Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/848

828 without capital, depending on donations and assessments, with no power to enforce collection. Instead of confining its operations to buying and selling as the farmers' agent, it attempted to take the place of the country merchants, and to furnish supplies on credit to all the farmers of Texas. To do this successfully would require millions instead of thousands. The reason the banks refused to lend money to the Exchange in March, 1889, was neither opposition to the Exchange nor undue friendliness to the jobbers, but plain business prudence. The Exchange was doing a larger business than its capital warranted; the joint notes used as collateral security were represented by accounts from twenty-five to seventy-five per cent less than the face of the notes, and while innocent purchasers could be protected in the courts, still litigation is a resort which every prudent business man tries to avoid; some of the joint notes were offset by bonds agreeing not to part ownership, while as a matter of fact they were placed in serious jeopardy by being put up as collateral security for extensive loans. The wisdom of these precautions was demonstrated in the final outcome of the Exchange's management.

In October last the representatives of the trust fund, which reached about $17,000, perceiving that it would be inadequate for the ends sought, met at Dallas and placed it in the hands of the manager, instructing him to save such part of the Exchange as might be possible. Since the sale of the building there has been organized a new corporation, composed of Alliance members representing the trust fund; and this new corporation, known as the Farmers' Alliance Commercial Agency, has purchased the Exchange building, and designs carrying on a general buying and selling agency. It is to be hoped that the new enterprise will be more successful than the old one was.

to Oudeman's review of parallax investigations, the distance of forty of the fixed stars has been approximately determined. The disproportion between this number and the number of stars of which we know nothing is so great, says Mr. A. M. Clarke, that general conclusions seem discredited beforehand, and negative ones can have no weight. But it is evident that the largest stars are not always those nearest to the earth. Seven of those whose distances have been ascertained are invisible to the naked eye, while one is nearer than Sirius, and all are nearer than Capella, Vega, Arcturus, or Canopus. A further conclusion may be deduced that the disparities between the stars are enormous. "A farthing rush-light is not more insignificant compared with the electric arc than a faint star compared with a potent sun. Sirius emits 6,400 times as much light as the ninth-magnitude star 11,677 Argelander-Oelzen; and our own sun is nearly as much inferior to Arcturus. Inequalities of the same order appear between the members of revolving systems; as, for instance, Sirius shines like four thousand of his companions."