ninety-nine stations but fourteen are located upon the Western Coast.

When the steamer Arago sank in Coos Bay in October, 1896, the life-savers had a chance to show their mettle, and nobly acquitted themselves. The steamer struck the jetty and in five minutes went down, leaving her masts sticking above water. It was very rough, and a portion of those aboard the unfortunate craft were swept away and drowned. A number took refuge in the rigging, and to rescue these the lifeboat put out in a tremendous sea and happily were able to bring them safely to land. Thirteen out of thirty-two persons were drowned, but had not the life-savers put forth, the loss would have been much greater.

The river bars along the coast have been responsible for the loss of many a vessel; Humboldt, Coos Bay, Coquille and Columbia River bars counting their victims by the dozens. The latest addition to the list of bar-wrecked vessels was the steamer Chilkat. This vessel, while crossing Humboldt bar April 4, 1899, capsized and sank. Those aboard had but little chance for their lives, and it was only after a terrible struggle with the waves that any reached shore. Eleven lives were lost in this disaster. The Chilkat was a top-heavy craft and seemed to be under a "hoodoo," as she was always having trouble.

When the British ship Atalanta cast off from the tugboat Sea Lion at Cape Flattery, November, 1898, no one dreamed that within forty-eight hours she would be a dreary wreck. As she was flying down the Oregon coast, she ran across a reef near Alsea Bay, with such force that her masts went by the board, and she at once began to go to pieces. Only three out of the crew of twenty reached shore. The Atalanta was a trim-looking ship and

when wrecked was bound for Cape Town with a wheat cargo valued at near one hundred thousand dollars on board. It is said the vessel was racing, and was far out of her course when she met disaster. If so, the captain paid dearly for his folly, for he was among those who perished.

Seldom have wrecks received the attention that fell to the lot of the ships Glenmorag and Potrimpos, which went ashore on the beach north of the Columbia River several years ago. They were comparatively uninjured, but positively refused to be put back into their natural element, and have proved one of the greatest aitractions along the beach. They have been bombarded by camera artists and space writers innumerable, and have been gazed at by thousands. They are now being torn to pieces by the junk man, certainly a lamentable fate for gallant ships.

It would be glorious if man, with his skill and inventiveness, could devise some plan that would do away with shipwreck and loss of life upon the high seas. While this end will probably never be attained, it is certain that if the safeguards already known to navigation were universally employed, marine disasters would be greatly decreased in number. Why these precautions are so often neglected is a source of wonderment to the uninitiated. Rules regarding water-tight compartments are disregarded; vessels that have waxed old and rotten are allowed to continue in service; vessels continually carry more passengers than the number allotted to them; life-rafts and boats are often woefully insufficient; and skippers are accustomed to plow along in all kinds of weather at full speed. It is a duty to humanity that those having these matters in hand should enforce every regulation looking toward the safety of those who "Go down to the sea in ships."

T

HE character and conditions of the water supply have much to do with the building up of a metropolis. The development of cities is feasible only in proportion to their ability to secure and maintain the necessary supply of water. Hence the phenomenal growth of Chicago has been conditioned primarily upon the fact of its proximity to the exhaustless waters of Lake Michigan. In this respect Chicago enjoys a unique advantage among the great cities of the world, having at, its doors the blue waters of the lake, priceless alike for home use and for the purposes of commerce.

Many of the great engineering achievements of both ancient and modern times have been accomplished in the endeavor to rmount obstacles that blocked the way Neptune's resources. Rome brought water thirty-five miles, from the ine Hills by the Agua Claudia, and

sixty-two miles, from the Anio by the Anio Novus. The hills of Hymettus, Pentilicus, and Parnes sent their floods to Athens by a path cut for a large part of the distance through the solid rock.

The clear waters of Loch Katrine, sparkling among the Scottish Highlands, have cost the people of Glasgow over ten millions of dollars; while London, obtaining her supply in equal parts from the Thames and from small streams and springs, will soon be compelled to expend an estimated sum of sixty-five millions to provide for her increasing population.

Paris, depending on the Seine, the Marne, and the Ourcq canal, for her general requirements, must look to the artesian wells and springs for water suited to domestic purposes. While the melting snows of the Alps flow through forty-five tunnels and by aqueducts over many valleys in order to refresh the people of Mar

seilles, Versailles, ninety-eight miles distant from her reservoirs, Vienna, separated fifty-six miles from the Stygian Alps, and Constantinople, fifteen miles from the valley of the Belgrade, have ali expended enormous treasure, and even sacrificed many lives, in their quest for pure water.

In our own country it has cost Boston ten millions of dollars to bring water twenty miles from Lake Cochituate. New York City gave thirty millions to lay tribute to the small streams and artificial lakes forty miles away; and Philadelphia

will be as indissolubly associated with the Chicago Drainage Canal as with the towns and cities named for them, by which the blue waters of the lake will flow in healthgiving streams, on the completion of the great work.

The first organized efforts to explore the interior of this Western country were made by La Salle, in his expedition organized with the idea of finding the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of California; Jean Nicolet, who, paddling his canoe from the Georgian Bay through the Straits of Mackinaw, discovered Lake

contemplates the expenditure of over twenty millions of dollars to avoid the polluted waters of the Schuylkill River.

Although Chicago has the lake at her. very portals, it has become necessary to carefully protect the water supply against the sewage of the city. In the accomplishment of this design, a part of the great waterway has been constructed, a work which the first pioneers of the Western country foresaw would some day be undertaken. The names of Joliet, the soldier and pioneer; La Salle, the chevalier; Hennepin and Marquette, the zealous priests.

Michigan; and Joliet, sent out by Talon and Frontenac. The results of these expeditions were the discovery of the Mississippi, the Illinois, and the Desplaines rivers, and the site of the future city of Chicago. Joliet, however, is rightfully styled the Columbus of this portion of the Western world. His companion, Marquette, writes in his journal, December 14, 1674: "Being cabined near the portage, two leagues up the river, we resolved to winter there." Marquette called the Chicago River Portage River, and the portage where he camped was at the spot