The proposal of Gov. Black, which has now become law, to depute to Cornell the care of a considerable tract of forest land, and the duty of demonstrating to Americans the theory, methods and profits of scientific forestry, has a curious appropriateness much commented on at the university, since two-thirds of the wealth of Cornell has been derived from the location and skillful management of forest lands, the net receipts from this source being to date $4,112,000. In the course of twenty years management the university has thrice sold the timber on some pieces of land which it still holds, and received a larger price at the third sale than at the first. The conduct of this land business is so systematized that the treasurer of the university knows to a dot the amount of pine, hemlock, birch, maple, basswood and oak timber, even to the number of potential railroad ties, telegraph poles and fence posts on each fourth part of a quarter section owned by Cornell. Certainly, Cornell is rich in experience for the business side of a forestry experiment such as Gov. Black proposes. The university forest lands from which its endowment has been realized are in Wisconsin. Books may be called heavy when the qualifying term is not applied to their writers, but to the paper makers. It is falsifications in the paper that give it weight. Sulphate of baryta, the well known adulterate of white lead, does the work. A correspondent, writing to The London Saturday Review, gives the weight of certain books as: Miss Kingsley's "Travels in Africa." 3 pounds 5 ounces; "Tragedy of the Cæsars," 3 pounds; Mahan's "Nelson" (1 vol.), 2 pounds 10 ounces; "Tennyson" (1 vol.), 2 pounds 6 ounces; "Life and Letters of Jowett" (1 vol.), 2 pounds 1 ounce. To handle these dumb-bell books, The Saturday Review advises that readers take lessons in athletics. [1] Before the Electrical Engineering Department of Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind., May 17, 1898. THE LOCK OF THE DORTMUND-EMS CANAL AT HENRICHENBURG. The Dortmund-Ems Canal, destined to connect the heart of German industry with the sea, was formally dedicated on April 1, and partially opened to commerce. After its completion, German coal will be transported to the harbors of the Ems at the same cost as the English coal which has hitherto forced back the treasures of our soil; our black diamonds will then be sold in the markets of the world, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal will enable the western part of the empire to exchange its coal and iron for the grain and wood of the East. Many difficulties were encountered in cutting the canal, owing partly to the vast network of railroads in the coal region of Westphalia, but chiefly due to the insufficiency of moisture in the highlands, the latter not containing enough water to supply the many necessary sluices, at which it could be easily foreseen considerable traffic would occur. THE LOCK OF THE DORTMUND-EMS CANAL AT HENRICHENBURG.