was once mistress of the world. It is, who knows, perhaps her private dream to be the mistress again, and every time Mussolini rattles a sword or sounds the bugle-call, the blood of the ancient Romans, founders of a vast empire, leaps in the veins.

"But empires are founded on territory, not ambitions. Where will Italy find this territory? Very wisely we conceded to her a certain part of Jubaland. She has acquired land from Egypt and Turkey by purchase and negotiation. When these methods fail, what then? Conquest?"

Therein lies the danger of Mussolini's new venture, according to this contributor to The Westminster Gazette, who reminds us at the same time that Mussolini finds himself, unlike any of his predecessors, with a balanced budget. He has embarked on a bold naval policy, we are told, to which no legitimate criticism can be offered in view of the vulnerability of Italy from the sea, and we read further:

"In the last year there has been much talk of establishing a naval base in Sicily, and a thorough investigation has been held in search of a suitable base. Now we hear that an establishment is contemplated at the Island of Rhodes, in the Egean.

"The Italian never disguises the fact that he considers himself entitled to Malta, and for years has carried on an infiltrative policy in that island, despite his realization that nothing would over allow us to relinquish our key-position in the Mediterranean. He looks with envious eyes on Tunisia. It is French in governnent but largely Italian in enterprise. The greater part of the agriculture is performed by Sicilians, its most flourishing syndiates employ Italian labor.

"Again, Italy regards the Adriatic as her sea, and the Adriatic oast as her territory if she had her rights. Did not Venice once old it in fee? When Mussolini made his melodramatic seizure of Corfu, the old dream of the Doges came to life again. In talkng of an empire, therefore, Mussolini knows he has material with which to fire the Italian mind. The danger is that no fire preads so rapidly as that started to satisfy national ambition." A special correspondent of this London daily declares that from he strategic point of view the Island of Rhodes is "an ideal umping-off place for any Italian adventure in Asia Minor." taly is the strongest naval Power in the eastern Mediterranean, e remarks, adding that the Turkish Navy is practically nonxistent, the Greek Navy is not yet in a condition of rivalry, hile the Jugo-Slav Navy is in its. infancy. Transports from rindisi or from the Italian colonies in North Africa could be asily brought to Rhodes, according to this writer, who calls -ttention to the fact that it would be ". 'an advance base at the ery gates of Anatolia," and he goes on to say:

"Italy feels the urge of three forces: her political ambitions, er need for economic expansion, and the pressure of her excess ppulation. The door is closed to the first and third on the distern shores of the Adriatic; the practical closure of the doors the United States to Italian immigrants has made the problem ill more acute. The second is the failure to make the headway hich it was hoped would result from the cession of the greater art of the Port of Fiume.

"Italy desires to play the rôle in the Balkans and the Near ast once played by Austria-Hungary. But there is her powerJugo-Slav neighbor to consider. The Pact of Rome gave le port of Fiume to Italy, and the surrounding parts to Jugoavia, and thus implied a policy of cooperation in the Balkan Shere with Jugo-Slavia. It was tacitly understood that in turn for the Adriatic settlement Italy would not interfere with go-Slav policy in the neighborhood of the Egean. The Pact Rome is often hailed as a triumph for Signor Mussolini. It Es also a triumph for the pacific but realistic policy of Dr. intchitch, the present Jugo-Slav Foreign Minister.

The Pact of Rome inaugurated the era of Italo-Jugo-Slav iendship, but it also closed the Adriatic door to Italian expanonist aims in a northeasterly direction. There remains Africa; ut the Jarabub agreement with Egypt marks the limits of taly's possibilities in that direction. Only Asia Minor is left. "It is true that Italian policy has of recent years been openly iendly to Turkey. Italian money and ammunition helped Justafa Kemal to turn the Greeks out of Anatolia. But the rek complication now no longer exists. Likewise Britain and rauce are no longer at loggerheads over the Turkish question. The diplomatic field would seem to be clear for a change in the urkish policy hitherto pursued by the Palazzo Chigi."

THE PASSPORT "NUISANCE"

LL THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL are said to be lost in the "nuisance" of passports which has survived the war period. It is admitted by critics of the passport system in various countries that no scrutiny could have been too exact during the war, but now, they say, when travelers are an asset to any country, the annoyance and cost of the system make a loss. According to the Manchester Guardian, a small, but none the less important, contribution to the easing of travelers' burdens can be made by the Passport Conference which the League of Nations is organizing for next May. But this newspaper thinks it is a pity that this meeting is not to be held sooner,

because any agreed reforms could be put into operation before the spring tide of travel has begun to flow, and it adds:

"It is still vain to expect freedom from the passport itself, since many governments appear to believe that it is a check upon the movements of the malefactor, tho we imagine that few men who really take wickedness in earnest, regard the passport official as one of their more formidable terrors. Even if the passport must remain, its presence can be made less vexatious by prolonging its term of life and value. But the visa is a pest that demands immediate destruction."

The conference, which nations outside the League are wisely invited to attend, it is emphasized, will not satisfy the average traveler unless it relieves the strain on his time, purse and temper caused by the visa. If the visa does not vanish it might at least be cheapened, according to The Guardian, which proceeds:

"A maximum of five gold francs is suggested, which compares very favorably with the heavy entrance fee which the United States levy on their visitors with no excuse of domestic poverty. Another obvious reform is to free travelers who are passing through countries with no intention of stopping there from the incidence of the tax."

T

WHAT PROGRESS IN INDIA?

O TAKE INDIA out of British leading-strings and leave her unfettered to manage her own affairs in her own way is said to be the object of the Indian National Congress at which Indians from every part of the country annually meet. This Congress was originally organized about a half a century ago, when Lord Lytton, the father of the present Governor of Bengal, secured permission in 1877 to hold a grand Durbar at Delhi to proclaim Her Majesty Queen Victoria as the Empress of India. So writes an Indian authority, St. Nihal Singh, in the Dublin Irish Statesman, and he tells us that thus the first Lord Lytton was indirectly responsible for the establishment of the Indian National Congress, because, tho famine stalked the land

"Undismayed by privation, and even by death, he lavished Indian money upon making that spectacle the most magnificent that the gorgeous East had ever seen. When the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maharajas of Mysore and Baroda-all little boys at the time and the other 'ruling princes' of various ages from all parts of India, were kneeling before him, he did not realize that he was making it patent to Indians that tho they lived in a vast country and differed in race and religion, they breathed the same air and their interests were common-and that they all suffered from the same disability-inability to dictate how the money they contributed to the public purse was to be spent."

Not long afterward, this Indian writer goes on to say, Allan Octavian Hume, "who had spent the better part of his life ruling Indians," organized the Indian National Congress, which framed a political program that "in spite of the many changes which have occurred during the intervening decades, remains to-day much the same in substance that it was in the beginning." The Indian Liberal Federation, we are next informed, otherwise known as the Moderate group, is composed of Indians who broke away from the Congress a few years ago, but has the same goal as the Congress. We read then:

"The so-called Liberals are no less keen upon securing control of Indian affairs than are the Congressmen. There is, however, a marked difference in the temperament of the two, and in consequence, in the phraseology and methods employed by them in the effort to substitute Indian in place of the British agency in the Indian administration.

"But for the aid rendered by the Moderates, the British officials in India would not have been able to work the MontaguChelmsford constitutional 'experiment' in India. Tho almost without exception the Moderates who took office have pronounced that experiment a failure, not one of them has thrown up his job for that reason.

"Some of the Congressmen, on the other hand, have either boycotted the legislatures set up under the Montagu-Chelmsford Act, because those legislatures were not sovereign institutions, and left the British officials as irresponsible as before those bodies were constituted. Others, known as Swarajists, have entered these semi-parliaments with the avowed object of obstructing the alien bureaucracy. They have succeeded in inflicting a number of heavy defeats upon the central government, and have made diarchy impossible, at least for the time being, in Bengal and the Central Provinces.

"Such success, however, counts for little, because the MontaguChelmsford Act kept the money-bags under undivided British control, and, therefore, the Indian opposition, no matter how united it may be, can not really obstruct administration. Nevertheless, the Swarajist obstructionists have abundantly shown that between the popular will as exprest even by the organs created by the British Parliament itself, and the administration carried on by the British agents of that Parliament in India, there lies a wide gulf. Whatever moral prestige the British officials may at one time have possest in India has been destroyed."

The Indian movement for self-government, this writer avers, despite all friction and schisms, has attained a momentum which "promises success within the near future" and as the Congress president recently pointed out: "India is going to have selfgovernment by her own united effort and at all costs."

A British authority on India, Lord Meston, who has served his country in various official capacities in India in the past, recently

revisited that country and relates his impressions in the London Sunday Times. If one has not seen the country since Mr. Gandhi's campaigns, says Lord Meston, he arrives there with some trepidation, and we read further:

"It is not unnatural for him to fear that the old friendliness of the people will have disappeared, and that he will find the trail of the Non-Cooperation fever and anti-British bitterness over everything. If this is what he expects, he will be on the whole agreeably disappointed. The great emotions of India, like the armies of her historic conquerors, have a habit of thundering over the land and passing away; while the patient masses raise their heads again and resume their ancient ways.

"As so often in the past, calm has quickly succeeded the storm. The visitor will see an occasional zealot in the Swaraj uniform of homespun; the flaring banners of a stray political meeting; and a good deal of rancorous matter in the vernacular press. But he will also see the schools full, the markets busy, and the village life functioning normally. Non-Cooperation in its virulent form is dead, and the European, if he behaves reasonably, is again welcome. Below the surface trouble simmers as it always has done; but on the face of the waters there is little trace of the hurricanes that have been raging since 1919. Four sets of excellent harvests have brought contentment to the peasantry, and the failure of his promised millennium has thinned the rank and file of Mr. Gandhi's millions to a skeleton army."

But altho the country seems quieter than it has been since the tragedies of 1919, Lord Meston tells us, the visitor wonders what progress has been made toward the democratic ideals which were the goal of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. The question is not an easy one to answer, he confesses, because progress has been irregular, and he adds:

"The democratic basis of government has not yet been appreciably broadened; but in some provinces Ministers have taken up their task with good-will and industry. This is particularly true in Northern India, where diarchy has been given a fair chance and is working well.

"Elsewhere the results vary greatly. In Bengal, which might have been expected to set an example to its neighbors, the position is deplorable. The Indian leaders have fled from ministerial responsibility, and the Governor has been obliged to resume all the departments which they were invited to administer. In the University of Calcutta all reform has gone by the board, and scholarship is said to be steadily depreciating. With the output of municipal government, where much was hoped from the strong personality of the late Mr. C. R. Das, there is much dissatisfaction; and the whole atmosphere of public life is heavy with apathy and depression. What the 1929 Commission will find to say about the constitutional experiment in Bengal, it is difficult to conjecture."

Worse than any local failure in machinery, according to this authority, is the growing and general tension between Hindus and Mohammedans. At one time, he tells us, the Nationalist politician was never tired of taunting Britain with fomenting communal dissension for her own purposes. But

"It can afford him little pleasure now to reflect how seriously the rift has widened since he took a hand in the business himself. And it certainly fills the moderate man with the gravest apprehension as one outbreak of racial violence succeeds another. For in them he sees not only a standing menace to life and safety, but a rock on which all hopes of national unity for India may yet suffer shipwreck.

"Apart from this unhappy feature, the outlook to-day holds much that is encouraging. After a period of wild aberration the country is returning to sanity, as those who knew it well had confidently prophesied. The peasantry have several good years behind them, and trade is flourishing despite the doldrums of the somewhat improvident cotton industry in Bombay. The clamor for more rapid political emancipation is waning; as the date of the inquiry by Parliament approaches, some of the loudest shouters are getting uneasy as to how they will figure. In many directions India is making a steady and substantial advance. For her political development we laid down a clear course six years ago, and there is nothing in the situation to-day which calls on us to diverge from it. The leaders of Indian opinion were given a wide liberty to justify the claims they presented, and with a clear conscience we may await their response."

witnesses what is almost as wonderful: totally deaf children translating sound vibrations through their sense of touch. Here is a little girl who can repeat a variety of vowel and other sounds, changes of pitch, words and whole sentences, simply by interpreting the vibrations of a voice as they strike upon a piece of paper tightly stretched as a vibrating diaphragm across the larger end of an ordinary megaphone. She closes her eyes so that the instructor's lips will not give her a clue to the sounds, and places only the tips of the fingers of one hand on the diaphragm.

"Going back to the music lesson you first saw, you learn that the pupil's performance is the result of patient training and proof

feel the vibrations produced by his voice in trying to imitate the sound the teacher made. It may be days before the pupil even realizes what he is supposed to do. A great deal depends upon the skill of the teacher. Her training is aimed to help her understand the deaf child's psychology; she is required to know physiology and the anatomy of the ear. Her task is not only to teach the child lip-reading and speech, but she is his guide through the who e school course.

"Once the contact is made, it is only a question of time and constant teaching until the child acquires a vocabulary, learns to read lips without depending upon his sense of touch, and advances into simple problems in arithmetic and other studies.

"Recognizing that the deaf, if given proper instruction early enough, can become useful members of society, other organizations throughout the country are putting forth renewed efforts in reclaiming deaf children by modern methods of teaching. There are now more than 200 schools for, the deaf in the United States alone, and many public schools and colleges have special departments for teaching deaf children. As a result of the introduction of the principles of radio amplification, instruments are now being constructed by which large groups of children in the normal schoolroom may have their hearing capacity measured and classified with comparatively little expenditure of time and energy. This plan is now being seriously considered and introduced in public-school systems of many of our cities. It is estimated that there are between 50,000 and 75,000 deaf children of school age in the United States. Their condition is far from hopeless, for, assuming normal brain capacity, everyone of them can be taught speech and lip-reading so that they can take their places in the world."

of what can be accomplished by the acoustic method as developed at the Central Institute. Briefly, this method is to make use of sounds as produced by the voice, various musical instruments and radio apparatus to achieve perception and interpretation of the vibrations in the mind of the deaf child in teaching him speech. As the teacher plays, the pupil's voice responds to changes in pitch and volume as well as tempo. He keeps perfect time even when the rhythm is purposely made irregular. Only one step more, it seems, and he would be singing, were it not that difficulty in performing rapid changes of pitch offered an obstacle.

"These musical and other tests afford practical evidence in support of the theory of the eminent English physicist, John Tyndall, that the sense of hearing, is, after all, merely a modification of the sense of touch,' Dr. Goldstein explains. All other special organs of sense are modifications of the touch sense. They involve the reception and perception of special waves of motion. In case the natural organ of hearing ceases to function, a logical course is to endeavor to use some other channel for conveying the sound waves to the brain. With proper training, deaf pupils manage to do this effectively with their fingers and even with their feet. They learn to keep time while dancing to music from an orchestra by interpreting the rhythm which is communicated from the instruments, through the floor into their feet, up the bones and into the special centers of the brain.'

"The pupils you have just heard and seen belong to the senior classes. Descend to the floor below, and you will see the real beginners of the institute, the three and four-year-olds. The problem is to get the pupil, who is hardly more than a baby, to produce sounds with his vocal cords."

Beginning with the pupil at this early age is important, we are told, for it is at a time when he naturally is trying to speak just as normal children do. Then, if he is allowed to go without this teaching, in a few years the vocal cords become shriveled up just as muscles that are not used for long periods. To quote again: "The pupil places his hands on the teacher's cheek-bones. The instructor then makes the sound of 'm,' drawing it out slowly and distinctly. The child's hands, which have felt the vibrations of the tone, are placed on its own face so that he can

BAD TEMPER A RELIC OF DISEASE?-If some one carelessly steps on your foot and you become violently angry, perhaps the explosion is due to the fact that years ago you had scarlet fever or some other illness, says Science Service's Daily Science News Bulletin (Washington). We read:

"This question of whether disease affects the emotions, and the other point of view, of whether certain types of constitution are responsible both for diseases and for increased emotion were discust by Dr. George M. Stratton, psychologist, of the National Research Council, at a meeting of the American Psychological Association and Cornell University, recently. Expressions of anger and fear in more than 1,000 college students were studied by Dr. Stratton in connection with the facts of their physical history. Twenty classes of diseases, including heart trouble, neurasthenia and influenza, were represented. "There is a difference between the data on students who have always been normally healthy and those who have a disease record,' he stated. 'Individuals who have had disease show a somewhat more intense emotional reaction in anger situations than those who have not had disease. The intensity of fear responses however, does not seem to be different in the two classes of individuals. Men who have disease histories appear to be thrown farther from normal and into readiness for somewhat more intense anger than do women who have had a similar history. And the importance of the different diseases is probably not entirely the same with men and women. Influenza, for example, which thus far has revealed little or no importance for the anger reactions of women, appears to be of considerable importance for the anger reactions of men. Among the questions which should be investigated are: the cumulative effect of several diseases on the emotions of an individual, whether diseases in childhood are more closely linked with emotional differences than diseases in later life, and whether there is some common factor in certain diseases which is closely connected with emotional make-up of the individual, Dr. Stratton said."

HARNESSING GEYSERS IN CALIFORNIA

S

EVENTY-FIVE MILES NORTH of San Francisco in Sonoma County is Geyser Canyon, discovered in 1847 by W. B. Elliott, a hunter and trapper, writes Inspector L. E. Grundell of San Francisco in The Locomotive and Steam Boiler (Hartford, Conn.). This canyon is about one-half mile long and is full of boiling mineral springs and volcanic vents or fumaroles, from which steam is constantly issuing. A meal can easily be prepared over one of these steam vents. About three years ago J. D. Grant of Healdsburg, a near-by town, conceived the idea of drilling out some of these vents and utilizing the natural steam for commercial use. The writer goes on:

"The Geyser Development Company was organized and three wells were driven under unusual difficulties to depths from 150 to 300 feet, through ground from which steam was issuing in large quantities. Tests of the quantity, temperature, and pressure of the steam obtained indicated that about 1,200 horsepower could be developed from these three wells.

"During the past year four new experimental wells have been drilled by means of a rotary drill similar to the tool used in the oil-fields. The last well opened up, No. 7, just before it was capped projected a jet of steam from an eight-inch-diameter pipe fully 75 feet into the air, as shown in the illustration. When capped it showed a pressure of 220 pounds. Well No. 6, only a hundred feet away, developed a pressure in excess of 300 pounds. In order to limit it to this pressure, the safe working pressure for the casing valves and fittings, a four-inch-diameter escape pipe is provided. Well No. 5 showed a pressure of 250 pounds.

"Utilization has not yet been made of this natural steam except to furnish power and light for furthering the work. A turbogenerator supplies electric power and light for the construction and drilling, and a pump operating under geyser steam-pressure supplies water at a similar pressure for drilling. The experimental work is about completed and plans for a commercial electric generating plant are taking form.

"Tests of this geyser steam reveal about 12 per cent. of noncondensable gases, which, of course, is objectionable, and in addition a small amount of acid. This latter, however, is said to be so minute that no corrosive effect has been noticed on the casing, valves, or machinery. The quantity of this steam available is naturally an open question, but it is said that no well has shown any falling off in production, regardless of climatic changes or additional drillings. Preparations are now being made to sink two additional wells. A sixteen-inch-diameter casing will be driven down for approximately 20 feet and surrounded by a large concrete foundation. A fifteen-inch-diameter casing will then be carried down the rest of the way and subsequently strengthened by an inside filling of concrete lined with a twelveinch-diameter casing. To retain the drill in position and advance it, a giant hydraulic jack is used whose capacity is 300 tons.

"Altho this is the first development of the kind in America, Italy is reported to have in operation a plant utilizing 10,000 horse-power of geyser steam, 4,000 of which is furnished by a single well."

RAILWAY RAILS TO BE LONGER-As a further step toward increased economy in the operation of our railroads the American Railway Association has announced that new specifications have been approved by which the length of rails is to be increased to thirty-nine feet. This means an increase of six feet over the rail in present use, altho the weight per yard will continue to be the same. We read in The Erie Railroad Magazine (New York):

"By making an increase in the length of the rail there will be a marked saving to the railroads in not only the cost of installation of new rail but also in the maintenance of the railroad track. This increase in the length of the rail from thirty-three feet to thirty-nine feet means a reduction of 16 per cent. in the number of rail joints, while it also will mean a saving of about one-sixth of the total amount of expenditure required for bolts, nuts, joint bars, and spring washers used in connecting rails together. It is estimated that fifty cents out of each dollar spent for track maintenance goes for maintenance of joints, ties and ballast under the point where two rails are joined together. This increase in the length of the rail, therefore, will mean a saving of about 16 per cent. in such expenditures as there will be fewer joints. Surveys have shown that a large number of the breaks and the great

HUGE ALASKAN CRATERS-In exploratory work conducted under the Department of the Interior during the summer of 1925, R. H. Sargent and R. S. Knappen of the Geological Survey discovered a remarkable crater in the southwestern part of the Alaska Peninsula that is nearly as large as the famous Crater Lake in Oregon, we are told in School Science and Mathematics (Chicago). We read:

"The work of the Geological Survey party included the mapping of a mountain some 8,000 feet high that had already been reported to be a volcano, but a closer inspection disclosed nestling in the summit of the peak a crater approximately five miles in diameter. The huge bowl was found partly filled with ice and snow, and numerous glaciers occur on its precipitous outer sides, radiating from the crater rim like the spokes of a great wheel. This is believed to be the highest crater in the world of like dimensions. Another crater was discovered about a mile and a half in diameter and a thousand feet deep. The Alaska Peninsula is a region of volcanoes and craters. In 1922 Sargent and W. R. Smith discovered in the same vicinity a mammoth crater which is 634 miles in diameter. This crater, which was named Aniakchak, was further studied this year by Mr. Knappen and found to be far more wonderful than had been previously supposed. Many cubic miles of volcanic ash and lava cover the country within a radius of fifteen miles from its center. The interior of the crater affords many interesting studies in volcanology-lava flows, ash cones, dissected volcanic necks, and warm springs, showing that Vulcan, the fire god, is not yet dead."