Take the extreme case of a piece of machinery which is utterly broken down or so far out of date as to be entirely worthless for the purposes for which it was designed. Yet such machinery has, at least, a scrap value, and as such it should be included in the inventory as part of the tangible assets of the concern at the date in question. Of course, in many instances, certain interests endeavor to have inventoried items which should either be omitted altogether or included at a much reduced valuation from that sought to be placed on them, and, in such cases, the very best judgment of the appraising engineer must be called into play in order that injustice may not be done to either party; but to say, as Mr. Riggs' definition virtually does, that nothing should be inventoried which can, either with or without inconvenience, be dispensed with, is absurd, and the writer does not believe that such is the meaning the author intended to convey. Probably, if the word "economically" were inserted in the definition, it would more nearly represent the proper idea. WILLIAM V. POLLEYS, M. AM. SOC. C. E. (by letter),—In his very thorough and painstaking paper Mr. Riggs states that it is confined to a discussion of methods for arriving at a correct figure of cost, and disclaims any intention of considering the propriety of using said figure when reached. Inasmuch, however, as he devotes the next eight or ten pages to a dissertation on law, political economy, rate-making, finance, and advice to railroad employees, with a word of encouragement to the good, and firm reproof to the bad ones, it is fair to assume that he intends this disclaimer in a Pickwickian sense, and that the real intent of the paper is to show that the physical valuation of property is, with certain determinative, corrective factors, a proper standard for gauging taxation, bond issues, and kindred evils. Is it not a fact, however, that taxation is based on a much more intangible structure, and that the net earnings must necessarily have more to do with it than the physical valuation of the property—whether it be that of a wicked public service corporation, or that of an honest haymaker—rather on what their property can produce, than on what it would cost to produce the property? Is it not rather a battle of business acumen between the taxer and taxee, a battle which, among other things, is regulated more or less by the fact that an extreme in either direction will bring disaster to one or both, followed by the inevitable reaction and readjustment?