over 920,000, and the reserves of the other states amount to a very considerable area. [Illustration: FOREST SERVICE--A LOOKOUT STATION] [Illustration] How did the Fashion of Wearing Cravats Commence? Cravats get their name from the French “cravate,” meaning a croat, because this piece of dress was adopted in the eleventh century from the Croats who entered the French service. Towards the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century the cravat attained an incredible degree of extravagance, but common sense at last brought in the simpler style of neckties that has since prevailed. How does the Gas Meter Measure Your Gas? The quantity of gas used by each consumer is measured by an instrument called a meter, of which there are two classes--the wet and the dry. The wet meter is composed of an outer box about three-fifths filled with water. Within this is a revolving four-chambered drum, each chamber being capable of containing a definite quantity of gas, which is admitted through a pipe in the center of the meter, and, owing to the arrangement of the partitions of the chambers, causes the drum to maintain a constant revolution. This sets in motion a train of wheels carrying the hands over the dials which mark the quantity of gas consumed. The dry meter consists of two or three chambers, each divided by a flexible partition or diaphragm, by the motion of which the capacity on one side is diminished while that on the other is increased. By means of slide valves, like those of a steam engine, worked by the movement of the diaphragms, the gas to be measured passes alternately in and out of each space. The contractions and expansions set in motion the clockwork which marks the rate of consumption. The diaphragms in all the chambers are so connected that they move in concert. What is a Game Preserve? Game preserves have only been introduced comparatively recently in the United States, for the hunting grounds have been freely open to the hunter, but they have been common in Britain and other countries of Europe for centuries. Their purpose here is the preservation and increase of wild animals instead of their destruction. Deer parks have long been kept in this country, but the first systematic attempt to foster wild game was made about 1860 by Judge J. D. Caton in a park of Ottawa, Ill. Chief among those that followed on a large scale is the great game park of Austin Corbin, near Newport, N. H., an enclosure of 36,000 acres, in which a wire fence eight feet high encloses an oblong tract twelve by five miles, through which passes a mountain range 3,000 feet high. American game of all kinds are kept here, from buffalo, elk, and moose to the smaller and more timid varieties, and there has been a rapid increase.