines at the head of the Mattawa Valley and by the immense delta deposits at its junction with the Ottawa, to which attention was first called in my paper referred to above. The indeterminate question which remained was, At what rate did this postglacial elevation of land which has brought it up to its present level proceed? Dr. Gilbert, Professor Spencer, and Mr. Taylor have brought forth a variety of facts which, according to their interpretation, show that this rate of elevation was so slow that from twenty thousand to thirty thousand years was required to restore to the Niagara River its present volume of water. Their arguments are based upon the varying width and depth of the Niagara gorge, proving, as they think, the presence of a smaller amount of water during the erosion of some portions. Dr. Gilbert has also brought forward some facts concerning the extent of [Pg 146] [Pg 147] [Pg 148] supposed erosion produced by the diverted waters of Niagara when passing over an intermediate outlet between Lake Simcoe and Lake Nipissing. But the difficulty of obtaining any safe basis for calculation upon these speculative considerations has increased the desire to find a means of calculation which should be independent of the indeterminate problems involved. That I think I have found, and so have made a beginning in obtaining desired results. The new evidence lies in the extent of the enlargement of the mouth of the Niagara gorge at Lewiston since the recession of the falls began. It is evident that the oldest part of the Niagara gorge is at its mouth, at Lewiston, where the escarpment suddenly breaks down to the level of Lake Ontario. The walls of the gorge rise here to a height of three hundred and forty feet above the level of the river. It is clear that from the moment the recession of the falls began at Lewiston the walls of the gorge on either side have been subject to the action of constant disintegrating agencies, tending to enlarge the mouth and make it V-shaped. What I did last summer was to measure the exact amount of this enlargement, and to obtain an approximate estimate of the rate at which it is going on.[B] As this enlargement proceeds wholly through the action of atmospheric agencies, the conditions are constant, and it is hoped that sufficiently definite results have been obtained to set some limits to the speculations which have been made upon more indefinite grounds. Fig. 2.—View looking east across the gorge near the mouth, showing the railroads and the outcrops of Clinton and Niagara limestones above the steam road. The face on the east side of the gorge presents a series of alternate layers of hard and soft rocks, of which certain portions are very susceptible to the disintegrating agencies of the atmosphere. The summit consists of from twenty to thirty feet of compact Niagara limestone, which is underlaid by about seventy feet of Niagara shale; which in turn rests upon a compact stratum of Clinton limestone about twenty feet thick, which again is underlaid by a shaly deposit of seventy feet, resting upon a compact stratum of Medina sandstone twenty feet thick, below which a softer sandstone, that crumbles somewhat readily, extends to the level of the river. [Pg 149] Fig. 3.—Looking up the gorge from near Lewiston, showing on the left the exposed situation of the eastern face of the gorge at the extreme angle, where the measurements were made. The present width of the river at the mouth of the gorge is seven hundred and seventy feet. It is scarcely possible that the original width of the gorge was here any less than this, for in the narrowest places above, even where the Niagara limestone is much thicker than at Lewiston, it is nowhere much less than six hundred feet in width. Nor is it probable that the river has to any considerable extent enlarged its channel at the mouth of the gorge at the water level. On the contrary, it is more probable that the mouth has been somewhat contracted, for the large masses of Niagara and Clinton limestone and Medina sandstone which have fallen down as the shales were undermined have accumulated at the base as a talus, which the present current of the river is too feeble to remove. This talus of great blocks of hard stone has effectually riprapped the banks, and really encroached to some extent upon the original channel. We may therefore assume with confidence that the enlargement, under subaërial agencies, of the mouth of the gorge at the top of the escarpment has been no greater than the distance from the present water's edge to the present line of the escarpment at the summit of the Niagara limestone. This we found to be three hundred and eighty-eight feet—that is, the upper stratum of hard rock on the east side of the gorge had retreated that distance, through the action of atmospheric agencies, since the formation of the gorge first began. The accompanying photogravures and diagram will present the facts at a glance. The total work of enlargement on the east side of the gorge has been the removal of an inverted triangular section of the rock strata three hundred and forty feet high and three hundred and eighty-eight feet base, which would be the same as a rectangular section of one hundred and ninety-four feet base. From this one can readily see that if the average erosion has been at the rate of one quarter of an inch per annum, the whole amount would have fallen down in less than ten thousand years; while if the time is lengthened, as some would have it, to forty thousand years, the rate would be reduced to one sixteenth of an inch per year. Fortunately, the construction of the railroad along the face of the eastern wall of the gorge affords opportunity to study the rate of erosion during a definite period of time. The accompanying photogravures will illustrate to the eye facts which it is hard to make impressive by words alone. The course of the road is diagonally down the face of the gorge from its summit for a distance of about two miles, descending in that space about two hundred feet to the outcrop of hard quartzose Medina sandstone. The lower mile of this exposure presents the typical situation for making an estimate of the rate at which the face is crumbling away. [Pg 150] Fig. 4.—Nearer view of the upper portion of the face near the mouth, showing the exposure of the situation at that point. Beginning at what used to be known as the "Hermit's Cave," near the Catholic College grounds, where the Niagara shale is well exposed, and extending to the outer limit of the gorge, the height of the face above the railroad averages one hundred and fifty feet. Now, the crumbling away of the superincumbent cliffs gives continual trouble to the road. Three watchmen are constantly employed along this distance to remove the débris which falls down, and to give warning if more comes down than they can remove before trains are due. The seventy feet of Niagara shale, and the equal thickness of shaly Medina rock which underlies the Clinton limestone, are constantly falling off, even in fair weather, as any one can experience by walking along the bank; while after storms, and especially in the spring, when the frost is coming out, the disintegration proceeds at a much more rapid rate. Sometimes two or three days are required by the whole force of section hands to throw over the bank the result of a single fall of material. At a rate of one quarter of an inch of waste each year the amount of débris accumulating for removal on the track along this distance would be only six hundred and ten cubic yards per annum—that is, if six hundred and ten cubic yards of material falls down from one mile of the face of the wall where it is a hundred and fifty feet high, the whole amount of enlargement of the mouth of the gorge would be accomplished in less than ten thousand years. Exact accounts have not been kept by the railroad; but even a hasty examination of the face of the wall makes it sure that the actual amount removed has been greatly in excess of six hundred yards annually. This estimate is based partly on the impression of the railroad officials as to the cost of removal, and partly on the impressions of the watchmen who spend their time in keeping guard and in the work of removing it. [Pg 151] Fig. 5.—Showing extent of erosion at base of the Niagara shale since 1854. (See description in the text.) But that is not all. The accompanying photogravures indicate an actual amount of removal over a part of the area enormously in excess of the rate supposed. Fig. 5 shows a portion of the precipice, a hundred feet high, where the road first comes down to the level of the Clinton limestone, and where, consequently, the whole thickness of the Niagara shale is accessible to examination. Fortunately, Patrick MacNamara, the watchman at this station, was a workman on the road at the time of its construction in 1854, and has been connected with the road ever since, having been at his present post for twelve years. We have therefore his distinct remembrance, as well as the appearance of the bank, to inform us where the face of the original excavation then was. In the picture he is standing at the original face, while the other figure is nearly at the back of the space which has been left empty by the crumbling away of the shale. The horizontal distance is fully twenty feet, and the rocks overhang to that amount for the whole distance exposed in the photograph. All this amount of shale has fallen down in forty-four years, making a rate many times larger than the highest we have taken as the basis of our estimate. Of course, this rate for the crumbling away of the Niagara shale on its fresh exposure is much in excess of the average rate for a long period of time; but it is clear that the rate of erosion at the base of the Niagara limestone at the mouth of the gorge can never have been sufficiently slow to reduce the total average much below the assumed rate of a quarter of an inch a year. To impress the truth of this statement it is only necessary to follow the progress, in imagination, of the crumbling process which has brought the side of the gorge to its present condition. At first the face of the gorge was perpendicular, the plunging water making the gorge as wide at the bottom as at the top. At successive stages the strata of shale on the side would crumble away, as is shown in our photograph, and undermine the strata of hard rock. The large fragments would fall to the bottom, and, being too large to be carried away by the current, would form the talus to which we have already referred, which would grow in height with every successive century. The actual progress of the enlargement would thus be periodic, and not capable of measurement by decades; but after centuries the progress would be clearly marked, and especially whenever there was a falling away of the lower stratum of compact Medina sandstone, which is about two hundred feet below the top, would a new cycle of rapid disintegrations in the superincumbent strata follow. [Pg 152] [Pg 153] Fig. 6.—Section, drawn to equal vertical and horizontal scale, showing enlargement of Niagara gorge on the east side at its mouth at Lewiston: 1, Niagara limestone, 20 to 30 feet; 2, Niagara shale, 70 feet; 3, Clinton limestone, 20 to 30 feet; 4, Clinton and Medina shale, 70 feet; 5, Quartzose Medina sandstone, 20 to 30 feet; 6, softer Medina sandstone, 120 feet above water level. An important point to be noticed, and which is evident from two of the reproduced photographs (Figs. 3 and 4), is that the talus has never reached up so high as to check the disintegration at the mouth of the gorge of the Niagara shale and limestone which form the upper one hundred feet of the face, and which exhibit the maximum amount of enlargement which has taken place. The thickness of the Niagara limestone is here so small that it has not been so important an element in forming the talus as it has been farther up the stream, where it is two or three times as thick. Now, while our original supposition was that one quarter of an inch annually was eroded from the upper two hundred feet, this would involve the erosion of a half inch per annum over the top of the gorge to bring the calculation within the limit of ten thousand years. It certainly is difficult for one who examines the facts upon the ground to believe that the crumbling away of this exposed Niagara shale could have been at any less rate than that; so that the estimate of about ten thousand years for the date of that stage of the Glacial period in which Niagara River first began its work of erosion at Lewiston (an estimate which is supported by a great variety of facts independent of those relating to the Niagara gorge) is strongly confirmed by this new line of evidence. So far as I can see, the only question of serious doubt that can be raised respecting this calculation will arise from the possible supposition that, when the eastern drainage over the Niagara channel began, the land stood at such a relatively lower level as would reduce the height of the fall to about half that of the present escarpment at that point; when it might be supposed that a protecting talus had accumulated which would interrupt the lateral erosion for the indefinite period when the drainage was being drawn around by way of the recently opened Lake Nipissing and Mattawa outlet. Then, upon the resumption of the present line of drainage, with the land standing at nearly its present level, the talus may have been undercut, and so fallen down to leave the upper strata exposed as at present. But there does not seem to be sufficient warrant for such a supposition to make it necessary seriously to entertain it, while the objections to it are significant and serious. First, the present narrowness of the river at the water level is such that it does not give much opportunity for enlargement after the first formation of the gorge; secondly, the Niagara limestone at the mouth of the gorge is so thin (stated by Hall to be twenty feet thick) that it would not form a protecting talus, even at half its present height. P. S.—Since the above was written there has been reported in the papers an immense fall of rock from the east side of the gorge, near the head of the Whirlpool rapids. The estimate made of the amount is one hundred thousand tons. If that estimate is correct, it is a very impressive illustration of how the average fall of material from the side of the gorge is occasionally increased by a single instance. In making our calculations above, the total amount of material annually falling off from the portion of the side of the gorge under consideration amounted only to 1,237 tons, while the amount of material was 611 cubic yards. But the 100,000 tons which came off in a single slide a few weeks ago would be equal to twenty inches in thickness from the whole face of the cliff, where our estimate was only a quarter of an inch. N. B.—In the diagram (Fig. 6) extend the Niagara shale (2) up to occupy lower two layers of (1), thus making Niagara limestone (1) half as thick as now. [Pg 154] A piece of skin which the authors maintained to be of great antiquity and to have belonged to the extinct mylodon or ground sloth, found in a cave in Patagonia, was recently exhibited to the London Zoölogical Society by Mr. A. Smith Woodward and Dr. F. P. Moreno. ABUSE OF PUBLIC CHARITY. By BIRD S. COLER, comptroller of the city of new york. Ten per cent of all the human beings who die in New York city are buried in Potter's Field at public expense; but the records of organized charity, official and semiofficial, show that less than one per cent of the living are paupers or dependent persons. There are two explanations of the difference between the number of living poor and penniless dead. The chief one is that abuse of public charity has grown to such proportions that the city has become the Mecca of the chronic idlers and tramps of the entire country. It is easier for an industrious and shrewd professional beggar to live in luxury in New York than to exist in any other city in the world. No magic wand of ancient fable was ever more potent to unlock the gates of castle or prison than the name of charity is to open a way to the public treasury. The liberal and well-nigh indiscriminate giving of the money of the taxpayers for the relief of sickness and poverty has been commanded by law, sanctioned by custom, and approved by public opinion until the possibility of checking or reforming the abuse grows more and more remote as the burden increases and the evil results multiply. The city of New York gives annually to public charity more than $5,000,000, and contributes indirectly $2,000,000 more. Of the money raised by taxation for city purposes proper (State taxes, interest, and county expenses eliminated), almost twelve per cent is properly chargeable to relief of poverty and sickness. Of this expenditure more than $3,000,000 is paid to private institutions and societies over which the city authorities have no control or supervision. The payments are made in compliance with the provisions of acts of the State Legislature. The only provision in these laws that enables the city officers to protect the treasury from fraud is a clause under which the comptroller is permitted to verify the bills of the institutions for the care of committed persons. There is a constitutional safeguard against outright swindling of the city, in the requirement that charitable institutions shall be inspected and their bills approved by the State Board of Charities, but the system is open to many abuses where the public officers are powerless. The present comptroller of the city has found that a number of alleged charitable institutions and societies receiving money from the city apply nearly all their funds to the payment of salaries of officers and employees, while their relief work is very limited and of doubtful character. Other societies, he found upon investigation, really encourage professional beggars without in any case relieving deserving poor. A few cases were so flagrant in their abuse of public charity that the further payment of city money to the societies was refused. In one case he found that a society which claimed a board of directors and numerous officers was really managed by one person, who in one year had received $1,500 from the city and $70 from all other sources, and had expended $1,300 of the amount for salaries and $40 for the relief of the destitute. The Department of Public Charities, for the maintenance of which the sum of $1,941,215 is appropriated for the year 1899, is controlled entirely by the city. The balance of the $5,000,000 appropriated annually for the same general purpose is divided among more than two hundred societies and institutions managed by corporations or private individuals. In theory none of these private institutions is supported by the city, the municipality merely paying to them a fixed sum, which is supposed to be supplemented by private donations. In reality nine tenths of them could not exist six months without the money they receive from the public treasury. Very few of these semipublic charities have an income from all other sources equal to the appropriation from the city. The city pays for the support of a child in a private institution the sum of $110 a year, and the average allowance for the maintenance of an adult is $150. The percentage of children among the dependent persons is almost three to one, so the $5,000,000 public charity fund would feed and clothe more than forty thousand persons each year if applied directly to that purpose. In the distribution of this great sum of public money, however, fully $2,000,000 of the amount is absorbed in the payment of salaries and expenses, and therein exists an abuse of public charity so great that the present comptroller of the city some months ago appealed to the Legislature for relief in the form of legislation which would enable the local authorities to stop payments to many societies. There are numerous small institutions, some of them having the indorsement and moral support of leading citizens, that spend from sixty to eighty per cent of all the money they receive in the payment of salaries, and in one case discovered by the comptroller the expenses absorbed ninety- four per cent of the total income of the society! There is no evidence that any of these societies are deliberately dishonest in their dealings with the city and the public. They are as a rule conducted by men and women whose motives are good, but who have no experience or practical knowledge to fit them for the management of a charitable institution. They are easily imposed upon by professional beggars, and in most cases fail in their well-meant efforts to reach and relieve the deserving who are in actual need. [Pg 155] [Pg 156] [Pg 157] Most of the small organizations that waste public money in misdirected charity are controlled by women of eminent respectability, but with no knowledge whatever of the details of the work they have undertaken. The result in many cases has been that they employ enough help to absorb the bulk of the money received without realizing that they are doing more harm than good. The city does not spend its own money cheaply. Of the appropriation of $1,941,215 for the support of the Department of Charities for the current year the sum of $529,626 is allowed for the payment of salaries of commissioners and employees. No private business could long endure if conducted on such a basis. Some of the institutions where hundreds of homeless waifs from the streets are cared for—institutions semipublic in character, managed by men of more than local reputation as experts in such work, societies founded by men and women whose lives have been devoted to doing good—show by their annual reports that more than half their income is paid out in salaries. One institution that received $30,000 from the city in 1898 and $20,000 from all other sources, reported a salary account of $31,000. Another, receiving $100,000 from the city and $120,000 in donations, had a salary account of $115,000. For every five persons supported by public charity there are three persons employed on salary in the work of relief. Of every five dollars paid out by the city treasury to relieve the sick and destitute, two dollars is absorbed by the salary and expense accounts. The theory of the law under which city money is paid to private charitable institutions is that they relieve the municipal authorities of the care of a certain number of persons who would otherwise become public charges to be maintained in the hospitals, asylums, or homes owned by the city. It is also a popular theory that young children who have become a public charge will receive better care and training in a home controlled by a private society than they would in a public institution. Appropriations and legislation are also obtained by private organizations on the representation that for every dollar paid to them by the city or State an equal amount will be contributed by founders and subscribers. This representation is not always true, and in many cases it happens that when a society begins to receive money from the city private contributions fall off. When the city authorities first took up the question of caring for homeless and destitute persons and found that they had to deal with a grave problem, some of the private charitable institutions were already in existence and came forward with offers to share the burden. At that time it was considered a good business arrangement for the city to use private societies in the work of relief. This plan, it was expected, would save the city considerable money, because the officers of the societies would contribute their services, and the cost of applying public charity to necessary relief would in that way be reduced to a minimum. That expectation has not been realized. With the rapid increase of necessity and demand for public relief the expenses of administration of the societies have increased out of all proportion to the work accomplished. In the beginning the city authorities shirked a public duty, and by giving city money to private persons who were willing to relieve them of a burden they invited the creation of new societies and a steadily increasing demand for more funds. Of the two hundred and twenty charitable societies that receive money from the city more than one hundred have been organized during the past ten years. The records of the finance department and the annual reports of these new organizations show that many of them have received from the city sixty to ninety per cent of all the funds they have handled, and that almost the same percentage of their total income was charged to expenses, the chief item of expense in every case being the payment of salaries to officers. Year after year the promoters and officers of these small organizations appear before the city authorities when the annual budget is to be passed, and, attempting to excuse the poor showing they make, say, in pleading for a larger appropriation, "We hope to do better next year." The most liberal-minded defender of indiscriminate public charity would find it difficult to excuse the existence of some of these societies. There are scores of small organizations helping to spend public money that are unknown to the general public. In fact, some of them are never heard of except when their officers appear before the Board of Estimate once a year to ask for more money. There is a society, organized for the purpose of supplying clothing to shipwrecked sailors, which for several years obtained a small appropriation from the city. When the officers requested an increase of the amount allowed, the city authorities asked for some particulars of the work done. The report submitted in reply showed that the society had received, in addition to the money obtained from the city, several donations of second-hand clothing and one box of wristlets (knit bands to be worn on the wrists); had sent to a sailor shipwrecked on the coast of Oregon a suit of underwear, a pair of hose, and a rubber coat; to a crew wrecked on the reefs of Florida some shoes and oilskin caps. There was no report of relief or clothing supplied to a sailor or any other person in the city or State of New York, but there was a charge for salaries that almost balanced the amount received from the city treasury. Another of the minor institutions is a society that is engaged in an original method of charitable work. The agents of this society, or the members themselves, go out into the slums of the city on Sunday mornings and gather in a number of tramps. The homeless wanderers are assembled in a room hired for the purpose and supplied with a warm breakfast, after which they are compelled to listen to a sermon and a lecture. They are then allowed to depart and live as best they can until the following Sunday. For a number of years this society has received a small appropriation from the city on the ground that it is a useful public charity. To all of these small societies, no matter what may be their alleged field of charitable work, city money is appropriated without specific knowledge of the exact purpose to which it is applied. By legislation or petition, backed by the influence of prominent citizens, scores of these petty organizations, some of them merely a fad or whim of an idle man or woman, have been placed on the list of semipublic charities to be aided at the expense of the taxpayers, and there they remain year after year without so much as a serious inquiry as to their merits or the work they accomplish. The city authorities who grant the appropriations do not and can not know how the money [Pg 158] [Pg 159] they give to such societies is to be expended, because they have no legal authority to investigate the conduct of such institutions. The city officers, therefore, are not to blame. The fault seems to rest primarily upon that condition of public opinion that is cheerfully tolerant of any fraud committed in the name of charity, and secondly upon the members of the Legislature who vote without question or investigation for all legislation asked for by any benevolent person or society. To the large charitable and correctional institutions of established reputation, to which children or pauper adults are committed by the local authorities, city money is appropriated on a business basis. A fixed sum is paid for the support of each committed person, and the taxpayers may know what they are getting for their money. While the city authorities can not regulate the expenses or salaries in these institutions, they know that the city is paying for a specific service and that the work is performed. That it might be done better or more cheaply need not concern them. But to the institutions and societies that do not undertake to support dependent persons, but engage in indiscriminate charitable work, the giving of city money is as doubtful a method of relieving the deserving poor as throwing coin in the streets. The appropriation of city money made for 1899 direct to two hundred and fifteen charitable and correctional institutions and societies amounts to $1,784,846. The appropriations from the excise funds to institutions that support pauper children and adults will slightly exceed $1,000,000. The county of New York pays to State and private charitable institutions for the same period the sum of $118,682; Kings County, $82,669; and Richmond County, $4,845; all of which comes out of the general treasury. The money received for licenses for theaters, concert and music halls, amounting to $50,000 a year, is divided among eighty-two private societies and institutions. This makes an aggregate of $3,000,000 paid out of the city treasury annually and expended under the direction of private organizations. With the exception of less than $100,000 it is all appropriated under the provisions of special acts of the Legislature, or sections of the city charter, and the city officers have no control whatever over the methods of expenditure or the work undertaken by the societies that receive the money. Under such a system the possibilities for abuse of public charity are well-nigh unlimited. These direct appropriations of money do not represent all of the city's contribution to the cause of charity. The property of all the charitable institutions and societies is exempt from taxation and from assessments for public improvements. The tax commissioners report that the assessed value of the property of such organizations is $70,781,990. At the present rate of taxation this means a loss to the city of more than $1,400,000 a year. The assessments upon the same property for public improvements exceed $100,000 a year, which is paid by the city. These exemptions materially affect the tax rate as well as the bonded indebtedness and annual interest charges of the city, so that the yearly contribution of the taxpayers of New York to charity is nearly if not quite $7,000,000, or about fifteen per cent of the direct expenses of the city government. Some figures from the budget for 1899 will show the relative cost of caring for the poor. The city will pay for public education $13,040,052; for police, $11,797,596; for the fire department, $4,443,664; for the health department, $1,110,538; for lighting, $2,000,000; for water, $1,450,817; for cleaning the streets, $4,575,800; for parks, $1,729,235; for paving and repaving streets, $2,520,099; and for charity direct and indirect, $7,000,000. The chief abuses of the present system of public charity are the extravagant expenditures for salaries and the steady and rapid increase of pauperism due to the misdirected efforts of the inexperienced persons who control so many of the smaller societies that receive city money. One of the oldest and most important charitable organizations in the city is the Children's Aid Society. The report of the treasurer for 1898 shows the following expenditures: Industrial schools— Salaries of superintendent and teachers $106,265.71 Rent of schoolrooms 5,119.26 Books and school supplies 5,178.54 Provisions 8,509.70 Clothing and special relief 5,512.56 Fuel, gas, repairs, etc. 20,497.88 ————— Sick Children's Mission $655.48 Children's Summer Home 9,405.37 Health Home 8,307.45 Farm for Boys—Summer Charities 2,719.59 Brace Memorial Lodging House 12,914.13 Elizabeth Home for Girls 10,366.33 Tompkins Square Lodging House 7,546.38 [Pg 160] [Pg 161] West Side Lodging House 9,079.26 East Side Lodging House 1,848.06 Forty fourth Street Lodging House 7,948.56 Fogg Lodging House 1,942.26 Brace Farm School 12,150.64 Reading rooms 402.96 Medical examinations 312.00 Salaries, executive officers 8,659.92 Immigration, fares, food, clothing, etc. 30,162.69 Reinvestment, bonds sold 29,902.50 Amount due treasurer, November 1, 1898 435.71 Printing, stationery, car fares, and incidental expenses 3,551.85 ———— $309,394.79 This shows a total salary account of $114,925.63, or about thirty-seven per cent of the expenditure. The society received from the city $100,764, and from general subscriptions and donations $119,768. The balance of the income was derived from legacies, endowments, special trust funds, and sale of bonds. One of the private institutions in the city for the instruction of deaf-mutes receives city, State, and county pupils under the provisions of special acts of the Legislature. The report of the treasurer for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1898, shows the following receipts: Balance on hand, October 1, 1897 $2,885.03 New York State 44,216.74 New York County 27,179.54 Kings County 12,697.05 Queens County 1,217.19 Westchester County 1,060.94 Various other counties 2,727.02 Paying pupils 791.75 Donations 11,754.46 All other sources 613.89 ———— $105,143.61 The expenditures for the same period were $102,570.64, of which $33,613.56 was for salaries and wages. This is a private institution exempt from city or State control, subject to no governmental supervision except examination by the State Board of Charities, yet ninety per cent of its income is public money, and almost one third of the cost of maintenance is charged to salaries and wages. These two cases are mentioned not in criticism of the work or methods of the institutions, but as representing a fair average of the salary account of all the larger private charitable societies. They also fairly represent the two extremes in the source of their income, one receiving ninety per cent of public money, the other a little more than thirty per cent. Recent investigations conducted by the city comptroller and supplemented by the agents of the State Board of Charities disclose abuses in the expenditure of public money by certain small societies so flagrant that the appropriations for the current year have been withheld. In these cases the salary account was always the chief expenditure, but it was also discovered that whatever relief got beyond the headquarters of the societies went to professional beggars, who had no difficulty in deceiving the persons in charge. It was found that persons in good health had lived comfortably for months, perhaps for years, on public charity dispensed through private organizations. These professional beggars would obtain food at one place, clothing at another, coal at a third, small sums of money from all three perhaps, then reverse the order of application or appeal to newer organizations if detection threatened. Relief was extended in many instances with little or no effort on the part of the societies to ascertain the merits of a case or the honesty of an applicant. One small society was found to have expended practically all of the money received from the city in the payment of the living expenses of the person who had the entire management of the organization. The charitable work of a year consisted in the distribution of a small quantity of cast-off clothing and a few bushels of potatoes. The reports of the [Pg 162] society contained the names of directors who had never served and knew nothing of the true condition of the organization. They had merely consented that their names might be used as a guarantee of reliability and to aid in the work of soliciting contributions. One case has been found where a mother and daughter lived comfortably by selling coal given to them by charitable societies. One private institution, now abolished, boarded committed children and received two dollars a week from the city for each child. The children were fed on fish and potatoes at a cost of forty-four cents each per week. After these facts were discovered the city authorities could not remove the children until the Board of Health condemned and closed the building under the provisions of the sanitary code. The minor abuses in the way of aiding undeserving persons extend to nearly all the private societies that receive city money. Those that exercise care and have been long established are often deceived by professional beggars. After his investigation of the subject the city comptroller established in his office a bureau of examination for the purpose of placing a check on the many small societies that indulge in indiscriminate charity at the expense of the city, but he soon found that he was powerless to correct all abuses. The present condition can not be corrected and public charity placed upon a practical basis and limited to the real necessities of the deserving poor until the city government begins to deal with each society and institution upon its merits. Changes and reforms to the present system will come in time, but progress will be slow because charity is a valid excuse at the bar of public opinion for the reckless expenditure of city money, and for that reason it appeals strongly to the average politician and lawmaker. Charity will cover with a mantle of commendation a multitude of abuses and crave pardon for gross frauds. It is the pastime of the rich and their gratuity to the poor. The magic of the word seems to move a Legislature and open the treasure vaults of city and State. ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE. A JOURNEY TO THE NEW ELDORADO. By ANGELO HEILPRIN, professor of geology at the academy of natural sciences of philadelphia, fellow of the royal geographical society of london. II.—SAN FRANCISCO OF THE NORTH. Dawson and Klondike City (South Dawson) in September, 1898. A first impression of Dawson, in August, 1898, could not be other than one calculated to bring up comparisons with strange and foreign lands. As we saw it, approaching from the water side, it persistently suggested the banks of the Yang-tse-kiang, or of some other Chinese river, on which a densely apportioned population had settled. Hundreds— one is almost tempted to say thousands—of boats were lined up against the river front, and so packed in rows back of one another that exit from the inner line was made possible only by a passive accommodation from the outside. There were steam craft, house-boats, scows, and a variety of minor bottoms, ranging from the hay-packed raft to the graceful Peterboro canoe. Many had canvas spread over them, giving house quarter to those who preferred the economy of an owned estate to the high-priced cabins of log huts and hotels, and the purity of the open air to what was at least considered to be the polluted atmosphere of the stable city. It would be far from the truth to assume that this floating population was composed exclusively of men, women, and children; there were dogs galore, abundant by both presence and voice, horses and mules, and an occasional goat betrayed itself munching among hay-packs and the usual [Pg 163] [Pg 164] [Pg 165] combination of simple and hard things which make up goat food. One canvas bore the tempting inscription "Hot and Cold River Baths," several carried legends of variously designated laundries, and a few even invited to "Board and Lodging, Cheap." Of course, the word cheap had here a special etymologic significance, and bore little relation to the same form of word which is current in lexicons. Some Mud in the Main Street—First Avenue. The first favorable impression of dry land in Dawson was tempered by a knowledge that even here were many moist spots. The mud lay in great pools along the main street—First Avenue or Front Street—but hardly in sufficient depth to make walking dangerous. Dogs and goats could alone drown in it. It is true that an occasional wading burro or even a mule would find a dangerously low level, but I am not aware that any in this condition had added to a list of serious casualties. No mention is made in this connection of cats, for, in truth, only two specimens of the feline family had up to this time reached Dawson—one, a blue-ribboned kitten, which was endearingly received as the mascot of the Yukon Mining Exchange. The Main Street in a Spring Freshet. The Dawsonites are not entirely oblivious to the discomforts of mud, for an effort is being made to block it out with sawdust, of which the three or four sawmills in the town furnish a goodly supply. In some parts a rough corduroy has been attempted, but the price of lumber, two hundred dollars per thousand linear feet, renders this form of construction too expensive for general use, especially in a community all of whose members, female as well as male, are prepared to stem the tide with high-top boots. About one half the street length shows the pretense of wooden sidewalks, but no one has yet recognized a special responsibility for repairs, or seemingly considered that a continuous walk requires a continuous support. Walking is a succession of ups and downs; boards are missing here, other are smashed elsewhere, and the whole walk gives the impression of having been in existence for centuries rather than for the period of a short twelvemonth. It was not difficult to determine what, perhaps, the majority of the sixteen thousand inhabitants of Dawson were doing at the time of our arrival. They were simply loitering, and the streets were packed with humanity. This was not strange, [Pg 165] either, for it must have been difficult to resist the enjoyment of that open sunshine, that soft, warm atmosphere which is the delight of the summer climate of the far North. Never had I experienced anything comparable, and others who had traveled much agreed with my experience. On my way to the hotel, the "Fair View," which had been strongly recommended for its cuisine and the circumstance that it was "brand" new in its appointments—having only come into existence a few days before—I caught a good general glimpse of the town, the dominant features of which were registered in the two sides of the main thoroughfare along the river front. A nearly continuous row of one-story, or at the utmost two-story, frame shacks or booths, many of them still in canvas form, and most of them supported over the river's bank by pile proppings, built up the river side of this First Avenue. All manner of articles, both serviceable and unserviceable, for the Klondike business were displayed, mostly in cramped quarters. The variety of things that had in so brief a period found their way to this region was truly astonishing, and one marveled at the mental ingenuity which spirited some of these articles to a champ de vente. Surely nothing but "manifest destiny" could have placed a mammoth's molar on sale for a hundred dollars, when it was thought that a period of starvation was reigning in the town. And yet almost alongside of it were posters announcing that four loaves of bread could be purchased for one dollar—in another place "six loves" for the same price—and that "half an ounce" of gold dust, the equivalent of eight dollars, would gain admission to the best seat witnessing a boxing and wrestling contest. In addition to the booths doing a regular merchandise business, there were those whose masters ministered to a specialty—druggists and doctors, photographers, auctioneers, and brokers of one kind or another. "Bartlett Bros., Packers" served the inner core of the gold regions by means of long trains of pack-mules, but they were not the only ones to whom the cargador was an officer militant. Dog teams there were as well as mule teams, and the majesty of the law was hardly considered invaded when the former effected a jun...