(From a photograph taken last month in the Mayor's office, City Hall, New York) This reservation was established by the joint action of the States of New York and New Jersey. The Highlands of the Hudson Forest Reserve stretches northward from Stony Point to Cornwall, and westward for a considerable distance. Thus the union of these projects will give to New York and New Jersey a unique and invaluable public park, guarded from encroachment for all time, and providing a recreation ground for all who wish to use it. Mr. George W. Perkins, who has been identified from the beginning with the admirable work of the Palisades Park Commission, is entitled to great credit for the successful combination of these three projects in one. It only remains for the legislatures of New York and New Jersey to give their sanction to the plan. York if a mayor's appointees had even negative virtues. We have now, it seems, reached a stage of advancement when merely negative qualities no longer suffice. It is not enough that the head of a city department shall refrain from graft and other forms of flagrant iniquity while in office. Thanks to the educational campaign conducted by the Bureau of Municipal Research and other agencies, the public is beginning to demand some evidence of fitness for office beyond the customary certificate of good character that a man's friends are always ready to give him. We now ask what a man knows about a particular job and what he can do if assigned to it. This test, which we label all of the candidates having been put in nomination by petition instead of by party caucus. Former Mayor John F. Fitzgerald was elected by a small plurality over James J. Storrow, the candidate chosen by the framers of the new city charter to lead the reform movement. The two other candidates in the field, Mayor George A. Hibbard and Nathaniel H. Taylor, each polled an insignificant number of votes. Fitzgerald had the support of the old Democratic organization in Boston, while Storrow, although a Democrat, was generally indorsed by the friends of good government irrespective of party affiliations. While the Mayoralty contest to a certain extent dwarfed other features of the election, it would be a great mistake to infer from the results that the cause of municipal reform suffered permanent defeat. As was pointed out by the newspapers on the morning after the election, the new City Council of nine members, which replaces the old Council of eighty-eight, will be controlled MR. JOHN F. FITZGERALD (Mayor-elect of Boston) Commissioner, of Mr. Archibald R. Watson as Corporation Counsel, and the reappointment of Mr. Lawson Purdy as Tax Commissioner, recognize in each case the demonstrated fitness of the municipal expert for duties that only the expert can thoroughly understand or satisfactorily perform. Professor Bemis, as head of the Cleveland Water Department, made for himself a reputation as an administrator that caused his services to be sought far and wide by cities requiring expert advice in the management of municipal undertakings. Such men are rare in this country, but Mayor Gaynor has enlisted a notably large group of them in the business of administering New York City for the coming four years. MR. JAMES J. STORROW, OF BOSTON (Leading opponent of Mr. Fitzgerald) by members who were nominated by the Municipal League. Furthermore, the men whom the new Mayor is to name as members of his departments must be competent to gain the approval of the State Civil Service Commission as experts in their respective lines of duty. While the Mayor will have new power over the budget and the city appropriations, his acts and those of his subordinates will be subject at all times to the supervision and investigation of a finance commission appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts. Mayor Fitzgerald has the opportunity, during the coming four years, to give Boston an administration that will forever discredit the charges of graft and favoritism that were so freely uttered during the campaign for his election. He is pledged to give the charter amendments a fair trial. The In To this issue of the REVIEW creased Cost three articles have been contribof Living uted dealing with the increased cost of living and its probable causes. The subject is engaging the attention of students and laymen all over the world, for the phenomenon is a world-wide one, but more particularly in the United States, because the increase has been more radical here. In both the Senate and the House of Representatives resolutions were introduced, in January, for the appointment of Congressional committees to investigate the reasons for the increase. Many Congressmen feel the question keenly and personally when they find their salaries of $7500 purchasing no more now than the salaries of $5000 purchased ten years ago. The Department of Agriculture is conducting an investigation of its own into the rapid and great increase in the price of foods. In the latter part of March there will be held a national conference at Syracuse, N. Y., of various commercial bodies to discuss the disturbing tendency toward higher and higher prices. In a recent symposium in the Journal of Commerce, American professors of political economy and others gave their interpretation of the fundamental causes of the great rise in the prices of rent, clothing, and food during the past ten years, and with one exception these writers attributed the higher prices to the fundamental fact of the enormous increase in the supply of gold, which, with the attendant, and not less important, factor of the velocity of money circulation, is discussed so clearly by Professor Fisher in this issue of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS. A Check in Gold Output In this article Professor Fishe gives his opinion that this great increase in the current yearly additions to the gold supply of the world will continue for several decades, and it has generally been assumed by recent writers on the subject that we need not look for any help in the dilemma from any immediate slackening in gold production. But there are others who are becoming impressed by certain physical facts of the Transvaal mines, which have done most to inflate suddenly the world's gold supply, facts which may promise some let-up, in the not distant future, in the flood of gold." The important physical fact in this connection is that the outcropping main gold reefs of the Witwatersrand gold district covered a small area, and that they are being worked out and abandoned. There is still a vast amount of gold to be mined in the deep-level works, but this deeper-lying metal offers much less profit in the working, even with the vastly improved modern methods of mining, than the rich surface reefs gave, and many think the deepening will not be extended in activity, and even that activity may be abated. It is highly interesting in this connection to see that December, 1909, showed for the first time in many years a falling off in Transvaal gold production, as compared with previous months of the year. This in the face of the fact that December figures of South African gold production are always swelled, in proportion to other months, by the "clean-up" of small unreported amounts mined during the first eleven months of the year. December, 1909, showed not only less than other months of the year, but over 56,000 ounces less than December, 1908. The entire output for 1909 was 7,275,113 ounces, a gain of 222,496 over 1908; this is less than the gains of recent years. The in 1910 This is the season of the year Automobile when the manufacturers of automobiles and their "accessories ' hold exhibitions in the great cities of the country, to introduce the cars and equipment they propose to sell to the public in the course of the new year. New York City has just had its two "shows" in January, with an amount of enthusiasm and success, gauged by attendance and in immediate sales, that has never before been approached. It was truly a remarkable exhibition of the enterprise of American engineers and manufacturers, to anyone who remembers the per verse and expensive machines turned out in this country even five or six years ago. We present in this number of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS two concise articles telling of the present magnitude of the industry of making automobiles and explaining the value, absolute and compared to the car of five years ago, of the typical effective machine which can now be purchased for $1500 or thereabouts. It is stated with truth that this $1500 car of to-day, possible for the purse of the doctor, the lawyer, and the average business man, is decidedly more reliable, economical, comfortable, and handsome than the $5000 car of five years ago. It is America's triumph in automobile-building. It is true, too, that there have been great improvements in the higher-priced cars, and there will always be people who have the means and the enthusiasm for automobiling, considered as a sport, to make a market for the $4000 and $5000 cars, with their grace, comfort, mechanical refinements, long life, and high power. The The Aviation Meet The enterprising city of Los Los Angeles Angeles conducted the first important American aviation meet on January 10-20. Liberal cash prizes drew to the contests many American experts and famous foreigners. Practically every type of flying craft was represented. From 25,000' to 60,000 people watched the trials with great interest each day. Some remarkable flights were accomplished and a number of records established. Louis Paulhan, the daring Frenchman, made many thrilling and spectacular flights, and proved to be the idol of the meet. He captured the record for height by reaching an altitude of over 4000 feet, and his other achievements included a cross-country flight of 21 miles with his wife' and short trips with other passengers, on one occasion going out over the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The American expert, Glenn H. Curtiss, succeeded in making a new world's record of 55 miles an hour with a passenger. He also made a record for quick starting in 6 2-5 seconds, and accomplished the shortest record run on the ground before At the two "shows in New rising. Many other balloon and aeroplane Economical York there were exhibited over flights, though not remarkable as changing Light Car two hundred cars ranging in records, lent interest to the occasion and conprice from $485 to $7000. All but two tributed to make this American aviation meet were gasoline-driven, and all but one a notable success. In France, Louis Delahad the water system of cooling the grange, one of the ablest and best known of engine. The average horse-power was about 26. To-day a "little car" is anything up to 20 horse-power; a medium heavy car goes to 35 horse-power, and the heavy cars run from 35 to 90 horse-power. A light car, light in weight as well as in horsepower, is very much more economical over the year's use than a heavy one, at least in inverse proportion to the square of the weight difference. In other words, a 20 horse-power car well made will cost to operate not one-half, but less than one-fourth, of what a 40 horse-power car will cost,-this difference being chiefly due to the more rapid wear of more costly tires on the heavy cars. The tremendous figures of production of automobiles given by Mr. West in this issue show how soon the average citizen through the Middle West and West has found out these facts. Seven-eighths or more of the 160,000 cars that will be sold in 1910 will be light cars, and a large majority of them. will be manufactured and sold west of the Alleghany Mountains. Thousands of these passenger cars will be used for business as well as pleasure, by physicians, farmers, real estate operators, and salesmen. LOUIS PAULHAN (The daring French aviator) French aviators, made a notable flight of 124 miles at the rate of 49 miles an hour on December 30 last. Five days later, at Bordeaux, he met his death through the breaking of one of the wings of his aeroplane. Delagrange's death is the fourth that has taken place among aviators in four months, the others having been the Frenchmen Lefebvre and Captain Ferber and a Spaniard named Fernandez. The recent achievements in aerial navigation, both at Los Angeles and elsewhere, will be found chronologically recorded on page 162. The Verdict Cook were not revealed. The explorer was at one time reported to be resting in a German sanitarium. Was the Whether or not Dr. Cook ever Explorer reached the North Pole, a quesSelf-Deluded? tion upon which the civilized world has had honest differences of opinion from the time of the announcement of his claim, there can, it seems, be no final difference on the question of the genuineness of the explorer's own belief that he had been. there. Every competent observer who met him personally has maintained that he is That Dr. Frederick A. Cook was quite incapable, morally or intellectually, of the victim of an hallucination concocting a colossal scheme to hocus the enwith regard to the North Pole tire world. Throughout the whole affair seems the only hypothesis that fits the facts there is no evidence of any plan to impose on of the great Arctic controversy as they have the credulity of mankind. It seems probable now come out. Last month we noted the ad- that Dr. Cook actually attained a very high verse decision of the commission appointed Northern latitude, perhaps came within a by the University of Copenhagen to examine shorter distance of the North Pole than he the notes and memoranda submitted to them will ever be credited for. It is sincerely to by Dr. Cook's secretary. In this data, which be regretted that he did not, upon his return consisted of a typewritten copy of the ex- to civilization, frankly state his actual plorer's account of the North Pole journey achievement. This was probably in itself and the typewritten copy of entries in noteworthy enough to entitle him to honor his notebook covering the period from March and financial return, sufficient, perhaps, to 18 to June 13, 1908, the time in which he compensate him for the privations he underclaims to have journeyed to the Pole and went. It may be that his lonely imprisonback, the commission found no evidence suf- ment during the six months' Arctic night ficient to warrant the belief that Dr. Cook after his return from his farthest North afactually reached the Pole. The original fected his memory and judgment. Throughnotebook of the explorer, which reached Co- out the whole discussion the attitude and penhagen on the first of the year, brought to conduct of the University of Copenhagen London, it was reported, by Mrs. Cook, and the Danish people have been worthy was submitted on January 4 to the commis- of sincere respect and admiration. They sion. This also was inspected by the exam- accepted with dignified enthusiasm and iners and reported to contain nothing to at its face value the claim of an Amerialter its judgment." The notebook, the can explorer against whose record they examiners say in their verdict made public had no suspicion. All through the trying on January 19, contains various alterations, period of discussion, so often bitter and unbut there is nothing to show whether the fair, they maintained the dignified reserve changes were made with the purpose of that properly characterizes all sincere and deceiving. At the same time that these facts were published it was announced that the Explorers' Club of America had decided against all of Dr. Cook's claims to have made the ascent of Mt. McKinley. Dr. Cook himself disappeared from public view soon after the departure of his secretary, Mr. Walter Lounsdale, for Copenhagen with the typewritten reports of his observations. Up to the middle of last month his secretary reports that brief messages had been received from Dr. Cook at widely separated points in Europe, but the exact addresses of the explorer and Mrs. 66 honest folk while awaiting a decision. But when the necessary evidence was not produced they did not permit their desire or their preceding action to prevent a decision in strict accord with scientific truth. Now for the South Pole Meanwhile the attention of scientists and explorers is being directed to the Antarctic region by the announcement that two important expeditions will at once proceed completely to conquer the South Pole. Lieutenant Shackelton, who in January of last year, it will be remembered, penetrated to within one hundred |